==== Coming to Our Senses ====

Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness

  * by Jon Kabat-Zinn

"In a nutshell: The cultivation of mindfulness is not only an invaluable means of appreciating the present moment and healing the body; it is a discipline that opens our senses and gives us a way to cope with the distress and dissatisfaction of our lives and move toward the creation of a better world." (from http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/books/books.php?id=9509)

  * relationality
  * orthogonal institutions
  * thinking turns situations into problems -> situations require a response - require an analysis and observation
  * you make / u have - thinking is a fabrication - a screen between us and direct experience
  * clear thinking is powerful, but often it isn't clear
  * untrained mind-fabricating, proliferation... - invisible
  * seeing it with equanimity
  * less clinging and grasping
  * detecting fabrication
  * like writing on water
  * intention not to make anything
  * do we really know what is happening in an event? (news?)
  * removed from our direct experience until they (events) become our direct experience - can we be orthogonal, inclusive, compassionate, wise?

Shouldn't we be more engaged? 
  * being aware of what we know and not know...
  * not to get caught up and blinded by our blind emotions
  * take practical steps to nurture new possibilities 
  * what are we doing with our creative energies to heal the body politic

Suspension of distraction
  * communing, making eye contact, less absorbed with daily preoccupations
  * wordless presence
  * recognition of dis-ease (9/11)
  * everything is impermanent - institutions can't stop it 
  * things are fundamentally uncertain - terrifying people
  * the mind forgets rapidly
  * embodiment of our deepest principles: linger collectively in suspension of distraction 

Capabilities
  * capturing the full spectrum of our capabilities, rather than narrowing ourselves to only making & thinking
  * massive interior ignoring of who we are and where we live
  * own to our own sentience, come to our senses
  * start paying attention & wake up to things as they are. all else will follow.

(...)

Notes taken while listening to the audiobook:
== Kabat-Zinn, J. (2005). Coming to Our Senses. Hyperion Audiobooks. ==


[[reading notes]]