MEDITATION, AWARENESS, AND MINDFULNESS

I hope that today’s lesson finds you all well. The entirety of the lesson is posted here in this assignment, as well as in the mindfulness discussion group that I have created and have linked to the bottom of this assignment.

During a typical semester I speak about mindfulness in regards to particular artists’ practices. I also have the class participate in a guided meditation. This guided meditation usually exists at the beginning of this particular lecture, but considering the unique situation we are in I thought that I would focus in on it for 2 weeks by having you do it yourself for this duration, and then have you participate in a virtual discussion about your experiences of it.

You may be thinking, “Joel has gone crazy during quarantine and turned into a complete hippie”. Far from it, as mindfulness meditation is something that science has proven the benefits of and various cultural organizations, from support groups to sports teams to corporate executives are using it to their benefit. Don’t just take my word for it, please read the article I have attached along with the video.

Mindfulness and meditation do not have to exist inside the bounds of a formal religion. In fact, many people meditate in a completely secular way, and you will be participating in a guided mindfulness meditation from the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC). Mindfulness – and when I say mindfulness, I mean the temporal state of being aware of this present moment to the exclusion of the past, the future, or to our normally wandering thoughts – is seeing proven effects in a wide range of clinical trials.

The reason I am interested in you participating in this practice for your homework is that I have found that it goes a long way to helping you “see”, and being able to “see” is a major part of you being able to appreciate art. What I mean by that is for your ability to focus and slow down the world around you so as to see things as they really are, to see things beyond their ultimately superficial level, the level that we generally see them as we move busily through our lives. So I would like you to read the article that I have included, I would like you to watch the video that I’ve included, and I would like you to peruse the UCLA MARC website so as to familiarize yourself with this practice.

And of course, you will be meditating. I have included in this assignment a five minute meditation from the MARC program at UCLA. I would like you to do this twice a day once in the morning and once before you go to sleep, and be sure to do so without any distractions. Find yourself a quiet space for five minutes, and definitely turn off your cell phone. I would like you to continue this practice for the next two weeks, doing it whenever you can squeeze in the time. This assignment will culminate in the discussion group that I have created (and have linked to at the bottom of this page, as well as it can be found in the “Discussion” tab to the left). You will follow the instructions there when writing about your experience with mindfulness meditation. Please do not start posting on the board until you have been doing the meditation practice for at least several days, ideally for at least one week, and hopefully you will get back into the discussion group at the end of these two weeks to reflect upon what you may or may not have learned or written in a previous response.

Attached here is the 5-minute meditation I would like you to use in the morning and in the evening for the next two weeks:

Here is the video: