An 8 Week Long Book Review : Week 5 – Mindfulness Starts Here

Well that was a bit of a gap from the last post several weeks ago. I’m now on Chapter 5/ Week 5 of ‘Mindfulness Starts Here’ and can blame the delay of post solely on pain. Coincidentally enough this chapter is titled ‘Awareness of Sensations’ so it’s totally apropos.

I won’t bore you with stories of my pain and body decrepitude but needless to say the past few weeks have been rough. Heap onto this health issues for my older dog and well, we’re all working with the situations that have arisen.

Back to the book. This chapter is really about the body-mind connection and how mindfulness can help take us out of the past storylines into a new way of relating and working with sensations.

Rather than feeling the sensations that are upon us, we humans can get caught up in the conceptual thinking around the experience. This chapter really gets at this loop and helps readers deconstruct the habitual nature of the main sensation that we grapple with, that of pain. It speaks to the power of meditation to bring one’s wandering mind back and to cut through the usual mind chatter.

There is a deeply profound sentence within this chapter that has really resonated with me. It is quite frankly, what budding Bodhisattvas and burnt out caregivers should come back to as a reminder of why we are on this path.

All we can do is practice and allow that practice to become part of a world-wide group of people who are willing to face what is in front of them and not look away.

Oh that’s good stuff right there.

As is done within previous chapters, there’s some homework to be done for the week relating to, in this instance, the five skillful habits that allow us to listen to our sensations without engaging or amplifying them. I have have to say that this ‘homework’ couldn’t come at a better time as I work with an aching back that is causing me the most physical and mental discomfort

Here’s my storyline. Welcome to the party.

Ugh.

Do I need to wear a corset?

Do I need to order one of these?

Why am I afraid of chiropractors?

Booked appointment with physiotherapist.

Now Googling everything I can find on the physiotherapist to see if he checks out.

annnnndd scene…

Time to do the homework presented in Chapter 5.