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Mindfulness


Sherapy

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16 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

I took this one day on a hike back when starfish washed up on the beach, before a bacteria wiped out the entire starfish population. It was magical, one trek Sean and I saw about 3 different species of starfish wash ashore as we walked the shoreline. 

C7FCD81A-CDF4-4511-AAF8-DE108765C91B.jpeg

That's a Pacific Purple Sea Star Piaster Ochraceus. Very beautiful!

Edited by Hammerclaw
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35 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

That's a Pacific Purple Sea Star Piaster Ochraceus. Very beautiful!

In real time, the purple was vibrant, there were bright orange ones and white ones too in the tide pools. 
 

 

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“The total number of minds in the universe is one. In fact, consciousness is a singularity phasing within all beings.”

Nobel Prize-winning Austrian-Irish physicist - Erwin Schroedinger

 

 

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3 minutes ago, Will Do said:

 

“The total number of minds in the universe is one. In fact, consciousness is a singularity phasing within all beings.”

Nobel Prize-winning Austrian-Irish physicist - Erwin Schroedinger

 

 

Not quite.

Rather than Schroedinger, pretty sure a blogger actually made that up. Less than a decade ago. Singularity phasing is a nonsense term as far as I know. 

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7 minutes ago, Will Do said:

 

“The total number of minds in the universe is one. In fact, consciousness is a singularity phasing within all beings.”

Nobel Prize-winning Austrian-Irish physicist - Erwin Schroedinger

 

 

Thanks for your quote Will, care to share the connection to mindfulness or expand on its meaning to you. 

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.

57 minutes ago, Hammerclaw said:

That's a Pacific Purple Sea Star Piaster Ochraceus. Very beautiful!

Patrick Star is real and had been found....

 

images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTYbyXdGxdw0v9P75QI8Lo

 

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17 minutes ago, Sherapy said:

Thanks for your quote Will, care to share the connection to mindfulness or expand on its meaning to you. 

 

Being conscious of the singular mind of the universe is the greatest potential of mindfulness.

 

 

Edited by Will Do
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22 minutes ago, Will Do said:

 

Being conscious of the singular mind of the universe is the greatest potential of mindfulness.

 

 

Thank you for your thoughts, Will. I will consider them. 

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I live and work in a pretty secluded place, surrounded by forest, so my stress levels on a daily basis are pretty low (other than the news of course).  However if I'm not careful (mindful that is) my attention can wander.  When I'm focusing on detailed work, which is often repetitive, I'll be mindful of my breathing and how it synchronizes with what I'm doing.  But I'll also pick up on sounds like bird tweets or insects buzzing outside, or the wind ruffling the trees - which I've noticed will affect my mood, but my attention will remain sharply on what I'm doing, even if it's boring.  If I do this, mindful of the breath as I work intensively, thoughts will tend not to intrude, and my attention won't drift.  That is extremely helpful.

Which is somewhat different than the mindfulness I engage in when I walk in the woods, or work in the garden, where the piquancy of nature and my interaction with it is enveloping and so clarifying.  However, I see my daily meditation as really an engagement in stillness, so I don't think of it in terms of mindfulness but of ceasing the mind's motion...though as @third_eye said, it's all mind at the core. 

Mindfulness progresses to a sense of unity with other beings and things, and from that to expansive compassion, I think.

I had to spend eight days in hospital last year (not Covid related).  I've always been healthy so this came hard to me, and there were unknown factors at first.  I was able to stay mindful and calm because I was used to doing it already, though not in such stressful circumstances.  I knew I was close to slipping into panic and cascading despair, but warded it off, compartmentalizing those feelings and focusing on what I sensed around me and what I was physically feeling as I breathed steadily.  Of course, when I got home I practically hugged my cat into puree.

Edited by The Wistman
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4 hours ago, The Wistman said:

However if I'm not careful (mindful that is) my attention can wander.  When I'm focusing on detailed work, which is often repetitive, I'll be mindful of my breathing and how it synchronizes with what I'm doing.

What's that line again?

I'm fixing A hole... 

