What does it mean to be "present"? That is hard to say for sure, but some Buddhist teachers like American Sharon Salzberg say it means continuously coming back to the present moment. "Begin again." The mind settles, is here, but then it wanders. We realize at some point that it has wandered away from the here and now. What to do? "Begin again." That is a good description of mindfulness meditation. How could we stay in THIS moment? There is something happening that only happens now. If we place our unswerving attention on that, we too will stay in the right now. What is it? The in-and-out breath. Breathing is happening right here, right now, and only now. Stay with the breath, not as something to contemplate or ponder but only watch, notice, keep in mind. See Anapanasati Sutta
The field of psychology appropriated (hijacked) the Buddhist term "mindfulness" (originally sati but now just "awareness" or "paying attention")
Anyone who thinks it was a commonplace practice in ancient India during the time of the Buddha should look up the Hindu definition of sati, which reveals it used to mean throwing a wife on the pyre when her husband died 😲
The great work of Jon Kabbat-Zin to help therapists led to the unexpected disconnection of the practice with anything, as if it could be a standalone endeavor
"Bare attention" is a component of sati, but it must be coupled with dispassionate (unbiased) looking on, free of greed, hatred, and delusion (wanting, aversion, and confusion)
What is one to be mindful of to advance to insight, realization, and awakening? The Buddha pointed at four things: body, feelings, mind, and mind-objects. What does this mean? Psychology cannot tell us, but the Dhamma can
Who needs Dhamma when we have a corporate bottom line to advance, productivity to raise, and mental health symptoms to abate?
Why call it "mindfulness," Psychology? Why not pick a new name for what you've turned this into?
Ego (buddhism podcast) The Buddha didn't teach us only to be "present." He taught us to remember (recollection, memory, bearing in mind, the faculty of sati)
On the road to Berkeley like Benji (The Graduate)
Personally, in college at UC Berkeley many years ago, I took a "Buddhist Psychology" course in the department and was so excited to finally be able to learn what "cognition" meant and what the Buddha had to say about all these psychological things. Our assigned textbook, written by a psychologist, was called Mindfulness. "All right," I thought, "I'm finally going to advance in my practice and being in college is going to help me. Imagine my surprise when, as I read, I did not recognize what was being called "mindfulness." It did not align with all the translated ancient texts I had read and was continuing to read from the Buddhist Publication Society and the Pali Text Society. A few years in the future I would even visit BPS Editor Bhikkhu Bodhi in Kandy, Sri Lanka, to ask him about all this.
Not yet having him as a direct resource, except through his translations and BPS newsletter messages, I asked my professor in class about how I was left perplexed by reading our textbook. She looked at me and shrugged, "Of course! This "mindfulness" isn't the Buddha's mindfulness. It is psychology's," she explained. I looked around and many students were nodding their heads in agreement. "There are two mindfulnesses?!" I balked. "There are now" was the implicit answer. "Does Berkeley know about this? Why is this class called Buddhist psychology if all we're going to talk about is Western psychology?" She winked because she was subverting the system and introducing Buddhist ideas back into class, but we had to know that the new mindfulness had been taken, changed, and applied in rigorous scientific ways to the behavioral sciences, therapy, counseling, and the mental health field. Sure, it wasn't the Buddha's mindfulness, but that's because it had to be stripped of all spirituality and/or religiosity to get by the gatekeepers of the university system. What a gyp.
Thich Nhat Hanh: "To live, we must die every instant. We must perish again and again [like flickering individual stills run in a series of connected frames of a filmstrip, one passing away and the next appearing] in the storms that make life possible."
Thay (Thích Nhất Hạnh) was a Vietnamese Zen (Thiền) teacher who practiced Engaged Buddhism. He often spoke of mindfulness (Buddhist sati) without, to our knowledge, doing much to define or explain it in detail. He lived it. It is, after all, a practice of doing (karma) much more than a theory of being.
