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Showing posts from November, 2020

Philosophy of Mindfulness 1. Death

We will all die. That reality can cause us to think in two completely different ways about life. The first way is despair, sadness, and similar negative feelings. The other way is to jolt yourself into a realisation that we need to make the most out of the precious moments we - and those we love - have. The first way is the automatic mind's reaction. No one would choose to despair or see life in that gloomy way, but it is a natural response from our genetic programming. The second way is a deliberately created alternative to despair, formed by the imaginative, creative mind which seeks to make the most out of any situation.

The Last Part of Bridge Over Troubled Water

As I write this my wife is painting in another room, while I was doing my work. I was vaguely aware that she was listening to music while she was painting, and my mind caught some of Bob Marley and the Wailers "Three Little Birds". But my focus was on writing so that opportunity to listen to the wonderful Marley slipped away from me. However a couple of minutes later my automatic mind alerted me to the fact that what was now playing was "Bridge over Troubled Water". I paused to deliberately hear it better and gauge where in the song it was at. It was just at the start of the last verse, so I stopped my writing, closed my eyes and just absorbed. Musical tastes are unique, but for me that last part of the Simon and Garfunkel song is one of the crowning achievements of music in my lifetime. I listened with joy and awe as Art Garfunkel sang it. His voice in general, and especially in that song, is often described as angelic, and whilst I don't know any angels, the v...

Direction of Travel

What will push this world forward in the direction of peace, prosperity, and security for all humans is the growing awareness of philosophies like mindfulness, the benefits of nature, simple living, the need for the rich to voluntarily give their wealth to those in greater need, progressive ways based on scientific research. We need to keep up the promotion of wellbeing, our misuse and abuse of animals, handling climate change, stopping the loss of biodiversity, increasing human diversity in all walks of life and in all positions of power and leadership, and other truly life-affirming and life-uplifting ways of being. We need mindful Islam, mindful Christianity, mindful Hinduism, and so on, reinterpreting their faiths and teachings, even their definition of God, in the light of science and for the wellbeing of all living things, not just humans, and not just those of their own faith.