2015 Spring

How the spring came the grounds at Community Unitarian in White Plains

Mar 24:

Mar 31:

Apr 7:

Apr 14:

Apr 21:

Apr 29:

May 5:

May 12:

Cultivate Mindfulness

Practice of the Week
Cultivate Mindfulness

Category: Key Supporting Practices: Some particularly key practices/observances that will support your developing spirituality.

From the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center at UCLA website (marc.ucla.edu):

Contemporary culture in the United States is marked by extraordinary advances in science and technology, yet coupled with these advances is an increasing sense of pressure, complexity and information overload. Individuals across the lifespan are feeling tremendous stress, which is contributing to a variety of mental and physical health problems and diseases.

Mindful awareness can be defined as paying attention to present moment experiences with openness, curiosity, and a willingness to be with what is. It is an excellent antidote to the stresses of modern times. It invites us to stop, breathe, observe, and connect with one's inner experience. There are many ways to bring mindfulness into one's life, such as meditation, yoga, art, or time in nature. Mindfulness can be trained systematically, and can be implemented in daily life, by people of any age, profession or background.

In the last ten years, significant research has shown mindfulness to address health issues such as lower blood pressure and boost the immune system; increase attention and focus, including aid those suffering from ADHD; help with difficult mental states such as anxiety and depression, fostering well-being and less emotional reactivity; and thicken the brain in areas in charge of decision making, emotional flexibility, and empathy.

In this video, Susan Smalley of the Mindful Awareness Research Center, and co-author of Fully Present: The Science, Art, and Practice of Mindfulness, explains:

From Karen Kissel Wegela, "Practicing Mindfulness Without Meditating," Psychology Today (HERE):

While the most direct way to cultivate mindfulness is the sitting practice of mindfulness-awareness meditation, not everyone is ready for, or interested in, doing that....

Principles of good mindfulness practice:
1. Paying attention to the moment-to-moment details of experience
2. Paying particular attention to the body and one's experience of it
3. Recognizing the experience of mind and not getting caught in memories of the past or plans for the future
4. Trying neither too much nor too little
5. Letting go of distractions and paying attention to the present moment
6. Noticing one's experience without judging it

I work with my clients to identify the activities that they already engage in that can become occasions for practicing mindfulness. Most people have a number of possibilities. Practically all sports can work: basketball, baseball, soccer, volleyball, and so on. What's it like to stand at the foul line before you try to make a free throw?

Other physical activities can be used, too: biking to work in traffic, walking the dog, going for a jog, shoveling the driveway, buying groceries, picking out what to wear, putting on make-up, driving the car. What these activities have in common is the opportunity to pay attention to sense perceptions in the present moment: what one can see, hear, smell, taste or touch.

When we engage in these activities, especially if we are willing to let go of distractions like listening to an iPod or playing the car radio, they give us the chance to tune into what is happening right now. We can pay attention to our sense perceptions, our emotions, and our thoughts.

I often walk our dogs in the morning. When I am using my walk time as a mindfulness practice, I pay attention to all my senses. This time of year the branches are bare, and the ground is often icy in patches. I pay attention to where I place my feet. This takes even more awareness when I have to dogs with me, running one way and another in their eagerness to check out all the smells. I guess they are doing their own sniffing practice! I pay attention to the movement of the dogs, the sloshy sounds of the traffic nearby on the wet street, the crows that caw from dumpster behind the market. I notice smells -- sometimes the moist earth, other times the smell of dog poop as I pick it up in a newspaper bag. I feel the cold air on my face and the thoughts about wishing I'd worn my warmer hat. As we move along, the sights, smells, sounds and feelings change. My emotions how my irritation with Sadie, as she pulls on the leash and barks as she tries to get to the neighbor's dog, changes to delight as she bounces happily along soon afterward. I notice tenderness as Sunny starts to limp, and I remove the burr she's picked up on her paw. I note the sharp pinch as I get stuck by the burr myself. When I find my mind wandering to the meeting I have later at school, I simply come back to the present moment with the dogs.

Other activities that lend themselves to cultivating mindfulness are cleaning the house, cooking dinner, working on the car, paying attention to people as we speak with them at work, filing papers, typing. We can also pay attention to body experiences when we feel well or when we feel ill. Bringing mindfulness to physical pain is particularly illuminating. We may find that we have added tension to what might otherwise be a tolerable experience and made it worse.

