Mindfulness

Mindfulness or singular awareness of the present produces many benefits. Some of the benefits of mindfulness in this Eternal Now appear at the first experience while others are accumulative. When focused on the transcendent present, one’s thoughts don’t drift toward reliving or regretting the past or worrying or procrastinating about the future. Also, this gentle focus on “Now” reduces the potential for fragmenting one’s thoughts. Fragmentation is a form of subconscious stress we impose on ourselves when we never actually finish or fully engage the thought process such as when we continually participate in the multitasking mentality of this modern age.

In Alvin Toffler’s book, “Future Shock”, he describes life, as it moves into the future, as one being stressed and cluttered with what he calls “overchoice”. Most people have experienced simple examples of this while staring at the seemingly endless shelves of shampoo, deodorant or toothpaste in a store or while watching television with its streams of commercial after commercial. There’s just too much going on for our minds to settle onto any one thing for too long.  Toffler’s definition of “Future Shock” is simply “…too much change in too little time”. Often we think we are adapting well to change only to find out later that it can overwhelm us. But that doesn’t have to be so. The key here is to be practical and not let our consciousness be pulled out of place, but to focus it on where we want it to be.

Consider the great thinkers of history, philosophers, scientists and inventors. Many achieved great things in several different disciplines. Much of this can be attributed to their innate intellect but some was due to their deep focus or total absorption into their studies. Certainly, they did not have today’s distractions but they also had trained their minds to focus. It is on the topic of training the mind that we are presented with options and questions. There are many methods of training the mind for specific tasks such as memory, problem solving, organization and so on. But the easiest and the most practical training one can do to positively influence many areas of thinking (and living in general) is meditation.

Out of Time

Putting one’s attention on the present can have a powerful effect on one’s consciousness. But first we have to understand what is meant by the present. The present isn’t just right now as opposed to the past of yesterday, last week, last year or the future of tomorrow, next month or years from now. The present I’m speaking of is a transcendent present.

This present becomes transcendent, beyond the mind’s ability to grasp it logically, by making the concept of the present a shorter and shorter period of time. If one shortens this time to the briefest moment, a moment less than it takes to go from one thought to the next, a very special experience of timelessness presents itself. It is within this experience that we can settle deeply into meditation, into the appreciation of a single breath, each single breath, every single breath. This experience of the Eternal Now or Transcendent Present is a vital feature of the practice of silence, of mindfulness meditation, of the experience of Being. This experience of mindfulness is what is being described in the Zen saying, ” True (Zen) spiritual practice is not to think about God while peeling potatoes; it is just to peel the potatoes”…(with your whole being).

It is important to know that most of the world’s major religions, cultural traditions or philosophical teachings have some connection to or inclusion of meditation, prayer or contemplation practices. The reason for this is that, over time, man found that to have a deeper experience of or relationship to the Transcendent (by whatever label), he must discover a method of quieting his own thoughts in order to achieve a higher experience (“Be still and know that I AM God”, says the Lord).

“What you see you become”

The mind can be our best friend or worst enemy. The choice is ours to make. Free will is one of the most powerful abilities of our mind yet few use it very well. We can choose to do what is right or what is wrong, our environment (to some degree), the people we spend time with, but most importantly, our attitude. Although some may argue the point, we actually choose to be happy or sad, to be grateful or perpetually dissatisfied. In fact, what happens to us in life may not be as important as what we think about what happens in life. Mindfulness or awareness of the present is the key. For if one resides in the present, happiness, sadness, satisfaction or any other feelings like these actually are not experiences but memories.

I think it is the Upanishads which say, “What you see, you become”. There are several layers of meaning in this aphorism but at least one appears to be the importance of attention. Whatever you put your attention on grows in your awareness and in importance in your life. So choosing positive and life affirming habits of thought and action produce even more positive attributes, while not giving attention to negative thoughts and actions allows them to simply fade away. The results of good habits of attention can go beyond what is usually referred to as the “power of positive thinking”. When those good habits are coupled with the regular experience of silence, life takes on a special quality.

Transmissions, manual and automatic

Consider the difficulties people have communicating the simplest thought. Everyone has heard about the exercise where one person tells another person something, who tells another, who tells another and so on. The message revealed at the end of this exercise is very often nothing like the message at the beginning. It is because of the lack of coherent thought, often of both the teller and the listener. Especially the listener finds it hard to listen without interpreting, shading and coloring the information because of their attachment to their personal frame of reference, personal experience, belief system, envy, fear or prejudice, etc. Often, it’s like we’re all on adjacent train tracks of understanding. We think we understand as our tracks run parallel only to misunderstand as they diverge (while rationalizing that we still understand).

So how does one improve at both ends of understanding? In some traditions, wise men would tell you that it is those thoughts conceived and supported by the coherent mind that have the greatest efficacy. But the debate begins when we ponder how coherence is achieved. Some say by concentration, some say my meditation and some say by prayer. Others say it’s simply by choice, positive affirmation and practice. Still others say it’s by letting go of all of it to a higher power (more on all of this later). Whatever the case, we must admit that thoughts are an elusive concept, difficult to grasp and difficult to communicate.

“As a man thinkith, so is he”

Is this really true? Many sages and wise men of different cultures and traditions say, “Yes, it is true” But just how is that so? What are these things called thoughts and how could something so intangible and ethereal have a real effect on one’s life?

Some might say that it is part of karma or some cause and effect but thoughts aren’t, at first glance, actions. And considering the pure silliness of thoughts (sometimes), I would hope that those silly thoughts don’t create a real effect. So, if there is ever a real effect created by one’s thoughts, it must come only from the most powerful, coherent and consistent thoughts and not from mere passers by.

Objectivism

Ayn Rand:

My philosophy, Objectivism, holds that:

1. Reality exists as an objective absolute—facts are facts, independent of man’s feelings, wishes, hopes or fears.
2. Reason (the faculty which identifies and integrates the material provided by man’s senses) is man’s only means of perceiving reality, his only source of knowledge, his only guide to action, and his basic means of survival.
3. Man—every man—is an end in himself, not the means to the ends of others. He must exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself. The pursuit of his own rational self-interest and of his own happiness is the highest moral purpose of his life.
4. The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism. It is a system where men deal with one another, not as victims and executioners, nor as masters and slaves, but as traders, by free, voluntary exchange to mutual benefit. It is a system where no man may obtain any values from others by resorting to physical force, and no man may initiate the use of physical force against others. The government acts only as a policeman that protects man’s rights; it uses physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use, such as criminals or foreign invaders. In a system of full capitalism, there should be (but, historically, has not yet been) a complete separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church.

Copyright 1962 by Times-Mirror Co.