MILDLY APOCALYPTIC WEATHER

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When life leaves the body, it is the breath leaving, like transcending. For one who has been accustomed to this experience for many years, the transition is easy, painless and blissful, not catastrophic. Dropping the body is like letting a bird out of its cage

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VIPASSANA - INTENTION ATTENTION COMPASSION 

According to Ameli, “Mindfulness has three indispensible components. One piece is intention, one is attention, and one is compassion.” She elaborates the definition by saying that “I would define mindfulness as paying attention in a focused way, with a certain attitude, which basically is defined as the attitude of openness, friendliness, acceptance, you know, of love. I mean love sums it up.” Ameli points out that Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist monk whom she regards as “the living embodiment of mindfulness,” defines it as “being in touch with your felt experience in each moment.”5 Jon Kabat-Zinn, emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and a pioneer in developing mindfulness as it is widely used, defines the practice as “paying attention, on purpose, in the present, and non-judgmentally, to the unfolding of experience moment by moment.

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journal Science, Matthew Killingsworth and Daniel Gilbert of Harvard University conclude, as the title of the article reflects, that “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind.”

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AMYGDALA V PFC

It is often useful to consider the amygdala—a deep-seated brain structure that serves an alarm function—in conjunction with, and as a counterpoint to, the PFC. In response to a dangerous signal—like a tiger in the grass—the amygdala shouts out to the rest of the brain to get out of the way. Over the course of evolution, we have learned to listen to the amygdala in such circumstances, and those who have failed to do so may not live long enough to pass along their genes.

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