We can attend to our emotions when we feel uneasy, happy, sad, scared. There's a whole range of emotions we can attend to. In fact, in therapy, this is often our work together: bringing mindfulness to the experience of emotions as they are arising. Some experiences are more difficult to do this with, and it's best to practice bringing mindfulness to easier ones first. For example, it's quite difficult to bring mindfulness to intense experiences of anger. Still, the more we attend to our present experience, the more we cultivate the courage to be present with whatever experience we are having.

With all of these activities, we begin by setting an intention to be mindful of our experience. It's best to pick a particular activity as your mindfulness practice. Getting too ambitious and thinking we can bring mindfulness to everything right away is, for most people, trying too hard.

As always, it is important to be gentle but also steady. So pick a particular activity and set a particular amount of time when you're going to use it as a practice. Then, gently pay attention to the sensations in your body; note your sense perceptions, your emotions, and your thoughts as they come and go. Notice when you hang on to a feeling or thought. Let it go when you can. If you forget that you're practicing mindfulness, just start again without giving yourself a hard time.

There's really no limit to the different activities that can become opportunities to practice and cultivate mindfulness. Happy practicing!

See also "Practice of the Week: Be Mindful" and "Practice of the Week: Mindfulness"

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PRACTICES INDEX

Relax

Practice of the Week
Relax

Category: SLOGANS TO LIVE BY. These are for everyone. Carry these reminders at all times. These practices don't require setting aside a separate substantial chunk of time -- but they will slow you down a bit (and that's a good thing.) Resolve to get stronger at living by these maxims, day by day. Sometimes make one of them the focus of your daily journaling.

“The parasympathetic nervous system [PNS] is one of three divisions of the autonomic nervous system. Sometimes called the rest and digest system, the parasympathetic system conserves energy as it slows the heart rate, increases intestinal and gland activity, and relaxes sphincter muscles in the gastrointestinal tract.” (Science Daily)

Adapted from Rick Hanson, Just One Thing

It's easy to feel stressed these days. Or worried, frustrated, or irritated about one thing or another, such as finances, work, the health of a family member, or a relationship.

When you get stressed or upset, your body tenses up to fight, flee, or freeze. That's Mother Nature's way, and its short-term benefits kept our ancestors alive to pass on their genes.

But today — when people can live seventy or eighty years or more, and when quality of life (not mere survival) is a priority — we pay a high, long-term price for daily tension. It leads to health problems like heart disease, poor digestion, backaches and headaches, and hormonal ups and downs. And to psychological problems, including anxiety, irritability, and depression.

The number one way to reduce tension is through relaxation. Besides its benefits for physical and mental health, relaxation feels great. Just recall how nice it feels to soak in a tub, curl up in bed, or plop on the couch after the dishes are done.

Whether you're stuck in traffic, wading through an overflowing in-box, or having a tough conversation, being able to relax your body at will is a critically important inner skill.

How

Here are some good ways to activate the "rest-and-digest" parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) that calms down the fight-or-flight sympathetic nervous system:

• PNS fibers, involved with digestion, fill the mouth. So relax your tongue and jaw; perhaps touch your lips. (If I'm having a hard time sleeping, sometimes I'll rest a knuckle against my lips, which has a soothing and calming effect.)
• Open your lips slightly. This can help ease stressful thinking by reducing subvocalizations, the subtle, unconscious movements of the jaw and tongue often associated with mental speech.
• Do several long exhalations, since the PNS handles exhaling. For example inhale for a count of three, and exhale for a count of six.
• For a minute or more, breathe in such a way that your inhalation and exhalation are equally long; count mentally up to five for each inhalation and each exhalation. This creates small but smooth changes in the interval between heartbeats — since the heart speeds up slightly with inhalation and slows down slightly with exhalation — which is associated with relaxation and well-being (Kristal-Boneh et al. 1995).
• Relax your diaphragm — the muscle underneath your lungs that helps suck air into them — by putting your hand on your stomach, just below your rib cage, and then trying to breathe in a way that pushes your hand half an inch or so away from your backbone. (This is especially helpful if you're feeling anxious.)

Try these methods in stressful situations, or any time you're feeling worried or frustrated; they really work! Also use them "offline," when things are more settled, such as by setting aside a few minutes each day — perhaps just before bed — to practice relaxation. The resting state of your body-mind will become more peaceful, and you'll become more resilient when things hit the fan. For example, researchers have found that practicing relaxation actually increases the expression of genes that calm down the stress response (Dusek et al. 2008).

