"Mindfulness is a powerful inoculation against the pressures and toxicities of modern life. Just as it is important to practice meditation joyfully and not with a sense of heaviness or duty, so it is also with daily life meditation. Use these devices with a light spirit. If a sense of heaviness or compulsion enters any element of the practice, then try it differently, approach it with a different attitude, or do something else. You are just learning, as the Buddha taught, to dwell happily in things as they are, not trying to change anything, not even trying to change or reform yourself."
This advice comes from Thomas Bien, a clinical psychologist in private practice in the Albuquerque area, and Beverly Bien, the Executive Director of La Vida Felicidad, a nonprofit agency that provides services to people with disabilities. This husband and wife team offer in this paperback a "ten-week retreat in daily life." Subjects covered include know where you are, find a path to the center, a gentle approach to meditation, bring meditation into your life, look deeply at your life, work with dreams, transform negative emotions, cultivate healthy relationships, and meditate on paper. Their methodology integrates insights from spirituality and psychology.
In an essay on skillful speech they write about avoiding "gunny sacking." This is a hunting term that refers to pulling ammunition out of the sack on your shoulder. "In dialogue, this means bringing up past issues whenever you talk about a current one. Gunny sacking is a way to insure that nothing changes. Nothing can be resolved if every minor discussion snowballs into an argument about past mistakes." That is a good example of the kind of creative approaches the authors come up with in this retreat.
