cultivating restedness - chris kang · clarity, forsaking extraneous and ruminative thinking that...

Asst Professor Chris Kang SIT@Dover, Health and Social Sciences

Mindfulness and Philosophy for Caring of Self and Others

CULTIVATING RESTEDNESS


NEW BEGINNINGS

“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time

Through the unknown, remembered gate When the last of earth left to discover

Is that which was the beginning.” T. S. Eliot

Good morning, my friends. We begin this workshop as we begin each day. Mindful of its transient nebulousness, appreciating the few moments we have to be … before the long stretches of doing that occupy us, and almost consume us. Even as we hanker to become bigger, better, faster, leaner … (fill in the blanks yourself), we become consumed by our becoming, by what we have become. Hence, this workshop.

To remind us of what it means to be alive. To unlearn what blocks us from deep wholeness.

To learn skills and ways of being not commonly taught at home or in school.

To relearn restedness in a spun-out world.

To find deep meaning and direction for life.


PHILOSOPHICALLY-ENGAGED ATTENTIVENESS

ATTENTIVENESS

“The voice of the hidden waterfall And the children in the apple-tree

Not known, because not looked for But heard, half-heard, in the stillness Between the two waves of the sea.”

T. S. Eliot

A silent, alert, relaxed movement of attention to scan widely and look deeply – fluid and ungraspable; clear and transparent; luminous and aware. Grows from effortful to effortless through systematic and organic training.

PHILOSOPHICALLY-ENGAGED

“To study the Dharma is to study yourself; To study yourself is to forget yourself.

To forget yourself is to be awakened by the ten thousand things. To be awakened by the ten thousand things

Is to cast off your body and mind and the bodies and minds of others.” Dogen Zenji

Seeking the heart of truth boldly in spite of our conditioning, world’s disapproval, and personal insecurities. Engage in critical inquiry, applied reflexivity, and inner formation.


EMBODIED MINDFULNESS

OUR BODY as the somatic field of everyday life, where sensations are felt and lived. Often

neglected in the busyness of our lives, our blunted awareness registering only intense

sensations (pleasurable or painful) but oblivious to subtle flow of momentary risings and

dissolutions.

“The developing of insight means experiencing the flow of impermanence within ourselves so

that we begin to let go, not grasping so desperately to mind-body phenomena.”

Joseph Goldstein

Chronic unawareness is a small step away from instinctual avoidance of difficult sensations

especially those associated with painful emotions. We resist and run away from difficult

emotional experiences by lapsing into cognitive fusion, losing open contact with the present

moment, attentional inflexibility, and experiential avoidance (Hayes, Strosahl, and Wilson 2012).

We may become overly attached to a conceptualized self (self-story made up of thoughts and

emotions coalescing around an imagined self). We get locked into impulsive or avoidant

behavior – unskillful ways of dealing with stress and pain.

EMBODIED MINDFULNESS call us back to inhabit and reclaim our somatic field as the beginning

point and application ground of our mental processes. For example, thoughts and feelings both

arise out of this embodied space of experience and feed forward into that space with their

activity. Seen in experiential terms, the line between body and mind blurs and disappears.


OCCUPATIONAL MINDFULNESS

OCCUPATIONAL FIELD as the field of everyday experience of occupational performance and

engagement. Put simply, it is where and how you experience yourself doing things every day. Our

habitual lack of attentiveness renders our occupational field a blur. We are oblivious to how we

perform our occupations and why, often driven by inner compulsions we do not fully acknowledge

let alone understand. In a sense, we lead unexamined robotic lives.

OCCUPATIONAL MINDFULNESS revives our awareness and understanding of the how and why we

do certain things. We bring a quality of deliberation and inquiry into the way we act, do, and

become. Mindfulness is a fresh wakeful attention given to our moment-by-moment experience,

replete with a discernment and ethical sensibility that guards the mind.

1. Occupational mindfulness is bringing a radically human way of being into the midst of our

everyday occupations. Occupational mindfulness de-automatizes us and frees us to do things with

a heightened sense of consciousness previously absent.

