The Mindful Diaries

Session Six: Wrapping it Up

Our last session was bittersweet. I must say: I will appreciate the extra time on Wednesday night that I don’t have to drag myself to the library. I will appreciate being able to focus the last few weeks of the semester on the projects at hand, without feeling the should’s of [...]

Read Full Post »

The Mindful Diaries

Session Five: Gratitude

Besides developing awareness, the ability to sit still and quiet my mind, and some increased flexibility, this mindfulness course has heightened my sense of gratitude. While we live in this erratic society with its constant chatter and cheap gadgets it’s hard to remember the precious things.
These last five weeks have been like a [...]

Read Full Post »

The Mindful Diaries

Session Four: Awareness

 This whole course has been about developing awareness. I didn’t quite know, in the beginning, how to describe mindfulness to friends and family. I tried saying it was the opposite of mindlessness, but that’s not always true. Sometimes, in the throes of meditation, I feel almost like a non-thinking being. Sometimes, when the [...]

Read Full Post »

The Mindful Diaries

Session Three: Mind, Body, Breath

 Arriving at the third session late from taking my mom to the airport, I feel a little frazzled. I guess it was the perfect time for David to introduce yoga, however. Cursing myself for forgetting about this new development and having dressed in stiff jeans and a belt, I grin anyway. [...]

Read Full Post »

The Mindful Diaries

Session Two

I entered the second session feeling rather proud of myself. A few of my friends had dropped out, and there I was, still committed. I don’t mean to sound too proud, it’s just that finding two hours to de-stress as a stressed-out graduate student seems a little counter-intuitive sometimes.
During the session we practiced all [...]

Read Full Post »

The Mindful Diaries

Session One

With only the basic instruction in Zen meditation that I wrote about in my last post, I wasn’t sure what to expect from this Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program. Our teacher, David Jacobs, began the session by saying we’d get the most out of the program if we arrived with an adventurous attitude. [...]

Read Full Post »

The Mindful Diaries

Introduction
My experience with this mindfulness thing began this past summer when I stumbled on a Zen Buddhist monastery. Maybe some teachers would say my quest began years before that, or even before I was born; I’m not sure. All I know is that something happened to me that summer morning that has not quite run [...]

Read Full Post »