Friday 3 August 2018

Mindful Gardening

"Nature is our mother. Because we live cut off from her, we get sick. Some of us live in boxes called apartments, very high above the ground. Around us are only cement, metal, and hard things like that. Our fingers do not have a chance to touch the soil; we don’t grow lettuce anymore. Because we are so distant from our Mother Earth, we become sick. That is why we need to go out from time to time and be in nature. It is very important. We and our children should be in touch again with Mother Earth. In many cities, we cannot see trees—the color green is entirely absent from our view." - Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step (1992), p106.
"If you want to be happy for an hour, get drunk; If you want to be happy for three days, get married; If you want to be happy forever, make a garden." -- Chinese Proverb.
"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need." - Cicero, To Varro, in Ad Familiares IX, 4.



Professor Mark Williams of the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, states in Mindfulness: A practical guide to peace in a frantic world (2011), p246:
"How long should you meditate for? The practice itself will teach you. Recall that meditation was first developed when humans lived in and off the fields. Indeed, one of the words that we translate into English as ‘meditation’ actually means ‘cultivation’ in the original Pali language. It originally referred to cultivation of crops in the fields and flowers in the garden. So how long should the cultivation of the mindfulness garden take each day? It is best to go into the garden and see for yourself. Sometimes ten minutes in the garden of meditation practice will be needful, but you may find, once there, that your cultivation will slip effortlessly into twenty or thirty minutes. There is no minimum or maximum time. Clock time is different from meditation time. You could simply experiment with what feels right and with whatever gives you the best chance to renew and nourish yourself. Every minute counts. Most people find that it is most helpful to combine some regular (every day) formal practice with mindfulness in the world. There is something about the ‘everyday-ness’ of the practice that is important. By every day we mean that a majority of days each week will find you taking yourself away to be by yourself for a period, no matter how short."
Mindfulness: Mindfulness: Diverse Perspectives on its Meaning, Origins and Applications (2013) adds, p66:
"Mental training in general, and the development of mindfulness and wisdom in particular, will optimize the functioning of the mind, and will culminate in its transformation such that unwholesome states can no longer occur at all and the mind will become entirely liberated from its suffering. The process unfolds something like the classical image of the lotus, whose roots are in the mud, growing through the water and ultimately opening its petals to
the sky."
Thus, caring for plants every day - caring for life, becomes a great living metaphor for our own mindfulness practice, and the plants that we nurture are a reflection of our practice. Mindfulness & The Art of Urban Living: Discovering The Good Life in The City (2013), therefore states, p31:
"With our own garden, however small, we can stop and meditate on these things. Without photosynthesis, without the growth of plants, without a source of food, we humans wouldn't be here - our appearance on the planet was totally dependent on having something to eat."
And, p30:
"A garden of any size, whether urban or country, offers wonderful opportunities for mindfulness training, bringing our awareness to focus on the present moment, becoming more conscious of where we are in the here-and-now, while helping us to remember we are part of the organic web of life that wraps the planet.
The growth of plants - the simple unfurling of a leaf or the blossoming of a flower - is a mystery we too easily take for granted. It has been happening on the planet for well over a hundred million years, aeons of time before we were around to stop and take notice."

Professor Mark Williams also agrees, in Mindfulness: A practical guide to peace in a frantic world (2011), p183:

"Nurturing a plant, or sowing some seeds, are among those very simple things in life that can have a surprisingly big benefit. It might even save your life. In the late 1970s, Harvard University psychologist Ellen Langer and her team conducted a now classic series of experiments in which they asked a group of elderly people in a care home to look after a plant in their room. They were told it was their responsibility to water it and make sure it received enough food and light. At the same time, another group of elderly people had a plant placed in their room, but were told ‘not to worry about it’. The nurses would look after it for them. The researchers then measured the levels of happiness in the two groups of people and found, to their surprise, that those asked actively to look after a plant were noticeably happier and healthier. They lived longer too. Just the act of caring for another living thing had markedly improved their life.
So this week, why not sow some seeds or buy or borrow a plant from a friend? If you plant seeds, why not sow those that bees can feed off? There’s something mesmerising about bees at work. Alternatively, why not sow the seeds of a plant you can later eat, such as tomatoes, lettuce or spring onions? As you sow the seeds, feel their texture and that of the soil. Is there any tension in your body, perhaps localised in your neck and shoulders? As you sprinkle the soil over the seeds, watch how it falls through your fingers. Now do it at half speed. Does it feel any different? What does the soil smell like? Does it have a deep, earthy aroma or the slightly acidic smell of sandy soil? When you water the seeds or the young plants, pay close attention to the way the light glints off the droplets. Why not spend a little time finding out more about the plants you’ll be nurturing?"
And this is because we need to find a balance in our lives between encountering positive and negative forces, as Vietnamese Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh writes in his book, Anger - Wisdom for Cooling the Flames (2001), p95-96:
"If you listen too much to the suffering, the anger of other people, you will be affected. You will be in touch only with suffering, and you won’t have the opportunity to be in touch with other, positive elements. This will destroy your balance. Therefore, in your daily life, you have to practice so that you can be in touch with elements that do not constantly express suffering: the sky, the birds, the trees, the flowers, children—whatever is refreshing, healing, and nourishing in us and around us."


Thus, a garden becomes the most reliable source of peace a person can bring into their lives - no matter indoor or outdoor, small or large - as stated in Mindfulness & The Art of Urban Living: Discovering The Good Life in The City (2013), p25:
"Nothing should deter us from enjoying what we might think of as rural pursuits when living in the city. The tiniest space can be used for growing flowers and shrubs or for cultivating vegetables."

Thursday 28 August 2014

New Website - Daoscape

This blog is becoming less active since the author has gained a qualification to teach Western secular mindfulness and has created a new website containing information and articles here: Daoscape.com.




