Mindfulness for scientists

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This article will survey the benefits of mindfulness practice for scientists. Through embracing the knowledge that mindfulness fosters, you can become smart about how and where to exercise your intellectual abilities, thereby further honing that skill. This way, practicing mindfulness results in happier lives.

OK, so let’s jump right in. What is mindfulness? Is it a fuzzy, hippy practice that dovetails with free love, cannabis and incense to make you Big Lebowski-like detached? Is it a flight from reality into a non-threatening space of non-judgement, non-competition and so-called “freedom”? Is it a semi-religious practice, weakly associated with the radical fringe of spirituality that believes in aliens, angels and conspiracies? Continue reading “Mindfulness for scientists”

Notice what happens when a desire is fulfilled, when anger is a factor in your life, or when anxiety is practiced

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(This is part 4 of a four-part series on experiencing happiness and freedom in your day-to-day life. Parts 1, 2 and 3 can be found here.)

Being mindful, not just of the quality of the immediate happiness that results from a desire’s fulfillment, but also of what surfaces when that happiness fades can help you hold your desires lightly. Yes, a fulfilled desire can create happiness, but it is a dependent, nervous sort of joy that has the tendency to fade quickly and leave you wide open for new desires to come up to start the cycle all over again. In a way, you can compare it to an addiction. The search for your “fix” is often fraught with unhappy, tenacious striving, worry and all-consuming ambition, whereas the ultimate rewards are meagre and quick to die off. Often, you need to step out of this all-too-familiar cycle to see it for what it is: bondage.

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Practice love using heart-opening practices, such as metta meditation

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(This is part 3 of a four-part series on experiencing happiness and freedom in your day-to-day life. Parts 1 and 2 can be found here.)

When contemplating love, we tend to immediately think of romantic or erotic love, with its attendant pitfalls of possessiveness, dating strategies and self-doubt. Love, however, is a multi-faceted thing. The Ancient Greeks famously identified seven different types of love, ranging from love for the self to a universal love for all beings. It may help to view each of these types as facets of the same awesome phenomenon, each with its specific pitfalls.

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Practice attention and awareness through mindfulness

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(This is part 2 of a four-part series on experiencing happiness and freedom in your day-to-day life. Part 1 can be found here.)

Yes, mindfulness. Far from being one of the things that you need to be doing in order to be happy or free, mindfulness is actually a very potent way to gain observational data on what your mind is doing from moment to moment.

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