Simple Mindfulness

Dictionaries commonly define mindfulness as: a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feeling, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

Not a bad definition on the face of it. However, with a little digging you’ll notice that this definition allows no room for one’s spiritual self. It is not uncommon for modern proponents of meditation to completely remove or at least minimize all traces of spirit from consideration.

I think we can agree that some allowance for our experience of our spiritual nature should be reintroduced into the notion of what is mindfulness. Continue reading

Why It Happened

In 1976 three men kidnapped a bus full of children (26) along with the bus driver. After driving around for more than 11 hours they kids and the driver were forced into a tracker trailer van and buried underground. Eventually the bus driver and some of the older boys managed climb up through a metal lid lid in the ceiling (held down with hundreds of pounds of batteries. Sixteen hours later the driver and all the children emerged from the van, but they never managed to leave the incident behind them.

If you look in wikipedia for “1976 Chowchilla kidnapping” you can find some of the details of this unfortunate incident. However, you won’t find reference to the study outlined in this blog. Continue reading

Heed the Calling

An internet friend sent the following question:

“For some time now, I have been feeling something lacking or missing inside me. My heart wants something to do but don’t know what it is.  I tried busying myself in my job or in seeing movies or in reading spiritual books, etc. But it is not working.  My innermost wants something to discover but also doesn’t know what. I feel the potential inside me is wasting.  I don’t know how to find it or discover it.”

When we incarnate on this planet we have an agenda. This agenda is our agenda. Not the agenda of the body, not the agenda of society, not the agenda of the species. This agenda belongs to our innermost self. Continue reading

Things We Do

Being in a machine that is depressed is an undeniable bummer.

It can make it hard to work, hard to play, hard to do anything.

If one has a sunburn we know what to do… and we do it. We don’t get all weird thinking the therapy is too silly to follow through on. No, we apply the lotion, stay out of the sun, drink extra fluids — in general follow all of the tried and true methods for helping the situation — while it somehow fixes it self.

The things we do don’t necessarily “fix” the situation. But they may help while it goes about getting fixed — or in some cases just falling off the radar. Continue reading

Most Important Exercise

Recently a friend asked the following: “what do you think is the singular most important exercise/practice of all those you’ve worked with over the years?”

The answer to this not a simple one. Well, maybe it is simple, but definitely not easy to explain. But, I’ll give it a go.

First I will answer in the broad sense.

The single most important practice for me has been “The Way of Service.” So that is the simple part. But what exactly is “The Way of Service” — that is the not so easy to explain part. Continue reading

Computer Rescue Squad

What was the Computer Rescue Squad? And, if we were starting today what would it be like?

Computer Rescue Squad started in the very early 1980’s. Personal computers were brand new. The idea of having a computer and using it for business was a new concept. All of a sudden you had to have a computer. But, no one knew how to use them.

So the Computer Rescue Squad was formed with the business model of solving people’s computer problems. Rescuing them from the glorious pitfalls and conundrums the new technology has introduced. This included printer setup, writing device drivers to connect peripherals, training, retrieval of deleted data, creation of custom programs and hardware repair. Continue reading

Entrepreneurial Adventures

Recently the following questions asked through facebook:

  • Is the point ultimately to make a living from one of these entrepreneurship adventures?
  • How many people have actually done this?
  • Why did you choose to go into website building instead of making a living from one of the adventures.?

I’ll do what I can to give my perspective on these questions. And, fyi, I’m answering the questions here because of a suspicion that others may have some or all of the same questions. Continue reading

The Cost of Social Media

Every like, share, review and/or post comes with a price — incrementally this price is not large; but, collectively significant.

What is the price? Exposure of yourself. Exposure in ways that we don’t understand and can’t anticipate. Exposure to the collective maws (see below) of corporate titans that use our history and our lives as a commodity to be sold down the stream to those who would convert us into media dominated zombies — i.e. good consumers.

If I am going to pay this price, I want to do it on behalf of something that matters to me. For me, I do it as part of the way of service.

Def: maw noun the jaws or throat of a voracious animal.