03/25/12 – Mindfulness

Margaret framed our reflections on Mindfulness with some telling quotations, and then played a recorded dharma talk.

Here are the framing quotations:

“Mindfulness is that quality of attention which notices without choosing, without preference; it is choiceless awareness that, like the sun, shines on all things equally.” –p.23, Seeking the Heart of Wisdom: the Path of  Insight and Meditation; Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield, Shambhala, 2001.)

“In essence it is being in the here and now.  But there is more to it than that. . . Right mindfulness leads to insight, leads to letting go, leads to disidentification. . . Mindfulness has to be combined with clear comprehension to achieve “right mindfulness”.–Sally Clough Armstrong quoted from a talk titled “What is Mindfulness”?  given at the Insight Meditation Retreat, Spirit Rock Meditation Center 2012-02-02

We then listened to most of talk by Christina Feldman – here is the link (we listened from about the 26 minute mark):

http://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/44/talk/10813/

Christina Feldman reads the poem “Mindful” by Mary Oliver, near the beginning of the talk – but if you want another link to it:

http://mindfulheart.blogspot.com/2009/03/mindful-by-mary-oliver.html