Hello everyone:
What is the impact of Mindfulness Meditation on an artist like me using an simple cell phone app like the one I am using daily with Sam Harris? Like Zach Grossfeld wrote in 2019 on Medium, it is utterly transformative. I wrote in my last post that this app was a gift from my eldest son, Liam Veuve, who beseeched me to try it. I listened.
To be honest the words: WAKE; AWAKE; AWAKENING; were spiraling through my dreams, daydreams, waking and lseeping thoughts so regularly in the fall of 2019, that when I saw the title of this particular app: "Waking Up" that Liam "handed" to me, I spent zero time arguing with him. Now I thank my son and Sam Harris.
From practing mindfulness meditiation 20 minutes every day, I then started to listen in (tune in) more over to everything: my self, others around me, the sounds of the city, and to nature. As a city dweller for over 30 years (Brooklyn) I feel this latter point is important to say.
"Mindfulness is a quality of being — the experience of being open and aware in the present moment, without reflexive judgment, automatic criticism or mind wandering. Mindfulness meditation is the practice of actually being present in the moment, which in turn trains us to become more mindful throughout the day, particularly during difficult situations. As Ms. Brach puts it: “Mindfulness is your awareness of what’s going on in the present moment without any judgment. Meditation is the training of attention which cultivates that mindfulness.”
From my growing fascination with nature, made more obvious to me when the COVID 19 quarantine began in March 2020, I 'landed' on looking upwards towards the sky over Brooklyn. I have a roof and in quarantine I began to use it regularly. I looked upwards daily.
What was up there? What planets could I see? What was out there? Turns out quite a lot, despite the light pollution. I found this Stellarium page and paid pennies for an app with the same name and have been hooked/enchanted ever since.
Looking up over NYC was another sort of waking up for me. The planet Mars lighting up Gowanus was a whole new thrilling experience for me.
Again, EUREKA!
warmly Triada
