Mindful pleasures..... As the words turn.

[Joseph Tracy]

Is there some kind of connection between mindful and mindless? Isn’t one of the possibilities  or goals of mindfulness to escape “my” mind and simply perceive with no mind, with direct non-interpreted consciousness?
 When you carry this process into fiction what does it look like?  Is there a narrative form for non-narrative mind? One thing Pynchon does NOT do is tell you what to think about the experience he offers. It isn’t that there is no point of view, but points of view are constantly dissipating and changing. The persuasiveness or simple pleasure lies as much with the reader as the text, as much with the observation as with the interpretation of the observation.
  If MINDLESS PLEASURES was P’s working title is it possible  that it  suggests  more his personal relationship with the writing process than  a  possible title giving meaning to a work that needed freedom/ no mind to nurture into full form and scope? To read GR is to be in a suspended mental state moving through a very large range of specific mental states and perceptions in a very fluid way. One feels like smoke blowing through rooms, dreams, open and closed spaces, inner  and outer narratives; even time itself is no barrier. What was in my mind before reading GR was already tenuous, unmoored from my personal narrative and it was literally blown away.   I found myself in a more fearless mental space, both more open and more wary, more willing to live with questions. There were other factors, but as  art maker and reader  the arts play a major role in my inner process. 

I just re-watched Orson Welles TOUCH OF EVIL and am reminded of the mesmerizing tracking shots that weave into and out of the story setting and events. Here the camera is both mindful and mindless, focused and inevitably taking in more than the planned narrative, or the core story. We all seem like cameras making a movie, but who is the director, where is the storyboard, who writes the script.     

> On Aug 29, 2017, at 9:01 AM, Atticus Pinecone <atticuspinecone at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Well to keep it grounded in Buddhism, focus is covered by in the Noble Eightfold Path under Right Concentration. Words changing definition is annoying & inevitable, but losing concepts is a problem. 
> 
> There are sects of Buddhism less strict than lay Zen?
> 
> On Aug 29, 2017, at 8:12 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Well said.
>> 
>> Www.innergroovemusic.com
>> 
>> On Aug 28, 2017, at 11:59 PM, David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> I think "Mindfullness" in meditation terms mean "focusing attention."  It is an action more than a state. There are many ways to focus attention, many sense-based locales for focus.  The central idea is sustained focus on a sensation or question.
>>> 
>>> Chi schools teach how to sense and manipulate Chi, Life Force.  More passive schools don't aim to manipulate that Chi, but to give it free reign.  I prefer the later.  Both are attention-based meditation techniques.  Other Zen schools advise to ignore the energy.  Zen is  too strict for me.
>>> 
>>> David Morris
>>> 
>>> On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 10:59 AM Atticus Pinecone <atticuspinecone at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> That's where it gets weird. Mindfulness is part of the Noble Eightfold Path—and it means to keep in mind all the other numbered Buddhist stuff... all of which doesn't jive with getting ahead in a rat race.  
>>> 
>>> On Aug 28, 2017, at 11:36 AM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> That was kinda my take, but I didn't know how to say it, "secularizing mindfulness...". Nice.
>>>> You might say mindfulness is a product or result of meditation?
>>>> 
>>>> Www.innergroovemusic.com
>>>> 
>>>> On Aug 28, 2017, at 9:55 AM, Atticus Pinecone <atticuspinecone at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> The Buddhist take on it is 'yeah, it really is selfish, but better than going around making a mess of things'.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Maybe secularizing mindfulness is... I don't know... stupid? Besides it's meditation that sows the benefits—mindfulness goes on top of that.
>>>>> 
>>>>> On Aug 27, 2017, at 1:34 PM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>> https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/mindfulness-would-be-good-for-you-if-it-werent-all-just-hype/2017/08/24/b97d0220-76e2-11e7-9eac-d56bd5568db8_story.html?utm_term=.a655dfed2455

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