Mindfulness Makes You Less Caring? Karma’s Role

A recent research report, “Potential negative consequences of mindfulness in the moral domain” came up with a mind-blowing conclusion: that practicing mindfulness makes you less caring. Surprising given that some of the biggest names in spirituality practice mindfulness and advocate its use; people such as the Dali Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh. Similarly, Eckhart Tolle teaches being present, focusing on the moment, which is very similar to mindfulness.

How can this be?

Karma has altered mindfulness. Because everything has karma, everything picks up karma and over time this begins to change and alter the original intent or purpose of things, whether it be mindfulness, a religion, an organization, a discipline, or… What do I mean?

When I was working on my latest book, Everything Has Karma: Learning to Embrace Our Interconnectedness, I wanted to show how wonderful practices such as the energy healing technique of Reiki have devolved over time.  To do this I turned to a book I had read a few years earlier, What's Wrong with Mindfulness (And What Isn't): Zen Perspectives. Editors Barry Magid and Robert Rosenbaum argued that Mindfulness has been misappropriated by the Western marketplace and been commercialized; and is now being practiced on business retreats, at medical centers, by sports teams, by the military and more.

All of these various practitioners (business people, athletes, soldiers…) of mindfulness have had an influence in shaping what it has become today. Sadly, they have run over its reverence and spiritual dimension. Because of this mindfulness has suffered.

As Simon Schindler, the author of the study, noted “Mindfulness — without being embedded in an ethical context — may thus have downsides regarding interpersonal and moral behavior that have been so far ignored by researchers and also practitioners…”

So, yes, it may well be the Mindfulness today can be a drag on your morality.

If you are serious about your spiritual development (practice meditation, attend religious services, practice social justice, work with the poor…) you have to get karma right, and understand that everything has karma.

Blessings,
madis

PS I have several author talks coming up for Everything Has Karma that will give you the chance to learn more, Author Talks--Everything has Karma

Author Talks--Everything has Karma

Author Talks Begin in September

Starting in September I will be doing author talks on my upcoming book Everything Has Karma: Learning to Embrace Our Interconnectedness I will have books for sale with me.

Below are the talks I have scheduled so far. They include a sacred walk at Pagan Pride Day in Central New York. Most events are FREE.. I anticipate I will be booking more venues.

To keep abreast of my talks and events please click on, Author Talks or Events on the upper right..  

Sep 14, Sat.       Syracuse        Paine Branch  Library       Everything Has Karma
2:00 PM                                    113 Nichols Ave                FREE

Sep 19, Th.        N. Syracuse    N. Syr. Community Ct.      Everything Has Karma  
6:30 PM                                     700 S. Bay Road              $5 Admission-Dowsers

Sep 21, Sat.       Liverpool         Long Branch Park,           Pagan Pride (food donation)
10 AM                Syr-Onon Pk..  3813 Long Branch Rd.    Sacred Walk--Sign Up, Limited Space 
12 Noon                                                                              Talk Karma/ Pagan--Ritual, Ceremony

Oct 4, Fri            Dewitt              Dewitt Library                  Reading, w/other authors
6:30-8:30 PM                              5110 Jamesville Rd        10 minute reading Karma 

Oct 5, Sat.         Rochester        Monroe Central Lib          Everything Has Karma  
1 PM                                           115 South Ave                FREE
4 PM                  Macedon          Books, Etc.                      Everything Has Karma  
                                                   78 W Main St                   FREE

Oct 26, Sat        East Syr..         E. Syracuse Library          Everything Has Karma                                                    10:30 AM                                   4990 James Street           FREE

Oct 29 Tues.     Cazenovia       Cazenovia Library            Everything Has Karma  
7 PM                                           100 Albany St.                FREE

Nov 7 Th.          Brewerton         Brewerton Library           Everything Has Karma                                                        
6:30 PM                                      5440 Bennett St.             FREE

Nov 13 Wed.      Herkimer         The Java Shop                Everything Has Karma  
6 PM                                           143 N. Main Street          FREE

Nov 17 Sun        Norwich           Bonnie Gales.                 Everything Has Karma  
                                                                                           Potluck

Dec 5 Th.           Dewitt             Dewitt Library                  Everything Has Karma
7 PM                                          5110 Jamesville Rd        FREE

Rate of Climate Change has been underestimated--It's Much Worse

Scientific America  reported on the findings of a new book  Discerning Experts that the pace of climate change has been underestimated.  Here's a quote:

Because the oceans cover three fifths of the globe, this correction implies that previous estimates of overall global warming have been too low. Moreover it was reported recently that in the one place where it was carefully measured, the underwater melting that is driving disintegration of ice sheets and glaciers is occurring far faster than predicted by theory—as much as two orders of magnitude faster—throwing current model projections of sea level rise further in doubt.

