Mindfulness Journal #6: Mindfulness Conference

Today I attended an all-day conference on mindfulness and meditation with Terry Fralich, a former student of H.H. The Dalia Lama and Jon Kabat-Zinn. The conference focused equally on cultivating mindfulness, the neurobiology of mindfulness, and how to impart mindfulness practices and philosophies to patients and clients when appropriate.

Here are some nuggets:

---Two parents and their teenage son are walking across a barren desert landscape. The father turns to the son and says, "Stop asking when we're going to get there already. We're nomads, for crying out loud."

---If you have time to worry, why don't you have time to meditate?

---In Tibetan, the word meditation means "to become familiar with"

---We live in an age of "data smog" and "techno-stress"

---Mindfulness is full-hearted presence, which translates into presence/intention and kindness towards the self

---The reality of the moment multiplied by my reactions = suffering

---If my thoughts were a movie, I'd get up, walk out, and probably ask for my money back.