Mindfulness

January 15, 2008

 

I’ve been doing a lot of reading about mindfulness and meditation. I first became interested in mindfulness at the recommendation of a nurse my wife and I were having a conversation with about my wife dealing with anxiety and depression issues. My first thoughts were this was some new age mumbo jumbo that was akin to using crystals or pyramids. This nurse also talked at length to use about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
This same nurse recommended Mindfulness in Plain English which I’ve read. This book is an excellent and very well known meditation and mindfulness beginning text written in an easy to understand style. This book was my first exposure to meditation, zen and mindfulness.I’ve recently found a couple of good discussions of mindfulness including a general mindfulness discussion and a skeptic’s approach in The Frame Problem blog.

Currently I’m reading The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Zen Living which discusses how to live of zen. It discusses that the root of unhappiness in desire and discusses how to remove desire from your life. This all makes sense to me as I can see in my own life how my desire to have nice cars, cool computers, expensive cellphones, etc does lead to unhappiness in me when it’s something I can’t afford. Also, if I do desire (or covet) something and actually get it, getting it doesn’t give me any more than maybe some short term satisfaction.

Posted by nunya
Filed in Cognition

2 Responses to “Mindfulness”

  1. quotesqueen Says:
    January 23, 2008 at 1:52 am

    I’m glad you are discovering that mindfulness can be just a way of living your life. I know that I am happiest when I can be in the moment, responding from the heart, rather than worrying about the past or future. Good luck!

  2. Delany Dean Says:
    April 25, 2008 at 3:51 pm

    Good for you! “Mindfulness in Plain English” is at the top of my list of recommendations for folks who want to learn more about the practice of mindfulness. As you point out, it’s certainly not “new age” (in the sense of pseudo-science or fanciful stuff); the high-powered, peer-reviewed scientific research is really starting to get cranked up (with impressive results).

    Best wishes.

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