Madonna Gaulding, author of The Meditation Bible, gives you a beginner’s guide to easy serenity:

BENEFITS: Eating slowly and mindfully increases the pleasure you will get from your food.  Not only will you taste more, but by eating consciously, you will be more likely to choose to eat healthier foods.

TO START: Make yourself a healthy, balanced meal.

STEP ONE: Lay the table and sit down, but don’t start eating straight away. Take time to relax and settle your mind. Set your intention to eat mindfully and be a healthier person.

STEP TWO: Pick up your fork and place a bite of food in your mouth. Put your fork back on the table.

Chew carefully and focus on the sensations on your tongue, teeth and throat as you swallow. Is it sweet, salty, sour, bitter, or flavoured with spices or herbs? You will probably notice a combination.

STEP THREE: When you have completely experienced the taste sensations from the first bite, pick up your fork and take another.

Focus on what arises in your mind. Are you frustrated by eating so slowly? Are you anticipating the next bite before you finish the one you have? Are you continuing to eat even though your stomach feels full?

STEP FOUR: Try to let go of all your emotional baggage about eating and simply savour the taste of your food, as if you were eating for the first time. Try to bring mindfulness to your everyday eating.

Via Daily Mail

Via Big Think:

What’s the Latest Development?

Researchers at Harvard Business School have found that small mobile devices which close off your posture to the world also close your attention, weakening your ability to engage the world around you. In an experiment, “researchers paid 75 participants to use one of a range of devices–iPod Touch (a handy iPhone stand-in), iPad, laptop, and desktop–to play the same gambling game.” The researcher monitoring them then said: “I will get some forms ready for you to sign so I can pay you and you can leave. If I am not here in five minutes, please come get me at the front desk.”

What’s the Big Idea?

The real aim of the experiment was to time which individuals took the longest to find the wandering experimenter and determine if waiting time correlated to device used. “94% of the desktop users worked up the nerve to leave the room, while only 50% of the Touch users gave chase. In a fit of device-behavior parallelism, the larger (and more expansive posture-promoting) the device a person used, the more quickly they sought out the experimenter. As HBS Working Knowledge writer Carmen Nobel notes, desktop users waited 341 seconds before grabbing the experimenter, Touch users waited an average of 493 seconds.”

Be Here Now – What is your favorite part?

For anyone on the spiritual path, Ram Dass’ Be Here Now is essential reading.

The book fascinated me. From Ram Dass teaching psychology at Harvard, to his extensive use of psychedelic drugs, to his emotions and feelings about dissatisfaction, it was such an interesting read. He pushed my mind and my ego to think about more in this physical form world that we are living in.

My Favorite Parts of Ram Dass’ Be Here Now:

Shoveling Snow

The part about contact highs was awesome. Ram Dass described a story on a very snowy night in Boston where he was at a friend’s house  tripping out on psychedelic drugs. After a full night of partying he walked home to his parents house around 4AM. At the time a major snow storm was coming through Boston. He started shoveling snow. His parents came to the window and gave him the, “You’re crazy, come inside!” look. Instead of coming inside or defending himself, he did a jig in the snow and started making snow angels. His parents started cracking up laughing and Ram Dass began laughing. For that second, or that minute, all egos were no more, and the three of them were One. The greatness of life’s light was beaming in that moment. Ram Dass described contact highs as making someone else happy by making yourself look stupid. I love this because its an exercise or practice that reduces ego. Its a practice that can potentially bring about happiness and love.

Ram Dass and Psilocybin

At another point in the book, RD was tripping out on psilocybin, again. I have never tried this “drug,” but his response to it was amazing. He began to see life form as similar versus different. He described how we always are seeing the differences in each other. How we are better, worse, bigger, smaller, richer, poorer than anything and everything around us. Our egos are constantly talking to us, chatting in our heads telling us to be more, be better, be worse, you’re not good enough, etc. This drug took him to a different place. It made him see Oneness. “Race turned into a color like a t-shirt color.” He was present.

Be Here Now and Presence

The “Be Here Now” part of the book was profound. His guru Neem Karoli Baba said to Ram Dass, “Do not think about the past, do not think about the future, just be here now.” He was talking about being present. Feeling your body, letting go of your thoughts in your head, acknowledging your ego is your ego. Deleting goals, wants, desires, and simply being present. He gave him what I think is great advice and said, “Emotions are like waves, watch them disappear into the ocean.”

I highly suggest reading this book. It was so useful in helping me acknowledge my ego. I can now draw on my ego when I am frustrated and use it as a tool to be present.

What are your favorite parts about Ram Dass’ Be Here Now?

We change our priorities as we are confronted with the end of something; time with a loved one before they travel or are shipped out to time in the Service; time with our friends before we all graduate; time with our kids before they move away to college and move on with their lives. Each of these impending endings or changes forces us to look at time differently.

We become more aware of it and how we want it to slow down or we want more of it. But we get what we get. A day, week and month for you is the same amount of time for me. Its value, however, is in how we use each moment of time.

6 Steps to No Excuse Living:

1)      Be more aware, more present and more connected to each moment. Each moment matters.

2)      Put fewer things on the to-do list. Do each one better.

3)      Spend more time with the important people in your life. Call your friends and family. Have meals together.

4)      Turn off the electronics and talk to each other.

5)      Know your talents, strengths and passions and build your life around the true you and don’t let others dissuade you from your dreams and adventures.

6)      Listen to others, but always trust your instinct and self-knowledge to choose what is right for you.

List and excerpt via IntentBlog