Long a proponent of meditation to relieve suffering and promote wellness, I was delighted this week when I hear a Canadian Broadcast Corp. (CBC) short program on my favourite subject – mindfulness.
Too often these shows are a turn-off to beginners, citing stuffy statistical analysis, dry academic theories of instruction, with lotus sitting, incense laden methods difficult for neophytes, but not this program.
Professor David Levy of Washington University has been instructing his students in meditation since 2005, and he spoke recently in a 10 minute Podcast to Norah Young on CBC radio’s “The Spark” on how mindfulness can improve how we conduct ourselves in our daily lives. Here’s the Link.
Near the eight minute mark Levy explains in simple language a study he conducted proving meditation eased the intuitive use of E-mail, Facebook and multitasking of those in the group. “Now that’s going to hook some new listeners”, I thought. We often suffer from “What’s in it for me?” when considering something new, so I was pleased David was appealing to modern productivity to gain interest.
The topic was chosen for a Podcast by “The Spark”s producers after David was awarded an academic fellowship by the Center for Contemplative Mind in Society to create a course exploring how contemplative practices might serve as a lens to observe and critique current information practices, and to investigate problems such as information overload, the fragmentation of attention, and the busyness and acceleration of everyday life.
Peace and abundance to all. (P.S. In reading the text version of Norah Young’s article in the Link above, I noted with chagrin that Young misspelled meditation as “mediation”; something that I do more frequently than I like to admit. Thank you all for your understanding.)
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