Mickey Rooney and you and me - Chimpanzees or Bonobos?
In my small mindfulness class, we always end our meetings with tea and nuts.
We eat and drink in silence. We focus on what we put on our mouths. When we drink tea we can imagine the rain and the water from the lake Mälaren. We can imagine the process of cleaning the water before we can drink it. When you heat the water we have to use energy and as it in my home comes from water and wind I can be quite satisfied.
The last time, while I ate the nuts I could easily imagine the people working with them, seeding the plants and picking the nuts. But then I thought of the pesticides used to grow the nuts. I first imagined the chemical that could come into the bodies of the group. But then I swiftly imaged the farmers and the birds and insects that could be polluted by the pesticides - and I decides to nest time look for more eco-friendly nuts.
I guess that's what mindfulness is for. If you take compassion out of mindfulness it will be just a kind of training
The compassion is a natural continuation of he experience that we have no central "me".
But perhaps also from the insight that evolution and your instincts will not make you happy.
You can buy a car that is a little better than your neighbor's, or you can be promoted in your work. But soon your neighbor has bought an even bigger car and your job is making your hair gray.
The evolution wants to challenge you but are just interested to see if will survive so you can spread your genes. Mickey Rooney, the actor that died recently, was married eight times and had nine children.
But was he happy?
But you can challenge evolution if you start meditate...
But you can come to the "non-me conclusion" also without mindfulness.
Also writers and researches as Robert Kurzban shows us, in a more scientific context, that we have no commander in our head...
Maybe the commander is Evolution. Kurzban argues for that the brain functions like a machine or an i-pad.
But with mindfulness you can take at least a small step back from evolution and perhaps look at all of us with compassion; the young man looking for girls everywhere is driven by it, all of us that are looking for status in at least some way, and we have to do it.
But I would say that we act not as machines but more like monkeys, And if we look at the monkeys that we share most genes with, we will find not just chimps, that can be very aggressive. Why not chose their neighbors on the other side of the Kongo-river; the bonobos:
The example of the different monkey-behavior also, for sure, shows that not only the genes is the commanders, but also the culture - and here probably the matriarchy-culture of the bonobos....
We eat and drink in silence. We focus on what we put on our mouths. When we drink tea we can imagine the rain and the water from the lake Mälaren. We can imagine the process of cleaning the water before we can drink it. When you heat the water we have to use energy and as it in my home comes from water and wind I can be quite satisfied.
The last time, while I ate the nuts I could easily imagine the people working with them, seeding the plants and picking the nuts. But then I thought of the pesticides used to grow the nuts. I first imagined the chemical that could come into the bodies of the group. But then I swiftly imaged the farmers and the birds and insects that could be polluted by the pesticides - and I decides to nest time look for more eco-friendly nuts.
I guess that's what mindfulness is for. If you take compassion out of mindfulness it will be just a kind of training
The compassion is a natural continuation of he experience that we have no central "me".
But perhaps also from the insight that evolution and your instincts will not make you happy.
You can buy a car that is a little better than your neighbor's, or you can be promoted in your work. But soon your neighbor has bought an even bigger car and your job is making your hair gray.
The evolution wants to challenge you but are just interested to see if will survive so you can spread your genes. Mickey Rooney, the actor that died recently, was married eight times and had nine children.
But was he happy?
But you can challenge evolution if you start meditate...
But you can come to the "non-me conclusion" also without mindfulness.
Also writers and researches as Robert Kurzban shows us, in a more scientific context, that we have no commander in our head...
But with mindfulness you can take at least a small step back from evolution and perhaps look at all of us with compassion; the young man looking for girls everywhere is driven by it, all of us that are looking for status in at least some way, and we have to do it.
But I would say that we act not as machines but more like monkeys, And if we look at the monkeys that we share most genes with, we will find not just chimps, that can be very aggressive. Why not chose their neighbors on the other side of the Kongo-river; the bonobos:
The example of the different monkey-behavior also, for sure, shows that not only the genes is the commanders, but also the culture - and here probably the matriarchy-culture of the bonobos....
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