Guest guest Posted October 12, 2009 Report Share Posted October 12, 2009 Hello Group, I haven't posted in some time and of late am looking at my life again. In the recent past I go to my zazen practice as my means of cultivating acceptance/mindfulness. It is becoming my opinion that zazen practice is the culmination, at least for me, of all the acceptance/mindfulness " strategies " employed by ACT. I write to this group now to ask: Am I missing out on anything useful from ACT, besides the Values part, by only practicing zazen? Another question in regards to the Values part is this: What can I do to uncover/discover some values/meaning-for-life that now seems so remote (something that makes values/meaning-for-life REAL, experientially? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 12, 2009 Report Share Posted October 12, 2009 I am not sure what you are asking with regard to values. > > Hello Group, > > I haven't posted in some time and of late am looking at my life again. In the recent past I go to my zazen practice as my means of cultivating acceptance/mindfulness. It is becoming my opinion that zazen practice is the culmination, at least for me, of all the acceptance/mindfulness " strategies " employed by ACT. I write to this group now to ask: Am I missing out on anything useful from ACT, besides the Values part, by only practicing zazen? Another question in regards to the Values part is this: What can I do to uncover/discover some values/meaning-for-life that now seems so remote (something that makes values/meaning-for-life REAL, experientially? > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted October 13, 2009 Report Share Posted October 13, 2009 Hi pitamind, I'm no zazen adept, but it has been my main way of learning mindfulness. (I need to do more, but that's another post!) For me, ACT gave me the understanding of why I'm meditating. In the past I was meditating without really knowing why. My experience was that there's a lot of abstract double-speak in standard zen books. ACT lays it out clearly that the goals include: experience your thoughts, sensations, feelings without getting snagged by them. This is a lot more approachable than trying to achieve some state of enlightenment that is apparently indescribable. And it's directly relevant to my day-to-day life. I find myself increasingly doing mindfulness type self-observation during my daily activities, which seems to me the real payoff. So that I can approach difficult emotional states more productively (i.e. more in line with my values). My sense is that ACT aims to get people to experience that mindful state rapidly, in a therapy context. And without the cultural baggage that various forms of Buddhism have. But it seems to me that ACT comes out of something like the zen tradition; there are even instructions for doing the basic zazen posture and meditation in GOOYMAIYL. And totally looks like a zen priest in the photos I've seen :-) OTOH, I think the various exercises on learning defusion and acceptance could be helpful. Defusion in particular is something that is new to me. Not that I use it a lot, but it could be good to practice defusion techniques for those times when you need it. About values: my advice is don't overthink it. Take a stab at it however you like. You can revisit your list at any time, and probably should. Some people seem more sure of what they value than others. (You might need to apply acceptance to not being able to figure out your values! Hopefully not forever.) The ACT books have their " figure out your values exercises " , but none of them did it for me. I wound up just making some lists of the things I feel are important to me, and illustrating them with pictures to help my right brain participate: look at this set of pictures... anything missing? anything that shouldn't be there?. (I have too many values at this point, but that's for another post.) The distinction between values and goals is important and a bit tricky. Russ had some posts on this that were useful. I look at it this way: a value is an activity that is important enough to me that I would do it even if I never reached the goal. A lovely book on this topic is The Practicing Mind by Sterner. (Like ACT books, this is a book I love for being about subtle mindfulness topics but entirely down-to-earth, clear and understandable). I think part of why the values stuff is at the end of the ACT books is: you will likely encounter a lot of " demons on your boat " when you try to act on your values. I know I still do, though ACT has been helping. This is where the mindfulness, defusion, acceptance is really important. Best of luck, -- > > Hello Group, > > I haven't posted in some time and of late am looking at my life again. In the recent past I go to my zazen practice as my means of cultivating acceptance/mindfulness. It is becoming my opinion that zazen practice is the culmination, at least for me, of all the acceptance/mindfulness " strategies " employed by ACT. I write to this group now to ask: Am I missing out on anything useful from ACT, besides the Values part, by only practicing zazen? Another question in regards to the Values part is this: What can I do to uncover/discover some values/meaning-for-life that now seems so remote (something that makes values/meaning-for-life REAL, experientially? > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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