A NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION IN 6 ACTS

1. Stop.

2. Take a deep breath in and out.

3. Bring attention to the sensations of your breath, your body and the environment you find yourself in.

4. When you feel tensions, release them down into the earth with every outbreath.

5. Keep your attention in your body as best you can, and if it wonders like a puppy, just bring it back.

6. Keep going about your day in slower motion.

CONTEMPLATION ON CHRISTMAS

Most people I talk to tell me how they look forward to the day after Christmas, when the circus is over and they can relax. Of course we all enjoy the benign chaos of getting together in festivities with our loved ones. However, for deeper contemplation the day after Christmas seems to be ideal.

It is in this window of down time between two notes, the chaos of Christmas and the stress of going back to work in the new year, that I am trying to catch you and draw your attention with this newsletter.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ASKING

'WHO AM I?'

Psychological theories and treatment approaches assume our involvement as protagonists of our life story without usually questioning who or what the protagonist is. For example, if I feel sad, I investigate the reasons and circumstances of 'my' sadness without ever inquiring into who or what the 'I' is that feels sad.

When we begin to shift our inquiry towards that energy which assumes authorship of our emotional states, conscious actions and identities, a whole new field of understanding opens up with its own methods of inquiry and deep healing potential. This field is existential and contextual in its nature; existential because we examine the reality we create from the perspective of questioning the very foundations of the 'I' that creates subjective experience; contextual because it connects us with the unfathomably vast context of reality beyond our left-brain conceptual grasping that limits our identity to the boundaries of the skin.

THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS

Christmas is a good time to remember that we have the potential to be Christ if we know how to activate this archetype in us. The birth of Christ symbolizes the birth of the light of awareness, which is why humans placed it around the time of greatest darkness in the year's cycle, the winter solstice. When the light of awareness can be born, the darkness begins to recede and the days of consciousness get longer.

The question is 'what awareness are we talking about?' Christmas is not about the birth of human awareness on the evolutionary stage. It is about the birth of a different kind of awareness that requires training if we so chose to heed its call.

The fact that at Christmas so many people who usually never go to church flock to it like herds of sheep not really knowing why they go, except for the fact that their neighbors go, suggests the existence of an inner calling, however faint, that pulls at the heart strings. But for most the calling remains just that, and they don't know how to or can't be bothered to heed it; because to heed this call will be the most difficult thing you'll ever do in your life as the Christ's passion reminds us. It will be to engage the path of mindful awareness.

To heed the call and let the light of mindful awareness be born in this life of yours means to begin the journey of practice, the practice of mindful awareness. This requires you to be taught by teachers on the path - then only will you embody the birth of the Christ we all are, and realize the real meaning of Christmas.

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I wish you all a mindful end of the old year and a mindful beginning of the new year.

With kind regards,

Dr. T.

News & Notables

2014/2015 Public Lecture Series

The neuroscience of mindfulness

Ongoing

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Programs - Expanded Version

Mindsight Intensives to make mindfulness a way of life.

The meetings of the

Mindfulness Community Group

are ongoing on Wednesday nights.