Introduction to Mindfulness - Dean Amory

While the capacity to be mindful really comes into its own when we
face some unique or challenging event in our unfolding everyday
lives, doesn’t it make sense to take some time out from our daily
routine and find a moment where we can be quiet with our selves and
come home to our inner capacity for stillness and clarity? There will
always be thoughts and bodily sensations that emerge and cause us
stress, but as we practice mindfulness, what begins to happen is that
your capacity to note these and to attend to them, with kindness and
appreciation, becomes steadier. And with that steadiness comes a
deeper understanding and insight into those elements and experiences
in our lives that keep repeating themselves over and over.
Understanding and insight free us from automatic patterns of reacting
to our inner world by trying to avoid it, or becoming caught up in
repeating past mistakes, and allows us to ground ourselves in the
present and make some fresh choices about how we might wish to
live our lives.
Mindfulness is not a stand-alone practice. It is one element, or one
expression, of a general philosophy of what it takes to become a
human being.
Mindfulness comes from spiritual traditions in the East and West that
articulated a number of elements required for people to “grow up”.
All of these philosophies recognized that it was easy for humans to
get it wrong and find themselves confused and alienated from others.
Meditation emerged in each of these traditions as a way of deepening
one’s understanding of what it means to be human and progressing
through different stages of psychological and spiritual growth.
Mindfulness practice does not require of you that you sign up to
some particular religion or school of thought; but it works best when
it’s undertaken as part of an commitment to take more care of your
self and to grow in your appreciation and respect for all living things.
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