ETHICAL MINDFULNESS
How common is it for us to take some action, say something or behave in a way which has a negative consequence and we find that we regret it later? Sometime the regret is so strong that we find it difficult to shake it off and lose our inner peace or much worse there is a negative effect in our subsequent human interactions.
A simple way to avoid such actions and the consequences to ourselves and others is to practice Ethical Mindfulness. Cultivating ethical mindfulness begins by developing an awareness of how your behaviour ( an accumulation of our thoughts, emotions and actions) impact ourselves and others. It ETHICAL MINDFULLNESS is cultivating a stable and refined mind that can work like a microscope to see properties that are not visible to the naked eye. Be able to clearly see and regulate our inner harmful impulses is the key to ethical mindfulness.
A powerful way to practice being ethically mindful is to ensure that we follow the steps of stopping and contemplating ….. stop and then contemplate that 1) cause 2) action and 3) consequences BEFORE taking an action.
This simple action allows us to buy time and be more mindful of anything we are doing. Mindfulness associated with thinking about consequences for self and most importantly others becomes ethical mindfulness. While mindfulness is an activity and practice we develop within ourselves but most crucial is for this mindfulness to be ethical, one can be mindful of a harmful activity also but if we are able to regulate our monkey mind to the benefit of ourselves and others, this becomes ethical mindfulness.
If you would like to know more by religious leaders writers and scientists please read below
True mindfulness is deeply and inextricably embedded in the notion of wholesomeness… Just as a tree removed from the forest is no longer a tree but a piece of lumber, so also the caring attentiveness of mindfulness, extracted from it’s matrix of wholesome co-arising factors, degenerates into mere attention.
Andrew Olendzki (Buddhist scholar)
The power of mindfulness is limited if disconnected from ethical teachings.
Tim Lomas (lecturer in positive psychology at the university of east London)
Mindfulness means maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment.
Mindfulness also involves acceptance, meaning that we pay attention to our thoughts and feelings without judging them—without believing, for instance, that there’s a “right” or “wrong” way to think or feel in a given moment. When we practice mindfulness, our thoughts tune into what we’re sensing in the present moment rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future.