For Journaling

The five bullet points above suggest ways to trigger the PNS. Choose one of these to experiment with. Temporarily elevate your stress by vividly imagining a stressful situation, or watching a suspenseful or scary movie. Then try one of the suggestions -- relaxing tongue and jaw and touching lips; opening lips; long exhales; long and equal inhales and exhales, and relaxing diaphragm. Write in your journal about what you noticed in your body.

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Here's 1:49 on the basic biology of the difference between the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS):

Chloe Brotheridge (3:02) has some further hints on breathing focus to help relax.

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PRACTICES INDEX

CUC Music: Sun Mar 29

Sultry, evocative piano music from the Iberian peninsula will warm you up this chilly March morning at CUC. Enrique Granados’s romantic impressions of the world of Francisco Goya and Frederic Chopin are featured in the Prelude. Federico Mompou’s delicate Secreto, from the composer’s first published work, is also featured alongside Xavier Montsalvatge’s sensitive tribute to Spain’s vanished Caribbean empire, from his “Divertimentos on Themes by Forgotten Composers”.  A depiction of Andalusia’s ancient Moorish stronghold Cordoba by Isaac Albéniz rounds out the morning’s musical programming. Read on for programming details, and check out this link to hear Music Director Adam Kent introduce and perform works by Granados at Le poisson rouge: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo2_GDC2lVU



Prelude: Adam Kent, piano

El fandango del candil from Goyescas                       

Mazurka from Escenas románticas

                                                            Enrique Granados

Opening Music:
Secreto from Impresiones íntimas                       

                                                    Federico Mompou

Interlude:
Habanera from Tres divertimientos sobre temas de autores olvidados 

                                                Xavier Montsalvatge

Offertory:
Córdoba from Cantos de España                       

                                                 Isaac Albéniz

CUC Music: Sun Mar 22

CUC Choir Accompanist Georgianna Pappas treats us to a program of sensitive, introspective music from Johannes Brahms’s late years. She is joined in a special Interlude by CUC member Kim Force for a performance of Bobby McFerrin’s arrangement of the 23^rd Psalm, printed as Hymn 1038 in Singing the Journey. Read on for programming details.

Prelude: Georgianna Pappas, piano

Intermezzo, opus 116, no. 4 in E major

Intermezzo, opus 118, no. 2 in A major

                                                Johannes Brahms 

Opening Music:

Intermezzo, opus 119, no. 1 in B minor

Brahms

Interlude: Kim Force, soprano
The 23^rd Psalm                                   

adapted by Bobby McFerrin

Offertory:

Intermezzo, opus 117, no. 1. E flat major  

Brahms

Science & Spirituality: Thu Mar 26

The Science and Spirituality class meets twice monthly at CUC: on the second and fourth Thursdays of the month, 11:30a - 1:00p, usually in room 24.

Any interested person is welcome to join the class for lively discussion of ideas.

On Thu Mar 26, the class will be concluding its discussion of E.O. Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence. The focus will be on the final chapters, 12 - 15 (pp. 135 - 188):

Section IV: Idols of the Mind
   Chapter 12: Instinct
   Chapter 13: Religion
   Chapter 14: Free Will
Section V: A Human Future
   Chapter 15: Alone and Free in the Universe

Edward O. Wilson is widely recognized as one of the world's preeminent biologists and naturalists. The author of more than twenty books, including The Creation, The Social Conquest of Earth, and Letters to a Young Scientist, Wilson is a professor emeritus at Harvard University. The winner of two Pulitzer Prizes, he lives in Lexington, Massachusetts.

From the National Book Foundation:

The Meaning of Human Existence addresses the most pressing issues of the 21st century, as it gently suggests ways we might move forward without destroying ourselves and the planet. Whether contemplating how to preserve biodiversity, the potential human encounter with extraterrestrials, or the existential problems posed by religious and political fanaticism, Wilson’s self-deprecating tone disguises a piercing, at times shocking argument that will spark productive dialogue among scientists and non-scientists, experts, and general readers alike.