Quote

[00.03:14]

~

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As with  all the above comments, this is just my personal perspective 

I no longer remember how to live NOT in a state of mindfulness

There are many aspects to it but it is basically heightened awareness; 

of self   ( mind/ body etc)  

of the environment  around you. Total awareness of everything around you. 

of the interaction between you and  that environment.  Be aware of how you are responding to, and  influencing the environment, (including people) around you

It can encompass past experiences,  and future imaginings, but it is an awareness rooted in the present 

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5 hours ago, psyche101 said:

pretty sure a blogger actually made that up.

Schrodinger believed it, whether he used those exact words (particularly the phasing whatever) is more doubtsful.

In 1944, He gave a widely avaliable essay-lecture What is Life? which has an epilogue. Determinism and Free Will, in which he argues that there is one mind, and that it corresponds with typical western divine notions. The "singularity" business in the quasi-quote may be because he used the Latin phrase singulare tantum ("single as such"), an obscure term for the unusual noun that has no plural grammatical form. Anyway, he clearly regards consciousness as a singulare tantum.

Well, what of consciousnesses, then? In the essay, he asserted that separate consciousnesses (e.g. yours, mine and his are three rather than one) is an illusion:

Quote

... The only possible alternative is simply to keep to the immediate experience that consciousness is a singular of which the plural is unknown; that there is only one thing and even in the that what seems to be a plurality is merely a series of different personality aspects of this one thing, produced by a deception (the Indian MAJA); ...

In a later essay, Mind and Matter, Schrodinger writes:

Quote

There is obviously only one alternative, namely the unification of minds or consciousnesses. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind.

and

Quote

Mind is by its very nature a singulare tantum. I should say: the over-all number of minds is just one.

Is there a closer version still? I don't know. I have some experience with hunting down Jung pseudoquotes which, when they aren't fanciful (as this one isn't, Schrodinger believed what is remarkable about the proposed phrasing), are either mash-ups of things he said in different places or paraphrases of things he probably did believe, but (so far as I can tell) didn't say in the exact words offered. Plus, of course, Jung and Schrodinger both wrote things in German and so translator liberties are possible in some cases.

Will is close enough for government work, IMO, to a correct representation of Schrodinger's beliefs.

Edited by eight bits
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7 minutes ago, eight bits said:

Schrodinger believed it, whether he used those exact words (particularly the phasing whatever) is more doubtsful.

Schrodinger was purely referring to the subatomic particle realm as relative to the 'observer' and how theoretical physics describes it with math equations. 

~

Edited by third_eye
Boredom
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15 minutes ago, third_eye said:

Schrodinger was purely referring to the subatomic particle realm and  theoretical maths. 

He certainly talked about those things in the essays, and What is Life? has some enduring interest as "philosophy of biology" (also as a milestone in the history of science, related to the curiosity that after WWII, so many physicists changed fields and entered biology).

But no, he believed this stuff of people and things in the ordinary sense. He got into Eastern religion and philosophy +/- in his thirties (= after WW I), and stayed with it the rest of his life. Apparently was introduced to this field of ideas through reading Schopenhauer, but then undertook his own study of the Indian scriptures.

Edited by eight bits
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48 minutes ago, eight bits said:

He got into Eastern religion and philosophy +/- in his thirties (= after WW I), and stayed with it the rest of his life.

I have his biography, or autobiography... Not sure, too lazy to go dig at it after I've just cleaned up in preparation for the lunar new year. It's stacked under a big pile of something. 

In his own words... 

Quote

Indeed, Schrödinger was often critical of many Indian ideas and pointed out that they were prone to superstition. Modern science, according to him, represented the zenith of human thought. He sought Indian philosophy not to replace the methods of science but to be inspired. He was aware that mixing two systems of thought separated by thousands of years was not easy. He believed Western thought needed to borrow ideas from Indian philosophy – with great care. As he wrote,“I do believe that this is precisely the point where our present way of thinking does need to be amended, perhaps by a bit of blood-transfusion from Eastern thought. That will not be easy, we must beware of blunders — blood-transfusion always needs great precaution to prevent clotting. We do not wish to lose the logical precision that our scientific thought has reached, and that is unparalleled anywhere at any epoch.”

https://science.thewire.in/the-sciences/erwin-schrodinger-quantum-mechanics-philosophy-of-physics-upanishads/#:~:text=Indeed%2C Schrödinger was often critical,the zenith of human thought.&text=He believed Western thought needed,Indian philosophy – with great care.

