Pattern recognition.
This is a topic I would come again and again to talk about. As it is such an important phenomenon. The importance of observation was initially taught by my father. He used to say, "Watch and learn boys, watch and learn." He used to tell how just by observation how someone can learn something. I know we are more focused on practice, when it comes to learning new skill. However, I still believe there is a lot to be learned just by observation. Even when you are practicing, if you do not observe your mistakes, you would not learn anything new at the end of the day. So, in any learning environment i just focussed on keeping my eyes and ears open, learning could be that simple. Even if I did not understand anything It helped to connect the dots later on.
I have seen this phenomena talked by many over the years. In fact I have written about this here in my own blog. Steve Jobbs talk about connecting the dots in life, charlie chapling talked about the same, looking at the long shot of life to see its commedy. Justing sung talks about blooms taxanomy and importance of higher order thinking and guess what, he ask us to think about connectivity or relationship of concepts to learn better. Barbara oakly talks about how diffuse mode of thinking leads us to develop dèep learning by just doing the same. It cannot be random that these people talk about the same thing at the same time. And when I was in grade eight my late maths teacher said "Maths, is all about pattern recognition" with a little rubik's cube at his hand. Now almost at his age I can only agree and reprase that, "life is all about pattern recognition"
In mindfulness we recognise these patterns. And they leave us with a better understanding of our own lives. And you will start to notice the similarity of a spider stuck in a web and a man stuck in his web of lies all his life. You will appriciate there is a lot more common facts are there with a dung beetle rolling a dung ball agin and again in the field, and a farmer rolling hay after crops were harvested. And appriciate although we try to seperate ourselves from the environment it seems we are inherently part of it. Although we name the buildings and cities we build are artififial they are not. Even a plastic bottle is a natural phenomenon when we take out the element of our judgement from it.
I am sure you have doubts at this time. How come someone argue a plastic bottle is natural and do not cause environmental pollution. I am not. I am just showing it is not absolute truth. Because when we start to choose a one side over the other there wil be clash. The mind will choose one over the other and buildup an eternal argument over it. This is another pattern i have observed in many aspect. Peace or war, happiness and sadness. Rich vs poor. These seems to be positive and negative values we give to otherwise neutral environment. And that is why at some point I have argued the peace is the highest form of happiness that we can achieve.
Interconnectedness.
This is not an argument which is true, only partially true. As anyone who needs to see the truth should see it for themselves in their own lives. There are many more patterns in nature that we can observe. I am sure ones you have observerd are unique to yourself. The more you observe the nature with mindfulness, more you will understand the interconnectedness of it. Interconnectedness of the nature is a topic by itself. The trem is used in Thich nhat hanh's book on mindfulness. I have seen this same observation discussed in different trems by different teachers. Some say its oneness, some say it is change, some even talk about
God being living in everything. More importantly when you look at this from a distance I see the pattern. They all talk about the same thing. Obviously it seem they talk about some truth they have seen in the nature and within themselves. It is same as saying someone to be the mountain when you see a mountain. It is a joke, like asking a monkey to be a concious banana. But the truth is, everything we see and taste and hear are what there is and not, yet connected and presented to us in an understandable way by our own conciousness. In the form of sensations.
So when you say you are angry the mindfulness will let you see the truth as well as the lie in it. Unlike many articles I have written before I am sure you would not understand any of this unless you have dots on your own to connect. I am sure I can help with that as this would be one of the most linked articles I have written so far. After all this is about interconnectedness. Hence, I invite you to follow the dots provided and see where it leads you to.
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