ABOUT THE BOOK

How did humanity originate and why does a species like ours exist on this planet? Do we have a special place, even a destiny in the universe? Where are we going, and perhaps, the most difficult question of all, "Why?" In The Meaning of Human Existence, biologist Edward O. Wilson grapples with these and other existential questions, examining what makes human beings supremely different from all other species. Searching for meaning in what Nietzsche once called "the rainbow colors" around the outer edges of knowledge and imagination, Wilson takes his readers on a journey—from our earliest inception to a provocative look at what the future of mankind portends.

Wilson posits that we, as a species, now know enough about the universe and ourselves that we can begin to approach questions about our place in the cosmos and the meaning of intelligent life in a systematic, indeed, in a testable way and that humanity holds a special position in the known universe. The human epoch that began in biological evolution and passed into pre-, then recorded, history is now more than ever before in our hands. Yet alarmed that we are about to abandon natural selection by redesigning biology and human nature as we wish them, Wilson soberly concludes that advances in science and technology bring us our greatest moral dilemma since God stayed the hand of Abraham.

From Amazon.com about Wilson, The Meaning of Human Existence:

Review
“A valedictory work… What a lively writer Mr. Wilson can be. This two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize in nonfiction stands above the crowd of biology writers the way John le Carré stands above spy writers. He’s wise, learned, wicked, vivid, oracular.” (Dwight Garner - New York Times Book Review)

“In his typically elegant style, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Wilson (Letters to a Young Scientist) cannily and candidly probes the nature of human existence.” (Publishers Weekly)

“This compact volume packs a great punch—particularly in its new compelling argument that it would be the gravest of mistakes to reengineer our minds to make ourselves supermen. It understands our limited brains as the right tool for building the kind of future we require, and with this 'existential conservatism' gives us new reason to celebrate the wonder that is us.” (Bill McKibben, author of Enough)

“With remarkable clarity and a depth of insight that is absolutely unique, E. O. Wilson provides a highly readable and immensely enlightening analysis of nothing less than the meaning of human existence and the relationship of our species to the physical universe. By effortlessly merging science with philosophy, Wilson has created a masterwork that lays out his theories of our destiny. Already the world's most distinguished evolutionary biologist, Wilson has transcended disciplinary boundaries with this book to create an invaluable analysis of who we are and the choices we now confront; it is a must-read for all.” (Vice President Al Gore)

“E. O. Wilson is Darwin’s great successor, a scientist of such astounding breadth, depth, experience, and brilliance that he offers us nothing less than a new understanding of humanity… You will see the beauty, mystery, and possibilities of human existence through the eyes of one of humanity’s greatest and most intrepid explorers.” (Jeffrey D. Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University)

“[A] tough-minded little primer-cum-manifesto… Compact and readable.” (Dan Cryer - Boston Globe)

“There can be few better guides through our species’ past journey and potential for the future… A provocative and beautifully written collection of essays.” (Tim Lenton - Nature)

“No biologist has been more persistent or eloquent in correcting our misapprehensions about human origins than Edward O. Wilson… We should be grateful that Wilson, so late in his illustrious career, still appeals to reason and imagination in hopes of enlightening us about our nature and inspiring us to change our destructive ways.” (Scott Russell Sanders - Washington Post)

“Wilson asks: Does humanity have a special place in the universe? Where are we going, and why? He answers by telling science’s latest creation stories, and presenting a vision of the future both inspiring and plausible, not an easy feat to pull off… Wilson is both a wild-eyed optimist and a hard-nosed realist. What more can we ask of a prophet?” (John Horgan - Scientific American)

See the New York Times review of The Meaning of Human Existence: CLICK HERE.
See the review in the Washington Post: CLICK HERE.

CUC Music: Sun Mar 15

The fragmentary melodic scraps Rachmaninoff uses to spin out his evocative etudes and preludes complement our monthly theme of Brokenness this Sunday morning. CUC’s Choir will be on hand to perform a moving setting of Emily Dickinson’s poetry and to preview a number from the Rodgers and Hammerstein event on 3/22. Read on for programming details.

Prelude: Adam Kent, piano
Etude-Tableau in A Minor, Op. 39, No. 6
Prelude in Bb Minor, Op. 32, No. 2
Prelude in B Minor, Op. 32, No. 10

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Choral Anthem: CUC Choir directed by Lisa N. Meyer and accompanied by Georgianna Pappas
"I Shall Not Live In Vain"

music by Ruth Morris Gray, words by Emily Dickinson

Offertory Choral Anthem: Kim Force, soloist
"You'll Never Walk Alone" from the musical "Carousel"

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, from the medley by Mac Huff