Pathways Theme: "Stay Teachable" August 1, 2022
Do you practice “mindfulness” or have you succumbed to “mind-fullness”?
“Mindfulness is the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, without being overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us.” The practice can shift how we are in the world, moving us from reactivity to calm, chosen responsiveness.
Mindfulness has gone mainstream. “Gurus” of every kind have popped up everywhere from spiritual communities and churches to corporate boardrooms. There are myriad benefits of mindfulness even when practiced haphazardly and even greater benefits when practiced consciously and artfully.
There is a vast difference between “mindfulness” a contemplative practice and “mind-fullness” a state of having so much knowledge and/or busyness that there isn’t space for new insights. Innovation and creativity are blocked. Learning is constricted if not actually stopped. Some people are so attached to their own perspective that different perspectives are condemned and rejected before being investigated. Thinking is a good thing, however, thinking to the exclusion of allowing space for original thought, is not productive. Receptivity is essential to possibility thinking – to innovation.
In Zen Buddhism, there is a story about Japanese Master named Nan-in who lived during the Meiji era (1868-1912). During his days as a teacher, he was visited by a university professor curious about Zen.
Being polite, Nan-in served the professor a cup of tea.
As he poured, the professor’s cup became full, but Nan-in kept on pouring. As the professor watched the cup overflow, he could no longer contain himself and said, “It is overfull. No more will go in!”
Nan-in turned to the professor and said, “Like the cup, you are too full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”
Interestingly, this is a human challenge. Within nature, being teachable is a matter of life or death. Learning is essential to the flow of life. There is, an ebbing and flowing, throughout nature: giving and receiving, learning and teaching, loving and being loved, listening and speaking, buying and selling. All aspects of life are cyclical.
When teaching about circulation, I have students close their fists as tightly as they can and then I try to pry the open to give them money. They cannot receive from the flow of abundance when they have closed themselves off. A closed fist cannot receive the generosity of the world. A closed mind cannot receive the wisdom that abounds around us.
This exchange process applies to giving and receiving assistance – assistance that is deeply desired but is pushed away by not being a willing recipient. Whether it’s physical aid or collaboration, when the circulatory system is stifled all parties suffer. This is true physiologically, ecologically and psychologically.
In the Old Testament a cup running over was a symbol of abundance and considered a very good thing. In the Zen Buddhist story, a cup running over is quite the opposite. It is not about the cup nor its contents. It is about how we relate to them.
Ask yourself: Do I accept the blessing of the contents and set it free to bless others? Or am I attached to having been chosen for the blessing of a full cup? And, by chance, am I so full of myself that I am unaware that there is a cup – empty or full? Perhaps I am so full of myself that I am no longer available to learn from new experiences. Where is the void into which new can flow?
The tendrils of the original question “Are you mindful or mind-full?” wander in all directions. Prejudices such as racism are rooted in this same arena. Prejudice is nothing other than prejudgments made based on assumptions drawn from rumors and gossip, then perpetrated on others. When we allow ourselves to be so full of our opinions, we shut down our growth potential and stop evolving. If we shut down before learning, how can we be anything other than stuck, allowing the past to dictate our future?
Practicing mindfulness can be a tremendous aid if we want to remain open to learning and growing. Watching and listening to ourselves– observing our reactions and interactions, we can note our reactivity and investigate what beliefs are lurking inside us that caused certain behaviors. We can look at those behaviors to see if they presently serve us or ever did. How can we grasp how it is to be someone else, if we dishonor their uniqueness by assuming that their life experience is similar to ours? We must first drop our assumptions and change our perceptual filters. This is not easy. We see, hear, and feel through our own filters thus diminishing our ability to perceive the experiences of others. Many assume that this only happens among people of different ethnicities, socio-economic groups, etc., which is just another assumption. People who share many commonalities frequently impose their prejudgments on one another. All our life experiences are different!! Each of us is unique.
Mindfulness is an excellent tool to heighten your awareness of your own other -than-conscious behaviors that result in “mind-fullness” and render us unteachable.
Practicing mindfulness may cause you to awaken from a lifelong slumber – you may discover that you have been sleepwalking through life, allowing your past to direct your thoughts, words, and actions. I invite you to take a two-part challenge - be your own observer:
1. Keep a log of how many actions you take each day that you do, “because that is how you always have.”
2. Keep another log of all your original thoughts, innovations, creativity.
Choose what you will do with what you discover. Will you default to how it has always been, or will you choose to stay awake, stay alive and learn something new every day.
Rev Trish Hall came home to Science of Mind in the mid-1980’s. She walked in the doors of a Religious
Science Church and instantly remembered the loving embrace of a spiritual community very much like
the one she had attended with one of her best friends as a child. The cross cultural array into which she
was welcomed filled the gaps she had experienced in the interim. She immediately started taking
classes and volunteering. She never questioned – this was the teaching that pulled all of her searching
and studies together into one practical way of life. She was home.
She licensed as a Professional Practitioner in 1991 and graduated from Holmes Institute with a Master of
Divinity in 2001. Rev Trish is a regular contributor to the Science of Mind Magazine. She has served
what is now Centers for Spiritual Living as a Regional Support Coordinator for 10 years, as Chair of the
Lifelong Learning Committee that designs cutting-edge spiritual education through the World Ministry
of Prayer and on the Global Services Committee. Having served in two prior pulpits, she became the
founding minister of Center for Spiritual Living Metro in 2015.
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