positive psychology books, mindfulness books, positive psychology news
In her article Mindfulness: A Call to Clarification, Kirsten Cronlund (Positive Psychology News Daily) notes a metaphor that can serve for resilience, equanimity and Wu-wei, the experience of “knowing when to act and when not to act.”
She writes, “A widely used metaphor in Eastern philosophy likens a wise person to a stream flowing down a mountain.
“The direction of the stream is determined by the pull of gravity and the slant of the mountain, but the actual path is constantly shifting and changing.
“When the stream encounters an obstacle – say a boulder or a thick tangle of sticks – it doesn’t stop flowing, and it doesn’t waste its energy in forcing a path through inpenetrable obstacles.”
She quotes from the book Positive Psychology: The Scientific and Practical Explorations of Human Strengths that Mindfulness is “attending nonjudgmentally to all stimuli in the internal and external environments.”
This is one of the values of mindfulness - to gain more emotional stability, which is no small thing.
The Dalai Lama says, “If we are calm, even if we are confronted by a serious problem, we will know how to handle it.
“To utilize our human intelligence fully, we need calmness. If we become unstable through anger, it is difficult for us to use our intelligence well. When we are overly influenced by negative thoughts, our intelligence becomes tarnished.”
From “Cultivating Altruism” in A. Kotler. Engaged Buddhist Reader.
positive psychology books, mindfulness books, positive psychology news
She writes, “A widely used metaphor in Eastern philosophy likens a wise person to a stream flowing down a mountain.
“The direction of the stream is determined by the pull of gravity and the slant of the mountain, but the actual path is constantly shifting and changing.
“When the stream encounters an obstacle – say a boulder or a thick tangle of sticks – it doesn’t stop flowing, and it doesn’t waste its energy in forcing a path through inpenetrable obstacles.”
She quotes from the book Positive Psychology: The Scientific and Practical Explorations of Human Strengths that Mindfulness is “attending nonjudgmentally to all stimuli in the internal and external environments.”
This is one of the values of mindfulness - to gain more emotional stability, which is no small thing.
The Dalai Lama says, “If we are calm, even if we are confronted by a serious problem, we will know how to handle it.
“To utilize our human intelligence fully, we need calmness. If we become unstable through anger, it is difficult for us to use our intelligence well. When we are overly influenced by negative thoughts, our intelligence becomes tarnished.”
From “Cultivating Altruism” in A. Kotler. Engaged Buddhist Reader.