That is always a good thing to do with external clutter, but an even better thing to do is to simplify and collect ourselves-i.e., our minds. Too many of us are close to that breaking point. Ray Bradbury, in his classic The Martian Chronicles, tells a story about an anxious-to-please Martian who is an empath he gives portions of his mind to every need of every human invader from earth, and finally his mind simply bursts, like an overinflated tire. This is triply important in an age and a culture that foster a confusing and crippling complexity, a dazzling disarray of diversions, and an always-advancing avalanche of anxieties. #MINDFUL CATHOLIC FULL#But it's also important, and terribly neglected, to be mindful-i.e., full of mind, full of alpha waves, alert, aware, awake. Of course it's important what we think about, what concepts we use, what understandings and beliefs and principles we have in our minds, what objects we focus on. Thought has two poles: the object and the subject, the thing thought about and the act of thought itself. It does not lead you into nothingness or emptiness but into everything-especially into God. ("Did God really say that? Listen to what I say.") "Sow a thought, reap an act sow an act, reap a habit sow a habit, reap a character sow a character, reap a destiny."īy the way, this is not a Buddhist book. Adam's and Eve's act-sin began with thought-sin. He tells us to "take every thought captive to obey Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). Paul knew the importance of thought as well as Buddha did. Bottaro's book gives you much more concrete detail, exercises, and specific practical advice, but that's what it all comes down to. Its point is so clear and short that even if he never wrote the book, the title alone would be sufficient. That's why my favorite spiritual classic is Brother Lawrence's simple little one-point book, The Practice of the Presence of God. If a book makes ten points I will forget nine of them. I have ADD (which for a philosopher is usually ADHD, Attention Deficit High Definition) I am easily bored and distracted, so I love short, simple books. It does not lead you into nothingness or emptiness but into everything-especially into God.) (By the way, this is not a Buddhist book. It begins with our thoughts, it moves with our thoughts, it ends with our thoughts." To improve the light itself-to clarify it and intensify it and focus it and master it-is more important than to know any of its objects (except God and yourself, the only two realities you can never escape for a single moment, in time or in eternity).īuddha famously said, in the first and most famous and favorite line in the first and most famous and favorite Buddhist book, the Dhammapada, "All that we are is a result of what we have thought. Our mind can be compared to the light, and everything in our world is an object to it. There are many, many different objects in this crazy, wonderful world for the light of our minds to light up, but if the light is weak or foggy or unreliable, all its objects will be dim, and our grasp of them weak, and our very selves dim and weak like ghosts. How important is mindfulness? More important than almost any possible object of mind. (It's much easier!) We're like the theologian who, upon dying, was offered by God the choice between going to heaven and going to a theology lecture on heaven. We are tempted to live in our imaginations, in our world rather than in the real world. We can even come to believe that we are saintly simply because we love to read books by the saints. Many of us, especially we academic types, we "intellectuals," who usually have very active imaginations, are prone to think (subconsciously) that we have actually done something (like prayer or fasting or acts of charity) simply because we have thought about it. It does to the mind what new batteries do to a searchlight.īut you have to do it, not just think about doing it. What this book does to your mind is not to fill it with stuff but to enlarge it, to strengthen it. Enlarge it." The mind is one of the two most essential powers of the soul (the other being the will). Augustine prayed, "Narrow is the mansion of my soul. It works.Īnd "you're gonna need a bigger boat" is true of all of us in terms of mindfulness. It does indeed make a pretty good read, but it makes a much better boat. #MINDFUL CATHOLIC HOW TO#To say that it makes a pretty good read is like saying that How to Build a Boat makes a pretty good read for a castaway. This book is like a cookbook, or an instruction manual. It is a good book not just because it reads well but because it works well.
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