Mindfulness Based Contemplations

Best to practice both of these contemplations using the lectio divina method, that is each time you contemplate the content of the two messages concentrate a bit more, go a bit deeper into your mind. Concentrate! Concentrate! Concentrate! Go deeper into your mind to discover your answers.

Contemplation 1 – Who Am I?

If I am NOT my thoughts, my breath, my body, my sensations, my emotions, my sensory awarenesses, my intuition, my joys and sorrows,  and ALL of my memories – then, WHO AM I?  Contemplate this question deeply and repeatedly until you come up with an insightful and personally meaningful answer.
Write your answers down.

Contemplation 2 – Buddhism, A Universal Philosophy of Life or a Religion?

Jon Kabat-Zinn, in Coming to Our Senses, defined practically the more universal meanings of  mindfulness and dharma.  His comments suggested that both were about the deeper functioning of people, especially the quality of attention and experience in suffering and happiness.  The core important variable was one’s personal relationship with the outcomes of the experiences. He also suggested that if we desire more and more people to benefit from mindfulness and it’s Buddhist dharma, we Buddhists may have reconsider our strong attachments to Buddhism as religion.

Read this statement a few times, and then write your response/reaction to it in the space below. Contemplate deeply exactly what the meaning of the statement is for YOU. Personalize it!

Write your answers down.

For more information refer to Shambhala Sun (November, 2015), pp. 11-12 and Kabat-Zinn, J. ( 2005). Coming to Our Senses…New York: Hyperion.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont

Author of Mindful Happiness  

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