"Ananda, one of the Buddha's disciples, said to the Buddha one day, "I've realised that half of the path to the holy life is made of good friendships." "No, Ananda," the Buddha said. "Friends are not half of the holy life. They are all of the holy life."


Posts tagged with 'focusing'

Mindfulness: the missing facet 'describe', and meeting at relational depth with self & others - practice

8th November 2011

I wrote yesterday on "Mindfulness: the missing facet 'describe', and meeting at relational depth with self & others - theory" . Today I'd like to take this into a practical example. On Sunday evening seven of us met in what we call "The enquiry group". I've described these get-togethers before …

Mindfulness: the missing facet 'describe', and meeting at relational depth with self & others - theory

7th November 2011

God guard me from those thoughts men think in the mind alone; he that sings a lasting song thinks in a marrow bone. William Butler Yeats There are good reasons for viewing "mindfulness" as made up of five facets - see, for example, the post "A better way to measure …

Antonio Damasio’s “Self comes to mind”: emotions and the body 2

3rd January 2011

I wrote an initial blog post last month on "Antonio Damasio's 'Self comes to mind': overview". I commented that I wanted to think a bit more about three of the areas covered in the book - "Emotions and the body", "Memory and the autobiographical self" and "Mindfulness, protoself, core and …

Antonio Damasio’s “Self comes to mind”: emotions and the body 1

20th December 2010

I wrote last week about "Antonio Damasio's 'Self comes to mind': overview" saying that I wanted to think a bit more about three of the areas covered in the book - "Emotions and the body", "Memory and the autobiographical self" and "Mindfulness, protoself, core and autobiographical self". I mentioned that …

Four aspects model & some associated evidence for relaxation, meditation & imagery

13th September 2009

Relaxation, meditation, mindfulness, hypnosis, imagery and other associated methods form a complex, loosely interlinked field. The "Four aspects of helpful inner focus" model, that I've put together to help me make more sense of this territory, looks like this: For a downloadable copy of this diagram click here. There is …

Checking in with Larry - next morning

6th July 2008

This is a continuation of yesterday's blog about regular check-ins/life planning with my great friend Larry. And now it's Sunday morning around 7.00am. Yesterday we went out to the 'hut' at Carbeth knowing that there was a good chance that the owner, Gerry, might in fact be using it himself. …