2. Occupational mindfulness can also strengthen our inner convictions and sharpen our inner

conscience by its discernment of the ethical quality of our doing. In this way, we go to a deeper

source out of which our values can emerge to build up our inner resilience.

3. Occupational mindfulness enables us to be immersed in the flow of activity with focus and

clarity, forsaking extraneous and ruminative thinking that distracts our attention. We can relearn

the art of flow in university learning recognizing, releasing, remembering, refreshing, and resting.


HEARTFULNESS

EMOTIONAL AND VOLITIONAL FIELD as the experiential space of all emotions and intentions,

needs and wants, desires and aversions, hopes and fears, hurts and anticipations, depressive

moods and anxious worries. This is a field of experience that holds much potential for

affliction as well as healing.

HEARTFULNESS is philosophically-engaged (i.e. critically and reflexively inquiring)

attentiveness (i.e. process of employing and directing attention) applied to the domain of the

heart (i.e. emotional and volitional field). Heartfulness manifests as a kind, caring, sensitive

mindfulness infusing and embracing the heart of a person, without either self-judgmentalism

or self-indulgence.

Through and by Heartfulness, we curiously explore what we mean by exam stress; how exam

stress comes and goes; how it manifests; what makes it increase and what reduces it; probing

deeper into ‘who’ is stressed and ‘ who’ wants to be stress-free.

Through and by Heartfulness, we inquire into the meaning and direction of our lives, boldly

leaning into the unknown and unfamiliar territory of our inner being. We ask probing and

evocative questions that help set a framework of meaning for our inner compass in life.


EMBODIED INQUIRY

“One is mindful of breathing in and knows one is breathing in mindfully; one is mindful of breathing out and knows one is breathing out mindfully. Breathing in long, one knows one is

breathing in long; breathing out long, one knows one is breathing out long. Breathing in short, one knows one is breathing in short; breathing out short, one knows one is breathing out short. One trains [in experiencing] the whole body when breathing in; one trains in experiencing the

whole body when breathing out. One trains in calming bodily formations when breathing in; one trains in calming bodily formations when breathing out.”

Madhyama-agama 98 (MA98)

“One completely drenches and pervades one’s body with joy and happiness born of seclusion [experienced in the first absorption], so that there is no part within one’s body that is not

pervaded by joy and happiness born of seclusion. It is just as a bath attendant who, having filled a vessel with bathing powder, mixes it with water

and kneads it, so that there is no part of the powder that is not completely drenched and pervaded with water.”

Madhyama-agama 98 (MA98)

1. Recognizing – notice tension points in field of experience (thoughts, emotions,

sensations, desires, needs, wants, hopes, fears etc.)

2. Releasing – mindfully release your grasp of them, letting go and letting be

3. Remembering – anchor in the present moment

4. Refreshing – allow upsurge of joy and relaxing clarity

5. Resting – being still in the restful ease and grounding space of body

6. Reflectively inquiring – activating deeper sense of curiosity to probe and discover


PRIMORDIAL NATURE

Original – innate and primordial; prior to subsequent distortion.

Luminosity – basic capacity for experience; lucidity of forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touch,

thoughts, feelings, and of everything that appears in consciousness.

Cognizance – basic capacity to know, to be aware of whatever appears; knowing potential

of consciousness that give rise to knowledge.

Spatial and temporal parameters of consciousness – assumed and

conceptualized boundaries of consciousness in space and time.

Phenomenological acuity – sharpness, clarity, and focus of participatory observing

awareness that is able to discern, make distinctions, be penetrative in one’s insight into experienced phenomena.

“Similarly, we can measure the properties of neurons that are believed by materialists to be the basis for the emergence of consciousness; however, there the analogy breaks down – we

cannot actually measure the consciousness that is said to emerge. A radical discontinuity exists between consciousness and the neural phenomena that are assumed to generate it. The

notion that awareness will spontaneously emerge if you arrange electrons, atoms, and cells into a sufficiently complex configuration seems like magical thinking.

