What is the difference between being mindful and being conscious? A runner's question

A nice day on the Mawson Trail

It seems that there are different ways in which people use or understand the word “conscious”. In some contexts it seems to have more weight. It is very focused and intense; it takes a lot of energy; it involves mental struggle and toil; it’s tiring. In this sense it can sometimes include a sense of self-consciousness. It can mean being very clear and disciplined in your relationship with your own mind. "Stay focused," you tell yourself, on the breath, or the hips, or the feet.

In other contexts it is lighter, like being conscious that your clothes fit well or that it's a nice day.

So the differences between being conscious and being mindful depend on how one uses the words.

It seems to me, though, that there are people who think that there are only two ways to think: either you are conscious in the sense of being focused, attentive and self-conscious, or else you are not thinking at all.

What if what you believed about learning was wrong? How would that change the way you run?

Learning to listen is the most important skill in running. Practice paying attention without thinking.

The most popular general theory about learning I know is quite attractive. Initially described by a Noel Burch in the 1970's, it is intuitively appealing. It has a logic to it that at first makes a lot of sense. But in a fundamental way it is also wrong and unhelpful.

This standard model has four steps and is usually described using the example of learning to drive a car.

Publication

Nice to announce that my entry for the Sneaker's in the Sky competition ended up being the editor's choice. I won't mention that there were only five entries and no prize. Lao Tzu would be pleased, I'm sure.

The editor said it was "a delightful mix of imagery, magic and whimsy, leaving the reader intrigued as to its meaning."

Clearly, I'm not being clear enough. Here's a summary.

A guy skateboards past. He's wearing a bowler hat and second hand suit and carrying an umbrella. He stops at the bottom of a telephone pole, gets off his board and climbs it - the pole, not the skateboard. I think that's pretty cool.
At the top of the pole, he walks out onto the wire. I think that's pretty cool.
I'm distracted for just a second - or at least that's how it feels - because suddenly the guy isn't there anymore. The only things there are his sneakers: dangling by their laces on the wires.
Since he's not around to take it, I pinch his skateboard. Cool, hey?

Simple!

Killing in the name of...?

All decisions are local.

Whether it comes from information overload or filter failure, it's easy to see why people sink into emotional weariness, depression and despair. It's logical, really. One of the debates I (an avid reader) have been having recently is whether or not reading is useful. It may be an odd question, but I'd like to know the answer: in which areas are people making better decisions now than they were prior to the invention of the printing press?

But that's a side-track. The point is that knowledge has become a simple argument for inaction. I know this goes against much of what's been lauded about the Occupy movement and the dramatic transformations of the world as a result of awareness and connectivity - read "The Arab Spring" for a simply summary argument-by-example.

But I'm standing next to a pile of compost that I mistakenly placed near a stone wall. The wall provides lovely safe homes for breeding mice and by putting the food-scraps compost bin nearby, I had inadvertently prepared the way for a mouse plague.

Today's Mantra - Lest We Forget

Good governance mantra

With every act I cast my vote.

May my actions always cultivate

The people and processes to steer us towards:

A fair and stable economy

An inclusive and creative culture

A wise, responsible, free, open and equal community

Healthy, compassionate, informed and engaged people

A sustainable mix of productive, common, sacred and wild country.

May we be guided but not limited by our past.

May we act in the present with love and discipline.

May we move towards the future with clarity and resilience.

Slowly slowly. Slowly slowly.

Sneakers in the Sky

My entry for the Sneakers in the Sky comp. (<200 words)

Why I call my deck 'Chaplin'

Gliding by, he tilted his hat in one direction and his umbrella in the other.

Grey hat: bowler style. Brown suit.

White sneakers flashed (blue stripes, orange soles) pushing a wooden deck.

He stopped. Started climbing. Was half way up the lamppost before I even twigged.

Crazy!

The moon silk-screened the tree across the road – a mad-as t-shirt – giant disk the colour of a tooth, clouds encroaching like plaque.

Once up, Charlie Chaplin saluted then opened his umbrella. And stepped out. First one foot, inching like a caterpillar. Then the other, joyfully light.

This all sounds mental, but I swear it’s true: Mullen never had such grace. Op-shop suit and hat on an electric wire, dancing.

I saw him smile. The tilt of his head, the lift of his knees. He used his umbrella not to balance, but to wave.

I felt as if I’d looked away and missed something. Was it smoke or just cloud passing in front of the moon?

The night sky racked a billion sneakers but left one pair behind, swinging gently on the wire – white with blue stripes. 

