Showing up For Work

(This whole week, I am at Mount Madonna Center, attending a retreat with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli. In honor of Jon Kabat-Zinn, I thought I would feature some of my favorite videos of him in my absence. May you enjoy!)

Here is Jon, talking about the practice of mindfulness and 'showing up' at work:

How present are you, at your place of work? Can you set the tone, and start your meetings with just a few minutes of quiet sitting? How revolutionary . . .

Coming to Our Senses, with Jon Kabat-Zinn

This whole week, I am at Mount Madonna Center, attending a retreat with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli. In honor of Jon Kabat-Zinn, I thought I would feature some of my favorite videos of him in my absence. May you enjoy!

Here is Jon talking about 'Coming to Our Senses', reminding me a lot of Ruth Denison, another one of my favorite teachers, also very much into being in the body, and the sensing experience:

Mindfulness. Not just in the mind, but also and first in the body . . . 

The MBSR Revolution

(This whole week, I am at Mount Madonna Center, attending a retreat with Jon Kabat-Zinn and Saki Santorelli. In honor of Jon Kabat-Zinn, I thought I would feature some of my favorite videos of him in my absence. May you enjoy!)

Here is Jon talking about the MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) approach he invented, and its now well documented health benefits:

I feel greatly indebted to Jon Kabat-Zinn, for paving the way for other mindfulness-based undertakings, including the Presence-Project I am currently involved with, to bring mindfulness into the care of persons with dementia.

She is Telling Me

I just got off the phone with my mother. Thousand of miles away, there are only words, and the tone of voice, and loving energy to carry through what I want to say to her. That I love her, and that I understand. I got news from my brother that her condition has deteriorated since I last saw her two months ago. She is even more hunched over, and her gait is not as steady as before. She needs to lean on furniture and walls to move around. Today, I suggested to her that she uses a cane, and she agreed that yes, some times, she might need it. "That's true, I am 88 . . . " I told her about my life, and my two daughters. "You have two? How old are they?" She got a bit confused when I mentioned my brother and his three year old son. "I need a book to keep things straight." Yes, absolutely, she needs all this information written down. Pictures alone are not enough, anymore. 

Caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's is first and foremost about mindful listening. No need to wonder what to do. She is telling me.

Project for the day: making a collage of family pictures with names of people and relationship to my mother.

Riding the Desire

Yesterday, I resonated with something Gil said as we were recording our monthly Q&A session for the IMC Online Community. While Gil's comment was in response to a question about food and cravings, its application to other types of over dependence was not lost on me. My problem is not food, but electronic gadgets, such as iPhone, and computer. I struggle with staying away . . . 

Gil's practice goes like this. Whenever feeling the urge, resist and find an easy chair to sit in. Stay seated until the urge goes away. While sitting, just be aware of all the phenomena, thoughts, emotions, sensations. Simple enough!

And probably very hard also. I will let you know what happens tomorrow, as I vow to stay away outside of a few planned islands of working on the computer. 

Will you join me? What is your addiction?

Speaking for the Silent Ones

The man was sitting all by himself in a waiting room in a hospital. I happened to walk by and noticed he did not look well. I went to fetch the doctor in the next room. The doctor quickly checked on the man, who asked for a bedpan. The doctor left, and I assumed he had gone to get what the man asked. Minutes passed, and no sign of the doctor. I sat by the man who was now looking worse and worse, and no longer spoke. I reached out for his hand, and was surprised when he squeezed my hand. I wondered how to get him the help he so badly needed.

This was my dream last night. I awoke with pain in my heart, and even greater determination to carry out the elder care and dementia project I have been working on with Dr. Allen Power. Foremost in my mind have been all the men and women living with dementia and who can no longer care for themselves or be cared for by their loved ones. My mother is one of them. I feel their immense distress, and also the craziness of a system that compounds their original plight with unnecessary added suffering. There is a better way, I know, and it demands a complete overhaul of the current biomedical approach. Out the drugs, out the institutional buildings, out the task oriented approach to care, out the erroneous beliefs, out the legitimized abuse, out this cruelty of epic proportions . . . 

Mindfulness is a radical act. It leads one to unplanned territories, as in becoming aware of the suffering right under one's eyes, and then taking action towards some mass remedy. I have been thinking a lot lately about engaged Buddhism, and what it means for me personally. Once hesitant to join the bandwagon of activism, I am now right in the thick of it. I have found my cause, and will not rest until my mother and her cohort of silent sufferers get their needs met, at last. 

What is your cause? How did you open your eyes to it? How does it tie in with your mindfulness practice?

From Garbage to Flower

Experience this morning prompted me to write this tweet and Facebook update:

'the mind (mine at least) seems to have never ending capacity to produce garbage - just produced two such thoughts in last 5' :) #mindfulness'

View of street garbage from traveling bus during
last year's Buddhist pilgrimage with Shantum Seth

An hour later, I already forgot one of the two offending thoughts. I still remember the other, though, and wonder, where does it come from, the mind's propensity to create such nastiness? Looking into the content of the thought, I find below the surface much hurt from difficult interactions with someone very dear. From hurt to ill will, the path can be very short, especially when the sticky self is involved. This morning I made it all the way to the other end, in my mind only. No action taken, thanks to watchful mind. 

And this gift from dharma sister Katherine Rand - in response to my  Facebook update:

You are me, and I am you. 

Isn't it obvious that we "inter-are"?

You cultivate the flower in yourself,

so that I will be beautiful.

I transform the garbage in myself,

...so that you will not have to suffer.

I support you;

you support me.

I am in this world to offer you peace;

you are in this world to bring me joy.

~ Thich Nhat Hanh ~

I love, love that image of garbage, turning into a beautiful flower. 

May you please share some of your garbage moments! May your sharing become a part of the retrieving of the splendid flower within.