Scientists Have Been Underestimating the Pace of Climate Change

Pretty wonky stuff. 

I made the post because I wanted to highlight that climate change is much worse than previously forecast and I expect that this trend will continue.

Click on the link in 'Labels" below to see some of the many other times we have underestimated Climate Change.

Are We Having An Old Testament Moment?

A few weeks back massive swarms of grasshoppers (aka. locusts)  invaded Las Vegas (sin city), I could not help and wonder, whether we were having an Old Testament moment. In others words, A POX of plagues, pestilence, locusts, fires, floods, winds, and other environmental catastrophes have been unleashed upon us (humankind) because we have not been living by God's laws.




We certainly have had our fill of environmental disasters wrought by climate change.

Report--Climate Change is an Existential Threat to Humankind

Civilization-Collapsing Megadroughts of Medieval Times Could Be in Store for a Warming Earth

Climate Change Really is Causing California’s Raging Wildfires

Climate crisis already causing deaths and childhood stunting, report reveals

Animals failing to adapt to speed of climate crisis, study finds .

Could the cause of our current environmental calamities as the bible teaches be the result of our inhumanity, cruelty, selfishness, violence, war and the like?

To some in our modern scienfiic world this sounds like lunacy.

Not for me.

I am an adherent of Advaita Vendanta; that we live in a sea consciousness and that all is consciousness. The world as we see it is an illusion, Maya. That there is a greater reality behind it--everyone and everything. It is all God.

You could call Vedanta a form of pantheism, everything is living and has a spirit ( for example see,The Eastern Hermetic School of Geomancy). So when we harm someone else we effectively harm God and ourselves, because everything is God. 

"When they fast, I am not going to listen to their cry; and when they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I am not going to accept them Rather I am going to make an end of them by the sword, famine and pestilence." Jeremiah 14.12

Politicians serve for personal plunder and defy the will of the people; wealth inequality has never been greater; we treat the alien as the other; while we "don't sell the poor for a pair of sandal"poverty, hunger and homelessness are still prevalent.

July the Hottest Month Ever

NOAA reported today that July as the hottest month on record ever since records began being kept. July was almost 2° hotter than the average July temperature for last century. This follows the hottest June ever.

July 2019 was hottest month on record for the planet

The Arctic and Anaaratic sea caps melted to historic low levels as well...

Climate Change the Heat is On

A few weeks back I posted an article on how rising temperatures from Climate Change would drive migration north in America.Climate Change is Driving Migration North  I mention this because the Washington Post had an interesting article on temperature changes in America,

2°C: BEYOND THE LIMIT 

Extreme climate change has arrived in America

The article points out that the much ballyhooed 2° threshold marking the point of no return has already been achieved in many parts of America. To make its case it talked about Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey that used to export ice blocks in the 1890's now has ice so thin that it is dangerous to walk on in the dead of winter.

What was also interesting was a graph showing the areas that have heated up dramatically since 1895. In a way it is a bit of contrast to the graph in my post that shows America's southeast getting scorched. But it should be pointed out we are talking about the future and the southeast is already pretty warm. So while northern Minnesota has heated up a lot since 1895 it  started from a much lower base.

Further America's northeast, the area that argued would benefit from climate change, has been heating up fast as the picture below shows. However, again the northeast is still a lot colder than the southeast, particularly areas like the Thousand Islands region, along the St. Lawrence Rive north of Lake Ontario.

Trump Guts the Endangered Species Act

Yesterday Donald Trump announced new rules to reduce the power of the Endangered Species Act.  The Endangered Species Act helped save the Bald Eagle, the Polar Bear, humpbacked whales and many others.