[Avodah] Mindfulness...

[Yonatan Kaganoff]

If one is fully present and aware when speaking to someone, then they can listen with all their facilities and awareness to what the other person is saying, explicitly and implicitly, and to give that person all of their attention.  
   
  One of the criticisms/sterotypes of neurotic Jews is their inability to just be present and mindful in the moment.
   
  I neglected to mention that one Jewish proponet of these idea is Martin Buber.  However, despite his attempt to base all of his ideas on Chassidic sources, they come more from his earlier fascination with Eastern mysticism then Eastern European Chassidut.

Allen Gerstl <acgerstl at hotmail.com> wrote:
  


On Thu, 15 Nov 2007 08:48:37 -0800 (PST)
R' Yonatan Kaganoff 
Wrote: Subject: [Avodah] Mindfulness and Being Present in the Moment

>I was talking to my wife the other week about the following question
>and wanted to ask the members of the list if they had any ideas about
>it.

>Are Mindfulness or "Being Present in the Moment" Jewish values?

I don't quite understand how this enhances certain Jewish values of kavod ha-beriot etc.
My impression is that this concept is closely connected with meditative techniques and self-contemplation. But if someone is busy thinking about his/her own inner state how would this enhance listening to what others are saying? 

I have read that that it might be useful as a therapeutic method when dealing with certain pschological problems but that's another matter entirely.

KT
Eliyahu

       
---------------------------------
Be a better sports nut! Let your teams follow you with Yahoo Mobile. Try it now.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aishdas.org/pipermail/avodah-aishdas.org/attachments/20071116/c996c338/attachment-0002.htm>