Of all the known entities in the universe, nothing is more complex than the human brain. Nevertheless, repeatedly invoking the word ‘complexity’ doesn’t explain how consciousness

might arise from inanimate matter.” B Alan Wallace


RESTING IN THE NOW

1 Recognizing – notice tension points in field of experience (thoughts, emotions, sensations,

desires, needs, wants, hopes, fears etc.)

2 Releasing – mindfully release your grasp of them, letting go and letting be

3 Remembering – anchor in present-moment breathing

4 Refreshing – allow upsurge of joy and relaxing clarity

5 Resting – being still in the restful ease and grounding space of body

6 Releasing and Relaxing – deepen releasing and relaxing every thought and mental image

with each out-breath, quietly witnessing field of the body

7 Resting Eyes in Space – let eyes be open and gazing evenly and softly into space in front

8 Reverting Awareness upon that which is attending – turn awareness back onto

itself inwardly, without latching on to any subject

9 Revitalizing and Relaxing Alternately – attention alternates between focusing

inwardly and releasing outwardly, arousing awareness while inverting and relaxing more deeply as you release awareness into space

10 Resting Awareness Right Where it Always Was, Right in the Middle – let go

of inversion and release, resting in utter simplicity, sustaining an unbroken flow of sheer luminosity and cognizance of awareness.

11 Revisiting Breathing and Tension Release – remain aware of any body tension or

restricted breathing arising, release naturally and maintain unbroken continuity of practice


RESTEDNESS IN BUSYNESS

“The journey of a thousand miles begins beneath one’s feet.” 千里之行，始於足下

Lao Tzu

“Small is beautiful.” E. F. Schumacher

Daily practice can be:

Formal – structured practice at specific time and location

Informal – everyday occupations and contexts

Embed learning and practice within a deep meaning context:

What kind of person are you?

What kind of person do you want to become?

What unique gifts and talents can you share with the world?

What sort of world do you want to live in?

What is your ultimate purpose in life?

Need for ongoing sustained cultivation with enabling attitudes:

Need for peer and coaching support of a certain kind.

Expanding the scope of philosophical attentiveness glocally.


PRESENCING FOR TRANSFORMATION

Identifying an issue larger than oneself that needs to change:

Family

Community

Society

Global

Attuning mind, heart, and will with illuminating silence:

1 - Mindfulness of somatic, affective, volitional, cognitive fields 2 - Glimpsing and resting in relative luminosity and cognizance of consciousness

Presencing Transit into stillpoint of consciousness Listen deep into mind, heart, and will Envision fresh pathways Prototype emerging ideas and possibilities


REFERENCES

Analayo (2013). Perspectives on Satipatthana. Cambridge: Windhorse Publications.

Bucknell, R. B. and Kang, C. (1997) (eds.). The Meditative Way: Readings in the Theory and Practice of

Buddhist Meditation. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon.

Eliot, T. S. (1968). Little Gidding. In Four Quartets. New York: Harcourt.

English, J. and Feng, G.F. (1997). Tao Te Ching. 25th Anniversary edition. New York: Vintage.

Gilbert, P. (2010). Compassion Focused Therapy: Distinctive Features. East Sussex: Routledge.

Hayes, S. C., Strosahl, K. D., and Wilson, K. G. (2012). Acceptance and Commitment Therapy: The Process and

Practice of Mindful Change. 2nd ed. New York: The Guildford Press.

Kelly, T. R. (1992). A Testament of Devotion. New York: HarperCollins.

Neff, K. D. (2003). The development and validation of a scale to measure self-compassion. Self and Identity, 2:

223-250.

Schumacher, E. F. (1973, 2010). Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered. New York:

HarperCollins.

Siegal, D. J. (2007). The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being. New York:

W. W. Norton and Company.

Townsend, E. A. and Polatajko, H. (2013). Enabling Occupation: Advancing an Occupational Therapy Vision for

Health, Well-Being, and Justice through Occupation. Ottawa, Ontario: CAOT.

Wallace, B. A. (2011). Minding Closely: The Four Applications of Mindfulness. Ithaca, New York: Snow Lion.

Wallace, B. A. and Hodel, B. (2008). Embracing Mind: The Common Ground of Science and Spirituality. Boston

and London: Shambhala.

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