GATE OF POWER
- Details
- Created on Sunday, 07 August 2011 10:01
- Written by Marian Moore
KRYSAN
THE WELLBEING CONSULTANCY
Presents
MADAME BUTTERFLY 3
HOR TUCK LOON
Madame Butterfly Poster 3
Estimated Reading Time: 2¾ minutes!
Date as Postmark
Dear Friends
MINDFULNESS
Bearing in mind that everybody hurts (and Puccini's Madame Butterfly was no exception), the final article in this Butterfly trilogy is devoted to letting everything become your teacher through the practice of mindfulness.You are hereby called to let life itself - the full catastrophe of the human condition - shape your ongoing development and maturation. And this, whether you are trying to:
learn patience,
cope with pain,
deal with stress,
improve your relationships, or
free yourself from destructive emotions, thoughts, and behaviours,
Jon Kabat-Zinn's simple meditations will remind you that you have deep inner resources to draw upon. The most important resource is, of course, the present moment. This is your chance to heal yourself, bearing in mind that mindfulness is a lifetime's journey along a path that ultimately leads nowhere, only to who you are.
What follows are the first 6 of 100 pointers taken by Hor Tuck Loon from one of the great classics of mind-body medicine, Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn. They come to you as a gift to inspire you in your meditation practice.
(1) Self Motivation
In order for meditation practice to take root in your life and flourish, you will have to know why you are practising. How else will you be able to sustain non-doing in a world where only doing seems to count? What will get you up early in the morning to sit and follow our breathing when everybody else is snug in bed? What will motivate you to bring moment-to-moment awareness into your daily life? What will prevent your practice from losing energy and becoming stale or from petering out altogether after an initial burst of enthusiasm?
(2) Map Versus Journey
Books on mindfulness are meant to serve as a map, a guide to you. As you know, a map is not the territory it portrays. In the same way you should not mistake reading this book for actual journey. That journey you have to live yourself, by cultivating mindfulness in your own life.
(3) Personal Vision
To sustain your commitment and keep your meditation practice fresh over a period of months and years, it is important to develop your own personal vision that can guide you in your efforts and remind you at critical times of the value of charting such an unusual course in your life. There may be times when your vision will be the only support you will have in keep up your practice.
(4) Lessons
In part your vision will be moulded by your unique life circumstances, by your personal beliefs and values. Another part will develop from your experience of the meditation practice itself, from letting everything become your teacher; your body, your attitudes, your mind, your pain, your joy, other people, your mistakes, your failures your successes, nature - in short - all your moments. If you are cultivating mindfulness in your life, there is not only thing that you do or experience that cannot teach you about yourself by mirroring back to you the reflections of your own mind and body.
(5) Lifelong Commitment
As with meditation practice itself, this learning requires a lifelong commitment to continual inquiry and a willingness to modify your perspective as you acquire new knowledge and arrive at new levels of understanding and insight.
(6) Do-it-yourself
In this regard, cultivating mindfulness is not unlike the process of eating. It would be absurd to propose that someone else eat for you. And when you go to a restaurant, you don't eat the menu, mistaking it for the meal, nor are you nourished by listening to the waiter describe the food. You have to actally eat the food for it to nourish you. In the same way, you have to actually PRACTICE mindfulness in order to reap its benefits and come to understand why it is so valuable.
The following is the very last of Hor Tuck Loon's one hundred lessons in mindfulness.
I hope that you, too, will profit from the book from which it originates.
(100) Fully Present
We can ask ourselves the question "How bad is it right now, in this very moment?" If you practice in this way, you will probably find that most of the time, even when you are feeling terrible, when you go right into the sensations and ask, "IN THIS MOMENT, is it tolerable? Is it okay?" the chances are you will find that it is. The difficulty is that the next moment is coming, and the next, and you "know" they are all going to be filled with more pain. The solution? Try taking each moment as it comes. Try to be one hundred percent in the present in one moment, then do the same for the next.
You are now cordially invited to relax into a 9-minute guided mindfulness break.Simply click on the link below for a soft-spoken,
Remember, such moments are always available to us, but so easily missed. They allow us to pay attention to, and embody what is most important in our lives, rather than getting caught up in the endless stream of what is most demanding or seductive.
This entire Butterfly Trilogy is a pointer to (1) The Gate of Love, (2) The Gate of Wisdom, and (3) The Gate of Power.
I now take my leave by thanking you for being with me on an inner journey.Sincerely yours
Marian Moore BA/BSc
Emotional Wellbeing Consultant
REFERENCES
JON KABAT-ZINN. (2011). Letting Everything Become Your Teacher: 100 Lessons in Mindfulness. Excerpts from Full Catastrophe Living. Compiled by Hor Tuck Loon and Jon Kabat-Zinn. Pub. Delta Trade Paperbacks
JON KATAB-ZINN. (2008). Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. AUDIO BOOK (5 Compact Discs). The program of the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre. pub. Random House. Also available as a paperback.
THOUGHT FOR TODAY
you are doing the impossible.
St. Francis of Assisi
Marian @ Krysan
- FINIS -
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