Thursday, October 30, 2008

Is Mindfulness Good for your Brain?

As I was showering this morning I thought about the towel.  I had the towel hung behind the shower door, and my bicycling clothes from last week hung on the towel rack to dry.  When I moved the bicycling clothes from the towel rack into my bureau, I didn't realize that I could move my towel from the door back over to the towel rack.  As I stood looking at the scene, I could feel the gears in my brain reorganizing things so that the towel was on the towel rack again.
 
This is a minor thing in the grand scheme of my day.  But the reason I mention it is because I could stop and observe myself as I worked this infinitessimally trivial thing out.  If I could be conscious of doing this, then I could expand it to being conscious of the rest of my world and the way I interact with it.
 
One of the books I listen to at night is a book about the Buddhist precepts.  One of the things that he says is that we can view our bodies as physical manifestations that we're temporarily being given control over.  That struck me as an interesting concept.  If I view my body as a thing outside of who "I" am, then I can separate the "me" from the "it", which also separates the "me" from the thoughts in "its" brain.  How does that help me?  I guess mainly that I can project a loving relationship onto this body as I care for it -- feed it, exercise it, do the things I need to do to keep it healthy --  and I can remember that when "it" is sick and unhealthy that there is an "I" underneath that is a constant.  The concept is fuzzy, and for all I know, I completely misinterpreted what he said, but still, it got me to thinking.....