This spring, I was asked by the Happy Valley Library and the Lake Oswego Parks and Recreation Department to offer several weeks of Mindfulness programs to serve their communities while they coped with the global COVID-19 pandemic. I learned that as people began dealing with the “new normal,” they felt that their lives were turned abnormally “upside down.” This topsy-turvy world caused great stress.
 
How can Mindfulness help us live in this unfamiliar world we find ourselves in? Mindfulness is designed to address real life challenges. I hope that this blog would help you in dealing with the uncertainty and changes we face during these extraordinary times as well as when we can feel the rhythms of normalcy in our daily lives.
 
Mindfulness practice is not just about sitting in meditation; it also embodies the following aspects:

• Goal: The aim of Mindfulness is to align with the goal of attaining well-being and happiness in life.
• Meditation: The purpose of mind exercise to develop our own capacity for mind control and to gain insight.
• Skillful Means: The good news is that we can gain proficiency in utilizing our mental resources to overcome suffering.
• Insight & Wisdom: These tools of self-knowledge guide us to learn the truth about reality and how things actually are.
• Ethics: Moral principles are necessary to create both the internal and the external environments conducive to happiness.
• Scientific Perspective: Science is rooted in predictable, replicable and reliable methods — not based on mere beliefs.

 
So, how can Mindfulness practice can be used in overcoming the stress from radical changes to our lives during this pandemic? Insight into the nature of reality reveals that change is the norm and not an exception. Some changes are gradual and harder to notice, while others are radical.
 
If you look carefully into nature, you’ll realize that everything changes. Just look at your own body. It is always changing: skin tone, hair loss, weight changes, aging, etc. If we don’t notice some of these subtle changes, we may become deluded into thinking and wishing that things remain the same — a false concept of normalcy.
 
The notion of things changing as not being normal is neither scientific nor realistic. It is downright incorrect. As we come to understand that reality is in constant flux, we lose our aversion to change — a major cause of stress. Also, we when learn not to cling to how things were, another stress factor is gone.
 
Biology and neuroscience provide good answers to the delusion that things should remain the same. All organisms, including human beings strive for reliability, dependability, sustainability, predictability and normalcy for survival purposes. The more difficult it is for an organism to predict and rely on its knowledge about its environment, the harder it is for that organism to survive. Humans, a species that has adapted to so many different types of environments around the world for centuries, are designed for survival and not for happiness. However, we have the capacity, through our neocortex, to regulate emotions for happiness.

Now that our Top of Mind blog is up and running again, our vision is to create a safe place for community sharing on topics relevant to our practice of Mindfulness Meditation. Our time together in class is simply not long enough to learn about all the changes that meditation students are experiencing. So each month we'll start with a reflective question and encourage your responses. Why is this type of  community engagement important?


1.    Articulating your reflections helps balance your mind with positive reinforcement of your growing insights.
2.    As people express their learnings, we realize that we are not alone in our experience of mindfulness. We begin to appreciate the range of life’s possibilities through sharing.
3.    Supporting each others’ practice through sharing our insights creates a synergistic, dynamic, learning community for the benefit of all. 

So find your courage and your voice. Feel free to type in your "top of mind" responses in the comments section below this post so that we may engender a lively dialogue of different perspectives.

Here's the reflective question for the month of September:

How has the practice of meditation changed your perspective on life?