Thiền (Zen) Master Thích Thanh Từ (1924–2022) is credited for renovating Trúc Lâm in Vietnam. He was one of the most prominent and influential Thiền masters of the 20th and early 21st century. He was a disciple of Master Thích Thiện Hoa.
The most famous practitioner of modernThiền Buddhismin the West was Thích Nhất Hạnh (1926–2022), who authored dozens of books and founded the Plum Village Monastery in France together with his colleague, Thiền Master Bhikkhuni (Nun) Chân Không.
Other influential Vietnamese teachers in the West include Thích Thiên-Ân, who taught philosophy at UCLA, said "We all shed salty tears and shed red blood; all is one," and founded a meditation center in Los Angeles, and Thích Thiện Tâm, the author of several books in English such as Buddhism of Wisdom & Faith: Pure Land Principles and Practice.
In recent years, the modernization of Thiền has taken a new global dimension, as Vietnamese Zen is becoming influenced by the teachings of influential overseas Vietnamese Buddhist leaders such as Thích Nhất Hạnh, who have adopted Thiền to Western needs, focusing on mindfulness.
As a result, Vietnamese Buddhists have also now begun to practice these modernized forms of Thiền [17]. More
On a recent night, practitioners gathered, took to zafus and zabutons (sitting cushions), chanted Sanskrit the Japanese way then English, and started a session of shikantaza, just sitting.
Then came time for kinhin, the relief of getting up to stretch and walk slowly and mindfully before another sitting session. Then the fireworks: question and answer with discussion.
"Those who know don't say, and those who say don't know" is a Taoist saying and sentiment. Many things can be known, and many of them can be expressed. So we hit the meditation leader with two barrels' worth of questions. Next time we finish off with koans of such subtlety and complexity, he stands no chance.
Meditation is NOT the "doing," not the technique that takes us to stillness. Doing assumes time. To realize "being," just being, is instantaneous. There is no need to travel there, no need for time, no need for an action or doing. If we could just "be," that would be NOW. The Power of Now is to realize what is true right now, as Eckhart Tolle tried to explain it. We need to suffer until we realize that it is no longer necessary.
Don't Feed the Monkey Mind: How to Stop the Cycle of Anxiety, Fear, and Worry
Psychotherapist Jennifer Shannon LMFT and illustrator Doug Shannon have 4.6 out of 5 stars (with 1,327 reviews) helping readers deal with monkey mind.
The very things we do to try to control anxiety can make anxiety worse.
This unique guide offers a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)-based approach to help
recognize the constant chatter of anxious “monkey mind,”
stop feeding anxious thoughts,
find the personal peace craved.
Ancient sages compared the human mind to a monkey: constantly chattering, hopping [discursively] from one branch to another—endlessly trying to move from fear to safety.
For the millions of people's lives affected by anxiety, this process is familiar. Unfortunately, we can’t switch off this “monkey mind.” But we can stop feeding the monkey—stop rewarding it by avoiding the things we fear.
Written by psychotherapist Jennifer Shannon, this book shows how to stop anxious thoughts from taking over using proven-effective cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), and mindfulness (sati) techniques, as well as fun illustrations.
By following the exercises in this book, learn to identify anxious thoughts, question those thoughts, and uncover the core fears at play.
Once we stop feeding the monkey, there are no limits to how expansive life can feel. This book shows how anxiety can only continue as long as we try to avoid it. Paradoxically, only by seeking out and confronting the things that make us anxious can we reverse the cycle that keeps our fears alive. More
Author Stanford University Social Psychologist Dr. Philip Zimbardo and Dr. John Boyd have 4.4 out of 5 stars (with 326 reviews).
Our every significant choice -- every important decision we make -- is determined by a force operating deep inside our mind: our perspective on time -- our internal, personal time zone.
This is the most influential force in our life, yet we are virtually unaware of it. Once we become aware of our personal time zone, we can begin to see and manage our life in exciting new ways.
