My "mindfulness" search-feed on Google News ordinarily doesn't surface much of great interest, but recently it led me to the 6 Sep 2009 Time magazine article "Samurai Mind Training for Modern American Warriors" by Bonnie Rochman. The piece describes a rather macho style of mindfulness-meditation with applications to stress reduction and greater in-the-zone awareness—all good things, especially when applied to the modern military. (I'm not at all hot about ninja-style violence or other mayhem, but I do salute a well-disciplined defense force under civilian government control.) "This is mental push-ups," says a trainer. "There's a certain burn. It's a workout."
The name of the program, "Warrior Mind Training", brings to mind the classic Army slogan ranked just behind "You deserve a break today" as the #2 advertising jingle of the 20th Century [1]:
| Be All That You Can Be |
That was a marvelous way to promote self-actualization. And perhaps Buddhist-style mindfulness can help in combat, in ultrarunning, and elsewhere in life ...
(cf. MyOb (2002-08-18), EatTheOrange (2004-11-28), Mind Over Exercise (2008-10-22), ...) - ^z - 2009-09-16