Quote
Mindfulness focuses entirely on the specific conditions of one’s day-to-day experience. It is not concerned with anything transcendent or divine.
I love this specific distinction between dogmatic Spirituality and Secular Spirituality. It opened my mind to experiment with techniques that are usually found in theology but can be applied in a more scientific manner
related references
I liked reading about the difference between buddhism and the (less “religious”) dhamma of siddharta gotama and now understand what Stephen means with secular buddhism. The book is written as a comprehensive collection of all the stories that were known about gotama, which was bit much for me. I liked the parts where Stephen explained his interpretations best.
Link to original
Meditation
personal history
- Started investigating Meditation in 2017 after listening to the Russel Brand podcast with Sharon Salzberg, talking about her book Real Happiness The Power of Meditation
- She pointed to the origin of secular meditation as researched by [Jon Kabat Zinn], that coined the term mindfullness meditation and used it as scientifically proven pain relief program Mindfulness Meditation for Pain Relief
- Further research into the Spirituality sources of meditation led me to Buddhism. I found particular interest in the term “secular buddhism” from the book Confession of a Buddhist Atheist, as it is a very practical and “discover for yourself” approach without dogma
- Discovering the Making Sense meditation app by Sam Harris, branching out to his Making Sense podcast that I’ve listened to a whole lot.
- closely related to Boredom, and the importance of embracing boredom instead of distracting yourself
links
Link to original
Transclude of Open-je-hart