Awareness and a Mundane Me –An Introspective Account of a Hibernating Bear

Awareness and a Mundane Me –An Introspective Account of a Hibernating Bear

Mindfulness, awareness of the mind which is beyond metacognition, the basic awareness about your thoughts and affect; mindfulness, in a personal experiential perspective, is awareness of your thoughts and affect, the origination, and the effects of the conscious or subconscious driven behavior, responses towards salient conditional stimuli in the immediate environmental milieu.

Question: “Do you know what are you doing?”

I am pretty sure many people including me will not hesitate to say yes; thinking that if we are aware of the thoughts that arise and verbal and physical behaviors in response to stimuli, we are well aware of ourselves; I concur with the awareness aspect but awareness in this example is not mindfulness.

Question: “Do you know why are you doing this / that?”

One may think that the reason for the actions as in the ‘why’ lies in the thoughts and the origination of the thoughts lies in the interactionism process between the individual and the environmental conditions; that ‘what’, in the individual that induce the arising of the thoughts in response to the environmental conditions. Bring the awareness of the thoughts deeper into the mind, and one may find what many people term as ‘self’, a sense of ‘being’. The ‘self’ that allows the individual to identify himself or herself in the mundane world that we exist in.

In the first two months of hibernation, an understanding of the mind began to surface in the midst of the chaotic conditions that prompt the hibernation. I began to understand a little of the limitations of the mind in understanding others, and the normative perspective that we have, thinking that we can understand others, but the elements of the ‘mind’ that we understand of others are the normative elements, the commonality created by a community of minds for the purpose of bonding and the creation of the society, the perspective state of the external mundane world that we think we live in. We are like two irregular shaped galaxies; no matter how much we try to come together, in the common space of a mental space, we can’t completely unite in the common space as the shape of us, the galaxies are different. If we can't unite mentally, how can we profess to others, to ourselves that we understand others; for example, a common cultural understanding of the definition of a word doesn’t correspond to the experiential schematic understanding of the word. In other words, we are totally unique and different as a whole.

Applying this understanding of the mind, I finally come to terms with my interpersonal experiences; expectations, even when communicated seems to fail just because there can never be ‘true’ understanding of one another. However, this is not to imply that we should force ourselves not to have any expectations; the purpose of expectations on oneself is to motivate one to excel but when conjuring expectations of others, one must take note of the limitations, he or she may not understand the expectations completely in terms of one’s understanding of the expectations, and also, the influence of other confounds such as the individual’s experiences and priorities in life in the current moment. Hence, one must be compassionate towards others when they can’t meet up to one’s expectations; this situation also offers the opportunity to, first, examine the reasons for the expectations, is it egoistic or altruistic, second, if it is altruistic, then how can one help others to achieve the expectations in the hope of improving themselves.

In interpersonal relationships, we often have expectations of others; however, just as we expect our loved ones to understand us, they too, expect us to understand them. Have we tried to understand them? If we didn’t, how can we then expect them to understand us. Of course, this is a very delicate, subjective situation; a good relationship requires both individuals to be equally mindful and compassionate towards one another. I am glad to come to terms with my previous intimate relationship with this understanding of the mind and hopefully apply to all other interpersonal relationships, current and future-to-come.

‘Mindfulness is not of the past or future; it is of the present.’

Simple Bear 18.03.2012.

Another learning point that I learned over the past two months is that mindfulness is essential in cultivation of compassion and loving kindness through the practice of gratitude towards oneself and others; I have mentioned earlier on in my blog entry ‘The Joy of Reestablishment’, the awareness of the origination and the negative thoughts and affect in response to conditional stimuli and the motivation to establish good karmic connectivity in the absence of it in relating to others in this world. The practice of gratitude has been well documented in positive psychology as a methodology to enhance the happiness index of individuals; the increase in experiencing of joy in daily life when gratitude is instilled as a practice.

In the midst of evaluating my results over these two months of hibernation, I detected troubling signs of confusion; first, when I am aware of the negative thoughts such as judgmental perspectives and negativity affect, I tend to put down oneself as incompetent in my practice; second, when I see others indulging in their egoistic notion of thoughts, other than empathy, I felt sometimes, helpless and sometimes, disgusted with the state of minds, at this point of time, I am aware that judgment has been passed again on them by my mind. I gradually stopped sharing my understanding to others, even when some asked for my advice, they may be able to understand normatively what I shared but they are unable to accept them, resistance by their preconceptions. I was slowly, deviating away from the normative aspects of being a member of the society, hoping to live perhaps, a recluse life away from them. That option, to me, is not an option. I have my obligations as a son, a brother to my parents and siblings. There is always this aspect of the capitalistic society that we live in that prohibits the renunciation of mundane life.

Perhaps having a sense of, and accepting the mundane world and the obligations of a member of the society helps in the balancing of the spiritual and mundane life. This balancing act, together with the cultivation of non-self, reduction of the ego is perhaps what I need to work on in the second phase of my hibernation. I have fallen too deep in the dark abyss in the name of spirituality, neglecting my mundane life and it is time for me to get a better sense of the world that I live in, fulfilling my potential as a member of the society, enhance my mindfulness, and hopefully reduce the perspective existence of ego in my life.

It is time for me to start the second phase of my hibernation, with the emphasis on mindfulness and understanding the notion of non-self through the reducing of ego in daily life. I called this hibernation phase, Operation Fallen Angel.

May all be well and happy

With metta,

Simple Bear 18.03.2012.