21 Elul
Much like the careful polishing of a mirror, mindfulness asks of us a steady deliberate paying attention to our lives moment by moment... if wakefulness is our inheritance, our capacity for mindless activity is a highly refined, intergenerationally acquired skill. ...We are often on automatic, out of touch with the truth of our experience. Given this, the extraordinary range of anguish we are faced with on a daily basis provides further impetus to shut down, become numb, function on autopilot, aware only at the outermost edges of awareness of the immensity of human suffering - including our own.
Excerpt from Heal Thy Self by Saki Santorell