27th June 2010

Mindfulness is only one small part of the whole picture, even though it can be an almost endless pursuit.  There are so many other factors to develop also.  Some of you may have heard me talking about things such as discipline, patience, generosity, diligence and concentration.  Today I would like to share some thoughts on wisdom.  According to many highly accomplished teachers all these things are needed to develop a completely peaceful mind.  Wisdom has many different aspects, although we tend to think of it as something learnt from a book, there are many other ways of developing it.  Most of us recognise that life itself is wisdom.  Do we actually learn from it though?  One of my teachers always talks about how we walk in circles, mostly habitual events in our life.  We get to the end of the circle (of a negative habit) sometimes in despair wondering why these things happen to us constantly.

  Before we can evaluate it and learn from it though, we get caught up in it again.  Mindfulness gives us some space to evaluate daily (if you have a daily practise).  There are times when we go beyond the breath watching practise alone and integrate reflection.  This is a small part of our effort towards gaining more wisdom.

  Please allow some time today and every day for some mindfulness.

19th June 2010

How often do we go through life only seeing our own version of it?  It is very rare to be able to see your own version, that of those around you and the impact that these different views can have on further events.  Normally this is because we are living our life so fast we do not have enough time to process all the information.  Mindfulness slows things down and gives you space.  The regular practice of mindfulness gives you regular breaks from the the constant barrage of information and sensory input.  This can help us to make more rounded decisions of all the events in our lives and those we interact with.  There might be less times when we mis-understand events around us or when we become confused or over-emotional.  If we feel a situation may be out of our control it is good to just stop for a moment and focus on the breath/senses/present moment without judging for a few moments and see what happens.

2 June 2010

During times of great hardship or stress it can be difficult to not only find time to practise meditation, but also to find peace in our life.  This is why we should try as often as possible to create a mind that can automatically turn to patience.  By cultivating a sense of patience as often as possible in as many situations as possible we can become better at enduring some of the things which upset our mind.  It isn't easy to do, but the more you practise, the more the mind will naturally view all events with calm understanding.  This may help not just the meditation periods, but our overall handling of difficult times.