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We can be mindful of body, thoughts, intention
July 27th, 2014
illustration

illustration (attribution, if any possible, is at the end of the article)

We can be mindful of body, thoughts, intention… while intervening in a situation that needs response. 'Mindfulness' is not a seated posture.

   Mindfulness of thoughts —and of speech— would manifest e.g. in a discussion when bringing arguments (backed by data and facts —as complete sets of data and facts as possible… neither cherry-picked data to conveniently fit one's preconceptions, nor quotes out of context) rather than one-liners, caricatures, one-sided 'summaries', blind certainties, expletives or insults. Laziness of thought is not mindfulness of thought.

   « We want, so much, to believe that it’s their  fault; that if only they  would change, stop, or leave, it would all be okay, we’d have “peace”. But that’s simply not true. »
— Yonatan Shefa (Rabbis for Human Rights)

   How was slavery overcome? How did women get the right to vote? How were civil rights achieved? How did environmental concerns begin to be addressed? Not by lazy thinking, not by interpreting the past as "all there is to the question at hand", and not by complacency! "Wholesome view" naturally nurtures "wholesome action".
   Every step forward in history comes from us stepping away from black&white naïve stupidity and lazy one-line certainties. Every step forward in history has been produced by constructive criticism being not only allowed but also valued and wholesomely answered —i.e. it has been produced by the opposite of the image accompanying this post!

   Mindfulness of thoughts would also manifest in the awareness of the limitations of one's ability to reach a 'definitive' conclusion (just like both scientists and historians keep looking for what they might have missed)… which is not  denying that one still has a responsibility to create a better world (which is not achieved by simply killing "them")!
   When we reach simple answers, we can be mindful of how we're so easily falling into caricature (just because it's so much easier to live with, than to have to engage with partial information!). We can be mindful of how much we prefer certainties (e.g. from 'experts') and simplicity… and how this very preference for "simple certainties" biases our so-called 'logic', how selfish laziness pushes us away from the deeper insights. "Truth 'should' be simple"  is a misunderstanding  of Occam's razor:

   « Everything should be kept as simple as possible, but not simpler. » 
— Albert Einstein

   Please read (in full), and sign, campaigns.amnesty.org/actions/us-stop-arming-israel (and abstain from pretending Amnesty is a terrorist organisation if you happen to disagree with its call).

   I'm doing my best to curate the comments in my previous post so that the conversation remains argument-based… There's now a lot of information in the thread, so if you've not read it (maybe because you muted it due to the spammers and idiots commenting on sexiness), please consider going through: gplus.wallez.name/WySMvoivSUg


#Buddhism   #nonviolence  
image © dran (retroactif.free.fr/dran/)
Yonatan Shefa's quote from rhr.org.il/eng/2014/07/one-cause-on-bringing-harmony-to-all-disparate-parts, worth a read!