John Foley

“Am I not a man? And is a man not stupid? I’m a man, so I married. Wife, children, house, everything. The full catastrophe.” –Zorba The Greek

I like Jon Kabat-Zinn’s books on mindfulness, the first of which he titled, “Full Catastrophe Living.” A few key points he makes:

1)Mindfulness is not a dime-store relaxation technique; it’s a way of life that needs to be cultivated.

2)Most folks go through life like robots, automatically, responding to their conditioning, living more in the past or the future rather than the present moment.

3)The present moment is all you ever have and should not be missed.

4)Fears, desires, regrets and conditioning all dissolve in present moment awareness.

5)When the mind strays from the moment, you should not beat yourself up, or you’ll be beating yourself up quite often. As Kabat-Zinn says, mindfulness is only the hardest thing in the world.

My mind recently strayed from the present moment. I had enjoyed a kayak paddle around the east end of Hayden Island, working against the current for the first twenty minutes, looking toward the Gorge, then catching a fast ride west when I rounded the tip of the island and caught the Columbia River current. I hauled out at the marina and left my kayak outside the entrance while I went to get my car, about a half-mile west at McCuddy’s. I didn’t like leaving my kayak and was in a hurry, so I just hopped in the car and started driving back. I got about twenty feet when I heard a terrible noise, as if I’d run over a dog. There was no dog. The rope I used I tie off the front end of the kayak when it is on the roof rack had slipped under the tire and, trapped there for a moment, pulled off the front bumper of the car. All because I was thinking about the future – getting back to fetch my boat – rather than the present. Hard not to beat myself up for that one: “Is a man not stupid!” Hard for my wife not to beat me up, too, when she saw the car. Chalk it up to the full catastrophe and a mindless moment.