By Jessica Zack — 2020
Like a lot of people with newfound interest in Buddhist meditation, Jarvis Jay Masters struggled at first to sit still and quiet his mind.
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Religion is so diverse and nuanced a subject that it’s nearly impossible to encapsulate all of the world’s major religions in just a few words. But we’re going to try anyway. This is an entry point for understanding the basics of the world’s major religions.
A calm mind and even temper can help make peace with life’s difficulties.
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Here’s the simplest way to practice mindfulness: stop whatever you’re doing and shift your attention to the physical sensation of a few breaths as they come in and go out of your body. This plants you squarely in the present moment.
Providing ways for people to share their perspectives through storytelling initiatives can contribute to bigger changes in society and even help reduce prejudice.
We tend to “believe” in the woke-ness that is “performed” for us. “The more vocal you are, the more confident you appear. And because you appear more confident, you seem to have more influence on other people, who believe you’ll be great at practicing what you claim too,” she says.
An everyday, add-on benefit of fighting injustice is building trust in ourselves, exercising our moral fiber, and strengthening our moral muscles for the next decision point.
While it may be tempting to dismiss what some have called “mindfulness culture,” we should not dismiss mindfulness itself.
We are all mindless much of the time, even though we don’t realize it.
Many of us are experiencing an awakening as we realize to whom we have given a fair amount of authority over our collective lives. Our global narrative has been amplified with some surreal impending atrocities, whether it is by a storm of nature or a storm of conscious or unconscious thinking.
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The opportunity of these times is calling us all to remember the power of inner silence-not a silence that condones hate, injustice, or lies, but a silence that speaks loud enough to find solutions that return us to values and virtues.