In The Time Paradox, Dr. Zimbardo and Dr. Boyd draw on 30 years of pioneering research to reveal, for the first time, how our individual time perspective shapes our life and is shaped by the world around us.
Further, they demonstrate that our and every other individual's time zones interact to create national cultures, economics, and personal destinies.
No matter our time perspective, we experience these paradoxes. Only by understanding this new psychological science of time zones will we be able to overcome the mental biases that keep us too attached to the past, too focused on immediate gratification, or unhealthily obsessed with future goals.
Time passes no matter what we do; it's up to us to spend it wisely and enjoy it well. More
(Be Inspired) May 27, 2025: "We don't live in REAL time."
We’re always living 100 milliseconds in the past. This video shows the mind-bending science behind why the "present" doesn’t really exist. Dr. Bruce Lipton agrees?
AFFILIATE DISCLOSURE: There may be a few links in this description that, at no cost to buyer, will earn us a commission if one chooses to click them and make a purchase
Don’t worry. Be Inspired only recommends products it knows and trusts. This Man Discovered a Glitch in Reality
I won $10,000,000 and have never been happier. Oh, wait, I would have burned it if I'd known
Life is short. What’s the purpose of living? | Buddhist Wisdom
(Buddhism Podcast) Buddhism Explained. Life is short — but what is it really for? This video looks into the quiet question many of us carry: Why are we here, and what gives life meaning? Using simple Buddhist wisdom, it shows how our constant chasing and avoiding can lead to deep restlessness. Instead of trying to fix life, we can learn to be fully present with it [to see it for what it really is and, seeing it, letting go and thereby being liberated from it]. The answer may not be something we find, but something we live.
00:00 - The question beneath all questions — Why ask at all?
04:03 - The Endless Cycle — chasing happiness, fleeing from sorrow
08:07 - The ripple of our actions — Why death isn’t an escape
14:40 - The Middle Path — walking through life, not around it
18:14 - The point is presence — Living the answer in this moment
Impatient? Rush to Minute 2:37 to hear Christian approach and the Devil's opposition to being good
What is the Zen way to liberation? Kindergarten
Imagine beginning the Rains Retreat (Buddhist Lent known as Vas) with the idea of being good. Mara will come right at you like an angel of light (Mara Devaputra, Cupid, Eros, Kamadeva) and undermine your efforts, won't he? That's his modus operandi, as Alan Watts explains. But Taoism, and therefore Zen Buddhism, has a solution: Don't let him know what you're doing. One must act without intention, without premeditation, without the goal or outcome in mind so as to not let him know what we're up to on our path to be good. Otherwise, he'll just come along and ruin our efforts like taking candy from an old person or trying to give veggies to a baby: They'll fight you.
Not 40 days, but for more than 40 years, Alan Watts has earned a reputation as one of the foremost Western interpreters of Eastern philosophy.
Beginning at age 16, when he wrote essay for the journal of the Buddhist Lodge in London, Watts developed an audience of millions who were enriched by the wisdom of the East through his books, recordings, radio shows, public television programs, and public lectures.
In all, Watts wrote more than 25 books and recorded hundreds of lectures, all building toward a personal philosophy that he shares in complete candor and joy with readers and listeners throughout the world.
Insight can do what the ego cannot do by doing. - Philosophy or sophistry? Does Watts go too far?
Sixties icon? He was at it since before the 1950s.
His overall body of work has presented a model of individuality and self-expression matched by few philosophers, modern or ancient.
KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles continues to air Watts on Sunday mornings (8:00 am) and during Something's Happening midnights on Thursdays overnight to Friday.
(After Skool) Jan. 7, 2025: In this animation, Alan Watts explains how most of us are failing to experience the reality of life for what it really is. We get so caught up in language, ego, time, money, "problems," and distractions that we miss the beauty of the present moment -- the eternal Now.
It's an inspirational and profound speech on the real and tangible here and now. What were we previously thinking, carrying on and going about on autopilot?
WARNING: This is NOT a test run. This is your real life. Live.
