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Pollution: why the real danger is in our own minds

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Pollution is always high on the agenda, and quite rightly so. The planet as we know it is in great danger. But the source of the pollution isn’t in the physical. It lies in the mind or the collective consciousness of humanity. As a race, we have allowed it to happen. We all know this but so far have failed to generate sufficient willpower to reverse it. The problem of pollution, and its solution, lies in the mind. That’s even closer to home than your own wheelie bin.

Like pollution, there is more to the mind than you think

If we ever try to examine the nature of our mind, we will probably find that there is no single thing we can actually identify as mind. Instead, there is a collection of interacting and interdependent faculties or components.

The mindstream

The most apparent and obvious aspect is the chattering of thoughts that we experience almost incessantly. One thought yields another and it is difficult to say when one thought ends and another begins. A pollution thoughts streambetter description might be that we have streams of thinking and a rather apt term used in some Eastern teachings is mindstream. As we shall see, this is susceptible to pollution.

We don’t change our minds – the mind is constantly changing

Our mindstreams are constantly changing, being influenced by the mindstreams of others. If we are influenced by something we read or hear, it is an effect of the mindstream of the writer or speaker. In turn, he or she will have been influenced. If we look deeply enough, we will find that there is no beginning and no end to these thought processes. At every stage, too, there is the possibility of pollution.

Choice and responsibility

Just as a stream of water collects minerals, debris and pollutants on its journey, our mindstreams also pick up thoughts, ideas and beliefs as we go through life. Unlike water, we have some choice in what we expose ourselves to, and how much.

The amount of information that is available these days is frightening. We need to be choosy and, the less rubbish in our minds, the better we will feel about ourselves and others. We will be less likely to pollute the mindstreams of others with our own detritus and, who knows, may even inspire with our positivity!

Adapted extract from the book The Art of Not Doing

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Passion is life: why we are dead if we don’t have it

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Passion is not something we get very excited about very often. Let me re-phrase that. Passion is something we don’t get excited about often enough. Why? Because without passion there is no heat, no fire and no life. A person who chooses not to be passionate about life is like smouldering coal or damp firewood. The energy is there, inside – but produces little warmth. When we are like that, we are half-asleep. Something in us is slumbering and needs waking up.

Passion is light, life and fire

When we are enthusiastic about something, it is as if we have thrown a switch. The lights come on, our eyes sparkle and our skin seems to glow. We feel good, don’t we? When we feel passionate, it is as though we have become more alive. Our speech is more animated and we have the power to motivate. Passion is good! Or is it? Is it just trouble ahead?

passion fire

Emotions are not bad

I have met many people over the years who want to become “more spiritual”. In their quest, they have come across teachings that describe emotions as being problematical. So following that logic, they decide that they need to train themselves into overcoming them. Or avoiding them. They aim to become the colourless sap of the tree instead of being the glorious effulgence of the tree itself. The error there is that if we do that, instead of allowing consciousness to flow, we tend to block it. In blocking the flow of consciousness, we also obstruct the natural flow of energy in and around us.

Love life and all is good

To have passion for life is not to let the emotions run riot. Rather, it is about letting our natural inner light do its job of illuminating what we do. And all we have to do is be interested and love. We don’t need to make a drama out of mindfulness or turn it into a tough discipline. Just loving what we do, being genuinely interested in others and our world will naturally generate mindfulness. Let the awareness expand and fill the senses. Be natural, be life, be alive. It’s so much better than being dead.

This theme will be explored further in our evening workshop Mind – The Way to Bliss on Monday 3rd April 2017. More information.

Read more on passion in life in the book Awakening Heart: The Blissful Path to Self-Realisation

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Mind secrets: amazing space, amazing peace

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“Mind – what does it actually look like?” someone once asked me. They had just had their first experience of meditation. The question threw me for a moment as it came outside the normal ambit of practical questions, such as the best time to practise. I’d never thought of anyone assuming that the mind looked like anything. The natural response, which I gave a moment later, is that it doesn’t have any appearance or shape. It is rather like space.

Mind – can it be measured?

But the question arose because we have a habit of labelling everything as this or that. As an old scientist friend once told me, “According to science, if you cannot weigh it or measure it, it doesn’t exist.” My questioner wanted to be able to label the mind, or at least to quantify it.

If we turned the inquiry round a little bit, we might ask how space can be measured or weighed. A quantum physicist may have some good answers to that but in layman’s terms, you can only measure the distance between objects, not space itself. If you take the objects away, there is still space.

A conventional description of mind might be that it is the sum total of our thoughts, beliefs, perceptions and so on. Does that mean that if they stop, the mind ceases to be?

Mind – the illustrious container

Everything we see, hear, smell, taste or touch, we analyse. Because we analyse, we separate. This is different to that. Then we can filter it into our memory as beneficial or harmful, pleasant or unpleasant, neutral and so on. More significantly, by assigning quality to what we perceive, we regard everything as distinct from us.

If we look at a flower, it appears to be outside us. But all our observations, our perceptions and analyses take place within us. The only thing we see is a mental picture. If we look out of the window, all we see is within the mind. It is a mental picture.

