Dimensionally Barrett

  I don’t put much stock in New Year’s resolutions. I resolve throughout the year to fix what I can, improve where I can, and try to find faults and change them as I can.  That said, I do find myself making notes to myself, advice if you will, of how to be a better human being. There are way too many other figures throughout history who have written such texts (and far more profoundly and eloquently than I).  All of this said, perhaps there is something in sharing this “Advice to Myself” at the turning of this year.  NOTE: my original draft is a little more geared to a Buddhist approach. I’ve “universalized” it a bit more tor our common humanity’s sake. Advice to Myself Before going to sleep; dedicate whatever merit you have accrued throughout the day to all beings; offer a thought, a prayer, a resolve, that all beings be happy and free from suffering and may all bear both triumphs and defeats, moments of joy and suffering with equanimity. This includes oneself (of c...

My friend Ann Hall put me onto an article published by the CBC called “McMindfulness: how capitalism hijacked the Buddhist teaching of mindfulness” which recaps an interview (that you can listen to on the article page ) with Ronald Purser, author of McMindfulness: How Mindfulness Became the New Capitalist Spirituality . The interviewer leads with a quote from a review about Purser's book and it's loaded with meaning: "None of us dreamed that mindfulness would become so popular or even lucrative, much less that it would be used as a way to keep millions of us sleeping soundly through some of the worst cultural excesses in human history, all while fooling us into thinking we were awake and quiet." At the very least, what "mindfulness" is supposed to do is wake us up, not put us to sleep. It is this that is at the crux of the issue. What “mindfulness” seems to be is a watered-down approach to vipassana meditation. I know that the pedagogy focus...