Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
"When the Mind Wanders, Happiness Also Strays"
Article about a study on mindfulness in the New York Times. It's kind of poorly written and the research methodology may be a little kooky, but nevertheless, the conclusions are interesting:
Article here.
And now, welcome back for the hypothesis of our experiment: Wherever your mind went — the South Seas, your job, your lunch, your unpaid bills — that daydreaming is not likely to make you as happy as focusing intensely on the rest of this column will.
Article here.
0
Comments
According to my teacher single pointed focus does not mean that you don't ever wander in thought.
You may reserve the right to disagree with my teacher, but I find that in my own experience my mind wanders. Pema Chodron says that after all her years of practicing sometimes her mind wanders the seemingly the entire meditation session.
You might be able to find information about this as the E-vam principle (not sure its spelled right). Awareness diffuses out into space (emptiness) and then focuses (clarity).
In meditation we learn to come back to stability and to the present experience. This frees us from assigning to much value to thoughts. As if we are waking from a dream. Yet we still always drift off due to the nature of mind to create.
I read a therevada perspective. That the mind always creates worlds. Even in nirvana it creates worlds. But in samsara we grasp to the worlds it creates 'hop onto them'.
That doesn't follow. My mind might wander over a choice of recipes for a meal I'm going to cook for friends - it doesn't mean I'm unhappy !