[MD] The first cut.

[MarshaV]

Greetings Mark,

Hahaha...  What is the worry?  Mindfulness is not going to turn you into a zombie; you won't become numb or catatonic.  Quite the contrary, it is the mindless, unaware state-of-mind that is numbing, where one is caught and creativity blocked by wandering thoughts, pre-judgements and depressing ruminations.  As mindfulness grows, appreciation for the components of experience grow and one is better able to maintain focus.  The very point of mindfulness is not to disengage the mind from the world; it is to enable the mind to be fully present in the world.  The goal is not to avoid action, but to be fully present in one's actions.  Doing so makes one's behavior progressively more responsive and aware.  


Marsha 


Sent from my iPad

On Feb 2, 2012, at 4:19 PM, 118 <ununoctiums at gmail.com> wrote:

> Marsha,
> Unless you do it in a mindless fashion, like trying not to think.
> Mark
> 
> On 2/2/12, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:
>> 
>> Mark,
>> 
>> Mindfulness counteracts mindlessness...  imho.
>> 
>> 
>> Marsha
>> 
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>> On Feb 2, 2012, at 12:34 PM, 118 <ununoctiums at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2/2/12, MarshaV <valkyr at att.net> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> Mark,
>>>> 
>>>> On Feb 1, 2012, at 12:22 PM, 118 <ununoctiums at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Mark:
>>>>> I am not asking for somebody else's opinion, I am asking for yours.
>>>>> Please explain in your own words what you mean by "direct experience"
>>>>> so that I can understand where you are coming from.
>>>> 
>>>> Marsha:
>>>> One way to address 'direct experience' is that of staying present to the
>>>> experience being performed rather than losing your attention to a
>>>> wandering
>>>> mind, but I've heard it expressed many different ways.  The point is,
>>>> it's
>>>> an experience, so when it happens you know it.
>>> 
>>> Mark:
>>> Thanks!  Another way to address this is to consider your wandering
>>> mind to be just that.  Your thoughts are something that happen to you,
>>> you are not your thoughts just like you are not your heart beat.  Your
>>> Attention is also a wandering mind, you cannot distinguish it from
>>> such.  Just see it for what it is, and mindfulness is accomplished.
>>> If one does not realize this, one becomes trapped in a robotic brain
>>> and remains asleep under that biological spell.
>>> 
>>> An experience is  created in the present.  We create it.  Direct
>>> experience comes from the inside as well as the outside.  When we
>>> create an experience, we must take responsibility.  It does not
>>> "happen" separate from us as something we are subjected to.  Our
>>> knowing creates it, it is not some passive observer.  We are not a
>>> world of determined victims.  Responsibility comes with Self.  A
>>> Buddhist will try to relieve all sufferring, not because he is the
>>> product of endless patterns, but because HE cares.  Caring is not a
>>> deconstructionist paradigm.
>>>> 
>>> Cheers,
>>> Mark
>>> 
>>>> 
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