Sweet.

If you see him, they’re still where he left them. But I’ve got his board.

Running and writing - with and without the names

I went for a walk today. Not a run. Not a dance. A walk. But, now that I think about it, there were times when I ran. There were a few lovely swooping sections which flowed downwards in such a way that it seemed rude not to run. I sprinted, then slowed to a canter, then via a slow trot returned to walking.

Then I stopped for a bit. I even bent over, picked a weed a tasted it to see if was some kind of wild rocket. And maybe I did a little dance. But overall I think I'd have to call it a walk. What else, really, could I call it?

This question actually has ramifications.

Daily Blog - No No No! On suffering and acceptance.

Happening

Late afternoon, Lily just back from doing a yoga class looking blissfully happy, me typing on the veranda. As the sun drops below the hill, the change in the air is almost instant. It runs in like a cool stream.

A "mindfulness weekend" just over. Three classes: two on Saturday and one on Sunday, plus some work on a rock wall where a new prayer room is being built.

And what has remained after the two days?

Firstly, I have a black fingernail.

The Perfect Day Project

What is it?

The Perfect Day Project is an artwork and research project designed to investigate how similar and different people’s hopes and aspirations are. By asking people to imagine and describe their perfect days I hope to be able to find out whether everybody wants different things or whether, in many different ways, people from all over the world want basically the same things. The aim is to interview men and women, adults and children, people from different cultures and religions, ethnic groups and nationalities and show that when each of us dreams of an ideal moment in the future, our dreams have things in common.

I’m hoping to find out what this common ground is. Whether it’s music, friends, food or nature, or a sense of freedom, peace, opportunity and capacity, the hope is that by identifying it I can help establish more room for dialogue based on the idea that there already exists – for most people – a common ground on which to build connection, understanding and empathy. There are differences, too, for sure, but the question that naturally arises is whether the differences are interesting and creative or are inevitably divisive and a source of violence.

What have we done? (Fiction)

The local paper - The Preston Press - is running a competition for stories about the shoes on some of the power lines around town. Since their call for entries is quite upbeat, I assume the people at Preston Press haven't heard the story that sneakers on power lines have "traditionally" been used in America to signify gang areas and the homes of drug dealers. The competition is called Sneakers in the Sky and holds writers to fewer than 200 words. 

What have we done? - while too long to enter - was a response to the topic. 

Enjoy.

Welcome to the Effortless Running Group

The following is an outline of the ideas behind the Balingup Effortless Running Group.

Let's play a quick word association game.

What's the first thought - image - set of associations - feelings - that come into your mind when I mention "going for a run"?

In my experience there are three kinds of reactions.

The majority of people think that running = pain. The image that comes is of a hot, sweaty, red-faced person gasping for air. The feelings are not a good clean healthy tiredness, but of exhaustion and pain:  aching shoulders, lower back, knees and feet, with perhaps some chafing or blisters as an extra wound (with salt already rubbed in).

Daily Blog - Opportunities

Happening

Lily: usual position: inversion on the verandah.

Right now Lily is brushing her teeth. I'm sitting at my laptop. It's dark and, for Balingup, late: 9.40pm. I've just closed the window because I could feel the most cold night air flowing down the hillside, straight in the window, onto the desk and then into my lap.

Lily and I had a chat with Chim and Anne today. Both of us were a bit anxious. The note saying they wanted to catch up with us at 3.30 today had been left under the bottle of sunscreen on the outside table yesterday. We both wondered what we'd done wrong.

Daily blog - Tidying up the garden

The path up to Corrain - the Buddhist Centre
 at the top of the hill.

Happening

The alarm clock went off at six for Lily to do some yoga and for me to do some writing: the ideal routine.

"Is it five or six?" I asked. I'd been ripped from a dream and felt heavy and deep in the middle of sleep.

"Six."

Lily got up and I think made herself a cup of tea rather than sit in lotus. I think it was what they call "English yoga."

Daily Blog - Are you in the mood for it?

Happening

Writing space #1. Our front verandah.

I'm lucky.

The aim of this journey-thing I'm doing is hard to define. There are things about changing my "way of being in the world" which are hard to put out there in a clear way, even when they are relatively clear to me. Being mindful, sensitive to when I'm not really listening properly or not able to speak clearly, are simple aims but they take too long to explain and sound vague and to me kind of selfish in the explaining.

Preview - Crazy Man - Act 1

This is very new work. And just a taster.

