Mindfulness or Heartfulness - Attitudes to Cultivate: Notes from Jon Kabat- Zinn and the Center for Mindfulness along with Indira's comments

Mindfulness or Heartfulness - Attitudes to Cultivate: Notes from Jon Kabat- Zinn and the Center for Mindfulness along with Indira's comments:

1. Beginners mind - every moment is new. In the experts mind there are limited possibilities because they foresee what possibly could go wrong but in the beginner's mind the possibilities are endless, there is a freshness that the expert just doesn't have.

2. Non-judging - here we begin to realize how judgmental we really are. Our thoughts can be like a constant stream of black and white decision making: I like this, I don't like that, I want this, I don't want that, we are seeing things through our own lenses. Instead of judging we want to discern with clarity. We want to break our habits of mind.

3. Acceptance is an active recognition that things are the way they are, not a passive resignation. If we do not accept things as they are we will try to force things to be as they are not. Here I am reminded of the Serenity Prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

4. Letting go - opposite of grasping and clinging to what we want and trying to push away what we don't want. Letting go really means letting be or not having to control the situation. In India a way of trapping monkeys is to put a banana inside of a coconut with a hole in it. The monkey puts its hand in the hole and grabs the banana but the hand in the shape of a fist then cannot be withdrawn through the hole but they will not let go of the banana and this is how they're caught. This is how we're caught also by our own desire, by our own attachment to having things our own way. Letting go is actually our doorway to freedom. It's not something that we do once, it is something that we do over and over again, every time we find our self clinging to something we should remind ourselves to let go and just let it be. When we breathe this can remind us of letting go, we have to let go in order to take another breath. So we can receive and release, receive and release.

5. Trust - once again we can use our breath as an example. We trust that the breath will come in, we trust that the breath will go out. We can also use the body as an example of trust. We trust that our eyes will see, our hear ears will hear, we will be able to swallow our food. There is the example that we trust that the airplane is not going to fall out of the sky when we are flying and yet it's so difficult for us to trust in the Divine although we can see the Divine plan working when we observe how world's ecology works so perfectly as a unit. When we place our trust in the Divine we can receive peace and be released from our fears. Whenever I am afraid I use it as an opportunity to change my fear into trust.

6. Patience. When we are impatient we are missing the present moment which is a great loss. We don't want to wish our lives away, each moment is so precious.

7. Non striving or non doing, not trying to achieve anything but simply be with the unfolding of life from moment to moment without any agenda whatsoever. Not looking to something better in the future not trying to escape from something in the past.

8. Gratitude in the present moment, we can be grateful for the fact that our body is working. We can never be grateful enough, there's so much within our body and within our world to be grateful for, from the working of our cells to the provision the planet enables for us.

9. Generosity - give some of your life over, give to others something that would make them happy not for selfish reasons. Generosity demonstrates the awareness of the interconnectedness of everyone or being a part of the collective consciousness. It creates good karma!

10. Forgiveness - this is my own addition to Jon's list and another key to freedom. Forgiveness is also something we do not do one time as the memory of a hurt comes back again and again so we are required to forgive each time the memory returns but it gets easier each time until one day we are completely free from the struggle with the unforgiveness. Here I am reminded of the saying, "unforgiveness is like a poison you drink while hoping for someone else to die.”

VISIT INDIRA'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL: YOGA FOR THE MATURE WOMAN - INDIRA'S KUNDALINI YOGA https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmWb1gnF3amNxmhNPdz92Pw

INDIRA'S VIDEO ON KUNDALINI AWAKENING: https://youtu.be/XMF5SsfBMLw