~

That's where I find the logic twists itself into imaginary loops, logical precision and theological philosophy kind of stretches off at different directions to twine at imaginary entanglement. 

I'm not even sure if inspiration is within reach of creeping up or down at this point of event horizons.

I must say I found the proposition quite intriguing at first. 

~

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Well, we're off to a shaky start:

Quote

According to Subhash Kak’s book The Wishing Tree (2008), Schrödinger named his dog Atman,

That sounds like a confusion with Schopenhauer, one of his famous poodles was named Atman. Kak gives no source, but does cite Moore's biography of Schrodinger elsewhere, and Moore digresses on Schopenhauer, including that particular dog. Maybe Kak got confused or misremembered.

better link for Kak:

http://www.hinduwisdom.info/articles_hinduism/146.htm

The only dog I know of for Schrodinger is a collie named Burschie in the 1940's, who makes a cameo appearance in What is Life?

Meh, physicists? philosophers? Tell me about their dogs!

Anyway, the article does include a version of the money quote:

Quote

He found his answer, again, in the Upanishads. “There is obviously only one alternative,” he wrote, “namely the unification of minds or consciousnesses. Their multiplicity is only apparent, in truth there is only one mind. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads.”

I don't doubt that Schrodinger was selective in his reading of the Upanishads - that's very Western, no? So I don't question what you quoted, either.

But Will wins this round. That specific portion of Indian thought was restated with approval by Schrodinger, as claimed, and repeatedly so.

Edited by eight bits
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44 minutes ago, eight bits said:

So I don't question what you quoted, either.

It's the context of where the notion behind the quote begins that is the rattle of the equation.

If I were to associate mysticism and quantum physics, I'd follow the rabbit hole that Richard Feynman drew on the board. 

Quote
Feynman writes: I do not believe that science can disprove the existence of God; I think that is impossible. And if it is impossible, is not a belief in science and in a God — an ordinary God of religion — a consistent possibility? Yes, it is consistent.11 May 2015
 
27 Mar 2014 — Going to the sciences, says Feynman, to “get an answer to some deep philosophical question,” means “you may be wrong. It ...
 
 
The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist is a non-fiction book by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman. ... with his views on the relationship between science ...
 
 
 
 
by RP FEYNMAN · Cited by 14 · Related articles
by RICHARD P. FEYNMAN ... of Science and Religion" is a transcript of a talk given by Dr. Feynman at the ... All scientists will agree that a question – any question, philosophical or other  ...

~

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21 hours ago, Sherapy said:

I have not heard of only focusing on the future, the mindfulness I practice is focusing on the now, the present. 

reminds me of something i once heard...cant remember where I read/heard it or by whom!

to live in the past is depression

to live in the future is anxiety

to live in the now is peace.

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1 minute ago, quillius said:

reminds me of something i once heard...cant remember where I read/heard it or by whom!

to live in the past is depression

to live in the future is anxiety

to live in the now is peace.

Possibly... 

Quote
 
“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.”

~

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3 minutes ago, third_eye said:

Possibly... 

~

yes thats it.....obviously didn't remember it perfectly.....

close enough I guess :)

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1 minute ago, quillius said:

yes thats it.....obviously didn't remember it perfectly.....

close enough I guess :)

He's a smart cookie that Lao Tzu fella... 

~

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"True happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied, for he that is wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach."                                          ---  Seneca

 

The Stoic philosophers weren't too shabby either. 

 

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7 minutes ago, third_eye said:

He's a smart cookie that Lao Tzu fella... 

~

he must have heard it from the same person I did  :P

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2 minutes ago, quillius said:

he must have heard it from the same person I did  :P

Master Oogway knows the way... 

Quote

master-oogway-quotes-1.jpg

~

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11 hours ago, Mr Walker said:

As with  all the above comments, this is just my personal perspective 

I no longer remember how to live NOT in a state of mindfulness

There are many aspects to it but it is basically heightened awareness; 

of self   ( mind/ body etc)  

of the environment  around you. Total awareness of everything around you. 

of the interaction between you and  that environment.  Be aware of how you are responding to, and  influencing the environment, (including people) around you

It can encompass past experiences,  and future imaginings, but it is an awareness rooted in the present 

Thank you for your thoughts. 
 

 

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