{"id":190,"date":"2010-12-13T10:25:28","date_gmt":"2010-12-13T10:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/new-eyes-rather-than-clothes.html"},"modified":"2010-12-13T10:25:28","modified_gmt":"2010-12-13T10:25:28","slug":"new-eyes-rather-than-clothes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/2010\/12\/new-eyes-rather-than-clothes.html","title":{"rendered":"Metaphor Monday :: Proust, Thoreau, Pascal, James, and Sherlock Holmes on Mindfulness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BS07060.JPG\"<\/a><\/span>Proust said, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes”<\/span><\/p>\n


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I enjoyed watching the recent movie version of “Sherlock Holmes” starring Robert Downy Jr. and Jude Law as Dr. Watson. Homes is intelligent, to be sure, yet his greatest asset is his keen sense of perception. His senses are presented as hyper-keen, he is inundated with the sounds, sights, and smells of others. He solves the case by paying attention to small details such as a smudge of chalk, a splash of ink, faint aromas. in other words, he is being mindful of his surroundings. And by doing so, he fulfills Proust’s admonition.<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Proust also points to the futility of the “geographic cure.” New landscapes rarely work because we bring our old mind (and eyes) with us. After the sheen of newness wears off, we are back to old habit patterns of mind in the new place. <\/p>\n

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In Wild Chickens and Petty Tyrants: 108 Metaphors for Mindfulness,<\/i> metaphor 106,”The Clothes Don’t Make the Man,” turns to Thoreau’s quote, “Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.”<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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We can transform our experience right now without requiring anything from outside of ourselves. We just have to open our eyes and see what is right before us. We don’t need any tricks, gadgets, or conditions. Just pay attention! <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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The French philosopher and mathematician, Pascal, suggested our greatest downfall was our inability to sit in a quiet room alone (doing mindfulness meditation, of course!)<\/span><\/font><\/div>\n

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Of course, to really pay attention we must be free of the encumbering influence of imagination. We must relinquish our preoccupation with anticipating the future and dragging around the past in memory. Then we can be open to what is happening to now without preconception, bias, and anxiety.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Finally, William James cautioned that our intellectual life is comprised almost wholly in substituting a conceptual order for the perceptual order in which our experience originally lives. The real action is not in thinking about our experience but in experiencing<\/b><\/i> our experience. <\/span><\/font><\/div>\n

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Thanks to these old dead philosophers (real and fictional) for their wisdom!<\/span><\/div>\n

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

Proust said, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes” I enjoyed watching the recent movie version of “Sherlock Holmes” starring Robert Downy Jr. and Jude Law as Dr. Watson. Homes is intelligent, to be sure, yet his greatest asset is his keen sense of perception. 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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\/190","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=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/mindfulnessmatters\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}