Crazy Man is an interview play. It is about the search for truth. It plays with the idea of whether or not a man who seems to be crazy is allowed to know the truth. It explores how the interview process permits some truths and denies others. And what is the role of the interviewer? What effect does it have if it's a doctor, journalist, psychologist, police officer or an "ordinary person" asking the questions?

It will help you visualise this play if you are at least a little familiar with Playback Theatre. In Playback Theatre the Conductor interviews a person - usually a member of the audience - and draws out a story which a group of Players then "play back" to the storyteller. Crazy Man plays with this format, using it to reflect on the notion of story and of how well or badly we listen to each other's truths.

The play also looks at questions of fatherhood, and the loss and damage suffered by absent fathers or fathers who have lost contact or connection with their children in whatever way. This is a story of fatherhood not often told, and worth giving some time to.

But basically it's a cop story. You have a guy who says he killed someone. Did he or didn't he? And if he did, how did he do it?

Enjoy.

Crazy Man

The Daily Blog - Sweeping up.

Happening

Our new digs. Lovely. Space. A verandah. Big trees.

We have moved into a beautiful little unit now. Today I met Chim and Anne, the two people who run the centre.

Mark and I went for a walk up the hill to where we thought we'd find Chim. The Origins Centre is on the south side of a steep hill. Really, it's not a hill but the side of a wide gully, but it is steep. We wound our way up past small piles of debris: leaves and branches: the forrest litter that some people see as the mulch layer that feeds the next generation of plants, animals, reptiles, insects and all the worms, microbes and bacteria that create soil; other people look at it as "fuel load". 

The Daily Blog - Arriving at the Origins Centre

Happening

I’m sitting in the room at the Origins Centre in Balingup. It’s quiet: late afternoon. Birdsong is the only sound I can hear apart from my own tapping on the keypad. Small birds: I can hear twitters and short whistles rather than the caws and squawks of parrots, cockatoos or magpies. I’ve seen a few miners (natives, not Indians) but apart form that I’ll have to sit outside for longer, and pay attention.

There's a huge tree with a big swing in it just the other side of the main building (kitchen, common room, showers). It's some kind of fine-leaved eucalypt - a big mother tree hanging over the building, ball-shaped like a burst of fireworks.

Kill the Wolf

Chris Bunworth (played Richard), Lee Mason (Mikey) and
Marcella Russo (Rose) in the season at Dante's and at
The Black Box.
I was very lucky to have such a brilliant team take on this script.

Tim Nolan’s writing ably reveals relationships and characters, blends exposition with action, balances content with drama, and takes us to unexpected emotional places. It’s well structured, authentic, original, emotional, skilled writing. What more can we ask for? 

Anne-marie Peard, AussieTheatre.com

http://sometimesmelbourne.blogspot.com.au/2008/03/kill-wolf.html

Kill the Wolf: A dark fairytale was originally produced by 9 Minds after it won the 9 Minds 9 Works competition. The script published here is the Tech script which was developed from the original script by Director Lucy Freeman for the production at The Black Box Theatre at The Victorian Arts Centre.

To see 9 Minds current productions, go here: http://www.9minds.com.au. Lighting was by Scott Alan. To see images from the production and more of Scott's work, go here: http://www.sallanld.com/galleries/32

Eulogy for Doreen Ward (nee Considine)

I have a picture in my mind of Doreen (Granma). It’s one of those composite images that never actually happened but seems to be a summary of how she was. In it she is standing up. I guess I’ve just arrived and she’s just popped up out of her chair. If she has, it’s without hesitating, groaning or needing assistance. She’s beautifully dressed, wearing a long necklace and shoes with a low heel. She’s standing upright, but leaning forward a little. She’s happy to see me, and I know this is true regardless of how long it’s been or how I’m travelling, and she’s standing with her arms open. She’s welcoming me but also opening herself and giving me all of her love and attention.

The Uncomfortable Silence

The door opened and the noise and smell of the storm pushed into the office. The thunderous drone of rain pounding rooftops and windscreens and hitting puddles hard enough to make them pop and dance, and the wet earth smell of gutters overflowing with mud, leaves, tree branches and garbage bounded through The Page's open-plan office like the warm wet hairy breath of a big dog. Ping stepped in through the door and stamped her heavy boots. Mud and rainwater sprayed the carpet. She was short - not quite five foot - barrel-shaped and stiff. Phillipino black hair cut square across her forehead and her collar, shiny and flat as a piece of Lego. She smelled of rubber and wet wool. She shut the door and the storm suddenly settled, back in its kennel. From under her raincoat she drew out a battered satchel.