Monday 7 July 2014

Daily Mail News: Stressed at work? Meditating really does work - and you'll see a difference in just three days, say researchers

On 4th July 2014, The Daily Mail online posted an article in the Science section titled: Stressed at work? Meditating really does work - and you'll see a difference in just three days, say researchers.

Here are some key quotes:
"Meditating can have an almost instant effect on reducing stress, researchers have found. 
[...]
For the study, Creswell and his research team had 66 healthy individuals aged 18-30 years old participate in a three-day experiment.  Some participants went through a brief mindfulness meditation training program; for 25 minutes for three consecutive days, the individuals were given breathing exercises to help them monitor their breath and pay attention to their present moment experiences.  Published in the journal 'Psychoneuroendocrinology,' the study investigates how mindfulness meditation affects people's ability to be resilient under stress. 
[...] 
Each individual reported their stress levels in response to stressful speech and math performance stress tasks, and provided saliva samples for measurement of cortisol, commonly referred to as the stress hormone.  The participants who received the brief mindfulness meditation training reported reduced stress perceptions to the speech and math tasks, indicating that the mindfulness meditation fostered psychological stress resilience.  More interestingly, on the biological side, the mindfulness meditation participants showed greater cortisol reactivity. 
[...] 
'When you initially learn mindfulness mediation practices, you have to cognitively work at it — especially during a stressful task,' said Creswell.  'And, these active cognitive efforts may result in the task feeling less stressful, but they may also have physiological costs with higher cortisol production."  Creswell's group is now testing the possibility that mindfulness can become more automatic and easy to use with long-term mindfulness meditation training, which may result in reduced cortisol reactivity."

Saturday 28 June 2014

TIME: 25 Minutes of This Will Get Rid of Your Stress

On 27th June 2014, TIME online published an article in the Health > Mental Health/Psychology section titled: 25 Minutes of This Will Get Rid of Your Stress.

Here are some key quotes:

"Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University investigated how effective mindfulness meditation can be in countering the body’s stress response.
[...]
They randomly assigned 66 volunteers to either participate in mindful meditation for 25 minutes for three days, or go through a cognitive training program in which they learned how to analyze poetry passages. The people who meditated reported less stress, and even showed that they were better at coping with stress compared to those who relied on their behavior training.
[...]
The new study, published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, is not the first to show the positive effects of mediation [sic]."

Thursday 26 June 2014

The Guardian: Mindful eating? How to get more from your meals

On 23rd June 2014, The Guardian online published an article in the Life & Style>Live Better section titled: Mindful eating? How to get more from your meals.

Here are some key quotes:
"...mindful eating, the newest offshoot from meditation folks Headspace, the wildly popular secular app created by Andy Puddicombe, a witty ex-Buddhist monk, and his business partner, Rich Pierson. It’s an online course, split into three levels (each is 10 days long requiring around 10 minutes a day) to be done whenever you feel like it, wherever is convenient.
[...]
The approach is less about calorie counting, more about increasing your awareness of what you are eating. In other words, eat cake, just think about what you’re eating and why you’re eating it.
[...]
The idea is to listen to the app before you cook and adapt your behaviour accordingly by approaching food in a focused way, thinking about the ingredients, where they come from, how they smell, then examining how they taste, how they move on your tongue. It sounds overly holistic but in practice, pretty sensible. The first few days are tough. Before meals, mindful eaters are asked to rate how hungry they are. I mentally note my level of "mind chatter" (distraction) and how I feel, out of 10. After I’ve eaten I ask myself the same questions."

ABC News: Happy snap your way to inner calm

On 20th June 2014, ABC News published an article online in the Health & Wellbeing>Features section titled: Happy snap your way to inner calm.

Here are some key quotes:
"In 2012, Johnstone created "I had a black dog", a whimsical five-minute video about depression, for the World Health Organisation. He has also written and illustrated books about depression, meditation and the practice of mindfulness, which he describes as "being more aware of what you're doing and [being] more present".

Johnstone now works as creative director at the mental health organisation Black Dog Institute and says mindfulness played a key part in his recovery from depression. (For more about the growing body of evidence that mindfulness can be helpful in managing mental illnesses, see Meditation: the healing force of a quiet mind.)
[...]
...a mobile phone camera is the perfect tool for an "eyes-wide-open" meditation on the go. And the beauty of using your phone camera is you probably have it with you all the time. (Just make sure you switch it to aeroplane mode first so you're not distracted by texts, tweets and the like, he says.)
[...]
"A camera in your hands is the reminder to consciously slow everything down from your breath, to your walk, to your thoughts... To take photographs, we have to stop, look around, focus and capture. It brings our awareness to what's going on [here and now]."
When we do this, we start to realise we're often surrounded by "beautiful light, beautiful shapes, beautiful colours. But all too often, we just pass them by".
[...]
"It doesn't matter what the photograph is, the important thing is the process.""

BBC News: Game of Thrones star Flynn meditation lessons for pupils

On 15th June 2014, BBC News online posted an article in the UK>Wales section titled: Game of Thrones star Flynn meditation lessons for pupils.

Here are some key quotes:
"GCSE students at Ysgol Dewi Sant are taking an eight-week course in relaxation and meditation to reduce exam stress.
Actor Flynn, who lives in the county, visited the school to talk to students.
Head teacher David Hayes said it was helping pupils concentrate in lessons, and focus on their exams.
[...]
Head teacher David Haynes said he has been impressed with the results: "The impact has been outstanding in terms of stress relief, concentration for lessons, and the wider world of performing on stage and sports activities.
[...]
In some parts of Wales free courses have been set up by the NHS and a parliamentary committee has begun examining whether it could improve outcomes in a variety of public policy areas including business and education."