Mindfulness -
Being In The Right-NOW
Mindfulness is looking into something in the first place. This is paying resolute attention at the awareness and probability for profound and clarifying insight that can stem from 'this' experience.
It really boils down to paying attention. The kind of paying attention I am talking about here is more than knowing what is happening.
It is noticing what is happening without opinion, without interference. Like a mirror, what is in front of it is what it reflects back. It can reflect nothing or everything that comes before it.
It is discerning what is happening in ‘now’ time and identifying right away that what you know can be relied on.
It is the realization of what it means to be fully human, free from the prison of automatic thought patterns which can only result in suffering.
Experiencing means that you don’t to avoid anything but you look directly into the nature of your happening. It may sound too hard, but it is simple which does not necessarily mean it is easy.
For example, we all have an innate ability to run, but to run like Bolt you have to develop and refine your running.
Mindfulness is an innate quality of mind which can be refined through regular practice. Application of mindful consciousness gives rise to awareness. So the more you are able to be mindful, the greater the awareness and more penetrative the insight that will result from it.
For personal growth, you need to ask searching questions about the nature of the mind and the nature of life itself. Such as:
The answers you find should be universally applicable, revealing and healing. You should use the aspect of the mind that is independent of thoughts, beliefs and cultures.
The quality of your answers will depend on how mindful you are. Being mindful is the most fundamental, significant, and universal skill you can develop.
With so many mindless things happening in the world, I could go as far as saying, the most needed. So to achieve full consciousness, you must return to the body. Your body is the centre within which the biological senses and the mind resides.
Meditation
You may be surprised to find out that you rarely actually inhabit your body, leave alone honor it. Oh yes, you use it every day yet it is simultaneously both familiar and remarkably unfamiliar.
Being mindful is an honest moment-to-moment, non-critical awareness. This is cultivated through meditation rather than just thinking about it.
You can use meditation to understand, develop, refine and learn to regulate and calm your mind. You need to break free from self-delusion, misperceptions.
Although meditation is a significant part of the Buddhist religion, you don't have to be one to practice meditation.
Personal Growth and Mindfulness
The journey toward personal growth is all about using what you already have. Awareness speeds up personal growth by mobilizing and improving your inner resources.
An influential factor is your ability to pay attention, especially to those areas of our lives you have been ignoring.
Paying attention refines awareness. Awareness is very important in that, it decides your potential for personal transformation.
You grow, change, learn and become aware through your five senses and the powers of the mind. As you become aware, new degrees of freedom become available to you.
These will reveal themselves as you develop your ability for conscious awareness. You start seeing your complex world as opportunities to grow, see clearly and exercise greater wisdom in your actions.
The journey toward personal growth is your invitation to yourself to wake up to the fullness of your life whilst you still have it. Dying without actually having really lived is a constant and significant risk for all of us.
Like most people, you may not be aware of the automaticity of your habits. The pace of the events in your life makes you feel that you have no time to be mindful. That can't be further from the truth.
You have the opportunity and right to learn to really live, develop your inborn ability to be shrewd and pay 'honest' attention.
When refined, your awareness will enable you to discern, embrace, transcend and liberate you from the limitations of your conditioned thought patterns.
Your habits are a result of your past, including your genetic inheritance and all the experiences you have ever had. These habits distort, 'blinker' your view and understanding.
So being present, moment-to-moment, always now, non-reactive, non-critical awareness is the key to mindful living.
When you cultivate mindfulness intentionally, or deliberately, awareness becomes more effortless.
REMEMBER - It is always now; there simply is no other time.
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