{"id":1460,"date":"2011-07-16T13:16:04","date_gmt":"2011-07-16T17:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/?p=1460"},"modified":"2011-07-16T15:09:34","modified_gmt":"2011-07-16T19:09:34","slug":"waking-up-is-a-revolutionary-act-a-manifesto-for-mindful-living-part-five-be-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2011\/07\/waking-up-is-a-revolutionary-act-a-manifesto-for-mindful-living-part-five-be-good.html","title":{"rendered":"Waking Up is a Revolutionary Act: A Manifesto for Mindful Living, Part Five: Be Good"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Imagine what the world would be like if generosity, kindness, and wisdom prevailed over greed, hatred, and ignorance.\u00a0 We would devote our resources to education, science, creativity, wellness, and infrastructure rather than spending on defense.<\/p>\n

Instead of destroying the infrastructure of Iraq and Afghanistan and rebuilding it poorly, we could use that largess to benefit humanity there and around the world where people are in great need. For that matter, we could spend some of that money at home where it is needed here.<\/p>\n

Humanity has always dealt with upheaval, uncertainty, and change. I’ll make a bold claim:\u00a0Everything that is wrong with the world stems from greed, hatred, and ignorance. The Buddha was right about this in the Bronze Age and it is still true today. The financial crisis of 2008; countless wars and conflicts around the world, domestic abuse; pollution, climate change, overpopulation \u2013 all the result of greed, hatred, and ignorance that sometimes arises to near delusional proportions.<\/p>\n

The same principles apply within ourselves. Better to be generous than greedy. Generous in the sense of being interested in the world around us and curious about what our mind does. To be greedy is to try to hold onto things, to hoard pleasures, to try to make the impermanent permanent.<\/p>\n

We engage in a lot of self-hatred with self-judgment, it seems to be endemic to our culture of stress, anxiety, depression, and self-entitlement. It\u2019s a paradox that kids how grow up in very critical environment \u00a0and kids who grown up in a over-praising environment both develop a harsh internal critic. It seems like too much attention to self \u2013 to me\u2014 whether positive or negative in conjunction with our culture of achievement, perfection, and idealism leads to these self-problems.<\/p>\n

Kindness to self has to be taught to most. We need books like Tara Brach\u2019s R<\/a>adical Acceptance<\/a><\/em>, Christopher Germers\u2019s Mindfulness and Self-Compassion<\/a><\/em>, Steve Flowers and Bob Stahl’s, Living With Your Heart Wide Open<\/a><\/em>, and Polly Young-Eisendrath\u2019s The Self-Esteem Trap<\/a><\/em>. We are practiced at harsh self-judgment, what I have called the Strident Self \u2013 a self driven by impossible, contradictory, and capricious standards of perfection. Not only is this Strident Self engaged in hatred, it is also ignorant \u2013 disconnected from reality, subject to cognitive distortions that serve outdated mental models of who we are in the world.<\/p>\n

Wisdom, well that’s a whole other story. We live in an insane world of stupidity, lies, and short-sighted thinking (we also live in a world of beauty, courage, and grace, so when I say \u201cwe\u201d I am referring to the leaders of the world). We don’t live in harmony. We take actions that harm ourselves and others. We don’t seem to recognize that things are always changing. We glorify the self promoting greed and hatred. We don’t seem to know the difference between fantasy and reality. We are ignorant, perhaps even delusional. As a result, we are chronically dissatisfied, even anguished in life.<\/p>\n

Generosity-kindness-wisdom and greed-hatred-ignorance are karma. Karma means action in Sanskrit (or Kamma in Pali). It points to the observation that actions have consequences \u2013 all actions have consequences. This consequences may only be emotions born of thoughts. Wisdom helps us to choose good actions.<\/p>\n

Without mindfulness its hard to be wise. In fact, I’d argue it’s impossible. Mindfulness is the currency for generosity-kindness-wisdom; it’s the vehicle, the path, and the method.<\/p>\n

Be good; embrace mindfulness.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Waking Up is a Revolutionary Act: A Manifesto for Mindful Living was inspired by\u00a0Experience Life magazine<\/a>, Editor-in-Chief, Pilar Gerasimo’s, article\u00a0Being Healthy is a Revolutionary Act: Renegade Perspectives for Thriving in a Mixed Up Worl<\/a>d, and its accompanying\u00a0A Manifesto for Thriving in a Mixed Up World<\/a>. Visit\u00a0http:\/\/RevolutionaryAct.com<\/a>, the website devoted to\u00a0Being Healthy is a Revolutionary Act: A Manifesto for Thriving in a Mixed-Up World\u00a0<\/a>and download your own copy of the manifesto and join the movement! Read more about\u00a0Experience Life her<\/a>e.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Imagine what the world would be like if generosity, kindness, and wisdom prevailed over greed, hatred, and ignorance.\u00a0 We would devote our resources to education, science, creativity, wellness, and infrastructure rather than spending on defense. Instead of destroying the infrastructure of Iraq and Afghanistan and rebuilding it poorly, we could use that largess to benefit…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":268,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-laboratory"],"yoast_head":"\nWaking Up is a Revolutionary Act: A Manifesto for Mindful Living, Part Five: Be Good - Mindfulness Matters<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2011\/07\/waking-up-is-a-revolutionary-act-a-manifesto-for-mindful-living-part-five-be-good.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Waking Up is a Revolutionary Act: A Manifesto for Mindful Living, Part Five: Be Good - Mindfulness Matters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Imagine what the world would be like if generosity, kindness, and wisdom prevailed over greed, hatred, and ignorance.\u00a0 We would devote our resources to education, science, creativity, wellness, and infrastructure rather than spending on defense. 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Dr. Kozak's ability to translate ancient healing traditions into pragmatic applications suitable for modern lifestyles through the use of metaphors have made him a strong voice in healthcare and business. Beginning with a journey to India in the 80\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s where he took the Bodhisattva vows from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Arnie Dr. Kozak began his lifelong practice in mindfulness meditation. Intent on finding a way to bring the practical healing attributes of mindfulness he began incorporating these techniques in his private practice. In 2002 Dr. Kozak created Exquisite Mind in Burlington, Vermont as a vehicle that could expand his wisdom to larger audiences beyond individual psychotherapy to professionals and corporations, health care providers, public groups and, most recently with Exquisite Mind Golf, amateur and professional golfers. His award-winning new book, Wild Chickens and Petty Tyrants: 108 Metaphors for Mindfulness (Wisdom Publications, 2009) is a thoughtful, funny, and inspiring translation of mindfulness practice through the inventive use of metaphor applicable to our daily lives. In addition to his work with Exquisite Mind, Arnie Kozak, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist\u00e2\u20ac\u201dDoctorate has been a Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Vermont and is a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry and Medicine, University of Vermont College of Medicine. He has studied and practiced clinical psychology, meditation, and yoga for more than 25 years. He has studied with several meditation masters, including S. N. Goenka, Larry Rosenberg, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. After receiving his bachelors degree with honors from Tufts University, he was awarded a Presidential Fellowship to get his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University at Buffalo. He completed his training as a Psychological Fellow at the Harvard Medical School. Prior to founding the Exquisite Mind in 2002, Arnie worked ten years in the private sector for the PKC Corporation consulting on mental health content for this revolutionary software company.","sameAs":["http:\/\/exquisitemind.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/author\/akozak"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/268"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1460"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1470,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460\/revisions\/1470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}