Amazing space

If we stop thinking for a few moments, we may fleetingly experience the space-like nature of mind. Then the jumble comes back in. But if we make a habit of stopping, of observing without thinking, we will experience more of our space. And because space is space, we may be lucky enough to realise that the space of our environment – the “out there” – is one and the same as the space of the mind – the “in here”.

This is extraordinary. Then the mind relaxes, worry ceases, peace comes and bliss arises. That really is amazing space.

More on this in The Art of Not Doing

Free guided meditations

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Energy: how to improve it for personal and spiritual development

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fiery energy

Energy matters almost as much as our thoughts.

In our quest for peace, clarity and enlightenment, we cannot afford to ignore the energy factor. If the energy of the body is free, the body is aligned and the nervous system is in good condition, our consciousness becomes clearer and more at ease.

Energy and posture

Many teachings on meditation stress the importance of keeping the body in good condition. Maintaining a straight back when sitting for meditation is an example of posture being important. We know from our own experience that if we do things that are not good for the body – maybe overworking, eating late or getting insufficient sleep – we can feel pretty rubbish. Unwittingly, we cloud our consciousness and stir it up.

Winds that change us

This is partly to do with the nervous system and the brain but is also due to the fact that what we call the mind is a play of energy. The Tibetan tradition refers to such movements as winds. This term which helps us to understand that if there is movement in one place, there is an effect in another. There are winds or subtle energy movements both in the body and in the mind. Movement in one causes movement in the other.

Presence, energy and breath

What does this have to do with mindfulness and presence? Two things:

Firstly, by practising mindfulness and continually bringing ourselves back to the breath and to the present moment, the mind becomes calmer. As a result, the energy of the body changes so that we actually begin to feel better. The winds within the body flow more easily and there is less tension and less stress.

Better sleep and improved health

Sleep improves as we become more settled within ourselves. We focus more clearly and our actions during the day are more effective. As the body becomes more comfortable, health tends to be better. With the improved sense of well-being, the body becomes a more supportive vehicle for our consciousness. We work with the mind, which improves the body, and the body, in turn, supports the mind and consciousness. We have more physical and mental energy.

Being fully present

energy listeningThe second point is that with energy comes presence. We can only be fully present if we gather our energy. If someone is speaking to us, we can only listen properly if we offer the speaker our full presence. That means we are focused but also relaxed and receptive. Our consciousness is clear, we are connecting with the other person and with what they are wanting to communicate to us.

The same principle applies to absolutely everything we do. We have to give our full presence to it, not by throwing every last drop of energy we have at the task in hand but by being relaxed and applying ourselves in a balanced way.

Mindfulness is balance, and vice versa

So balanced energy, a balanced life and presence all arise naturally from the practice of mindfulness. Then we hit the vital point by sowing the seeds for a happy, purpose-filled life.

From The Art of Not Doing

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Breathe! How to make yourself come alive

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Breathe in, knowing you are breathing in. Breathe out, knowing you are breathing out.

This injunction, said to come from the lips of the Buddha, is the instant recipe for bringing us, the mind and the body, together. It’s so simple. We know our minds are full of senseless chatter and we know, too, that we waste extraordinary amounts of energy chasing after rainbows – the gewgaws of modern existence. Yet we can cure much of that – all we need to do is stop and be still.

Breathe or not to breathe consciously

It’s funny, isn’t it? On the one hand, we can live without food for long periods and can even manage without water for a considerable time. There may be discomfort but there’s nothing life-threatening about short periods of hunger or thirst. On the other, breath is so vital that the absence of it can very quickly lead to unconsciousness, and possibly death.

In spite of that, we let our breathing take place in the background. “Breathing in, I didn’t notice. Breathing out, I didn’t notice that, either.” It’s an automatic process. So why should we bother to pay any special attention to it?

There are two main reasons:

  1. Being aware of the breath is good for your body and vitality
  2. Your mind becomes clearer and stronger

Conscious breathing strengthens the body

Few people breathe well. Most breathe in a fairly shallow way, where the air circulation is mainly in the top of theBreathe lung capacity lungs. As we age, there is a tendency for lung capacity to reduce year on year, unless we do a lot of cardiovascular training or practise an art such as yoga, pranayama, qigong or tai chi. Reduced lung capacity is often associated with weakening of the body and poor health.

When we breathe consciously, there is a natural deepening of the breath. It isn’t necessary to do deep breathing exercises as such (although they can be enormously beneficial) – just bringing the awareness onto the inhalation has an effect.

…and calms the mind

How we feel from moment to moment hinges largely on the state of our mind. If the mind is erratic or cloudy, we don’t normally feel brilliant. But when the mind is calm, our window onto the world is clearer. Inside, we are more settled.

When we breathe consciously, the mind is naturally more peaceful. It can take a while, but it happens. This is particularly so on the out-breath. The inhalation calms the body, the exhalation calms the mind.

Body and mind at home together

Much of our chasing about in daily life is a wonderful way of avoiding who we are. The body may be here but the mind is not at home. To reverse this, we simply have to stop for a few moments. Notice the breath. Breathe and enjoy the feeling. Enjoy being with yourself. A few breaths will work wonders – and then we can carry on.

Over time, we may notice that during activity, we are conscious of the breath most of the time. That’s a longer project. Every now and again throughout the day, with awareness we just stop and breathe. Then we become present in our body and we are at home.

Doing too much? Take a look at The Art of Not Doing

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