Original audio sourced from: “Alan Watts - Limits of Language-2."
► Follow the Alan Watts Organization:
Speech courtesy of alanwatts.org. Instagram: alanwattsorg. Facebook: alanwattsauthor. YouTube: @alanwattsorg
Capitalism (via the Hallmark Corporation) compels us to shop for others, and what do you get for someone who understands nothing you say, like the friendly monk at the Buddhist temple. It would be nice to clarify his wisdom and answers to our many questions without the embarrassing pressing and straining to communicate or having a bad human translator present to apologize, sway, and utter euphemisms in place of real answers. If AI can't, maybe this tiny device can. This is not a cellphone app and does not need to connect to Wi-Fi to work.
I don't remember. All I know is that Decoy's human, Shohei, hit a 50/50 ball, some lady guy in a green shirt (see below) dropped it after almost catching it, and now it's going up for auction. Ohtani’s 50th home run ball heads to auction (MSN) And the short and long of it is, I must have THIS ball.
Why this one? I'll get you one just like it from the Dodger's souvenir shop, and if you really want, I'll forge his signature like his translator would in a situation like this.
Are you mad?! Are you insane?! Are you bonkers?! It has to be this one, different than all the others in all the universes in all the world. He's the Great Golden Hope!
Don't gamble. The Fix Is Still In
Golden?
Yellow, gold, whatever! He is the pride of Japan, the pride of Los Angeles, the pride of baseball! And a bat he was holding dented and nearly knocked the stuffing out of this precious globe, and if I don't get it, I will -- no, no, there will be no contingency plan. I have to outbid everyone on the auction block. That's all there is to it.
He's married, you know? (See video below).
WHAT?!?! Nooooo! We were supposed to best buds bonded in baseball glory, for the love of the game, boys only! Or he could marry my sister so we could always hang out!!
What is your back up plan just in case someone else steals the grand prize and outbids you?
I do have one, sadly. I just don't know if it'll catch on among millions of fans and create a viable market to profit from selling in the future:
There are prepared raps, and there are on-the-fly, by-the-seat-of-your-pants raps in a flow state
There are rumored to be whites who overcome their stiff awkwardness and get with the flow
White men can't jump, but some may be able to kickstart Broca's area in the brain and GO.
"Nice job." This white man can hump jump...on anyone in front of him because he loves pizza.
Can culture foster flow states as a common expectation of the natural range of human ability?
What would hip hop and rap have been without the magic of dropping into flow?
.
Irishmen can rap, at least in Gaelic and on drugs.
Life is better when everything flows and "goes swimmingly." What is that magic, ease, and effortlessness? It seems to be the spontaneous way of being Zen is constantly harping about and elevating to spiritual status.
When we are calm and confident (full of relaxation and faith), we tend to be able to speak without hesitating or halting, stammering or stuttering, thinking or pausing.
It is pleasant for all, full of ease, and joyful for the natural actor who is simply living, simply being rather than doing. All life can be like that, unpremeditated, artless, authentic?
The "zone," the "zone," where is the zone? Twilight Zone? Drugged state? Zen and [the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance"] the art of relaxation?
Where's science when we really need it? Tell us how to get it! Breakthrough alert:
Flow state uncovered: We finally know what happens in the brain when we're "in the zone"
Meditative absorption flows with ease
Many of us know the feeling of being "in the zone" as we're fully immersed in a task [absorbed = jhana = Zen], the background noise of the world fades and we may not notice time passing or things going on around us. [It is sweet relief, producing piti].
Gymnasts may enter this all-consuming mental state as they're refining a floor routine, an artist might find "the zone" when adding delicate brushstrokes to a painting, and writers might enter it as they're crafting the climax of a chapter.
Life can be full of bliss and ease (piti and sukha).
They conducted a new brain-scan study that has finally revealed which regions of the brain are activated in the midst of a creative flow state.
Their findings contradict one popular theory of flow while supporting another, and they seem to reveal the key ingredients needed to get "in the zone.":
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