WHO:

Join Todd Fink (certified addiction counselor and mindfulness teacher) for a message about concentration, group meditation and conversation about the meaning of life. Todd is the host of the Kind Mind podcast and co-founder of The Giving Tree Band.

HOW:

Open to all Kind Mind patreon members. Sign up here to receive the Zoom invite and bonus content:

https://www.patreon.com/kindmind

WHAT:

Accessing Worlds With Concentration.

We all have an often underused and therefore latent power of concentration. It is like the aperture of a camera which controls how much light comes through the lens. When it is smaller, it yields marvelous depth of field but a blurring of the periphery.

Similarly, the light of conscious attention can be directed like a laser to penetrate the phenomenal world to reveal deeper insights and master an aspect of life.

Ordinarily, our understanding and attentional interests are coming from the environment and outer conditioning with the illusion of one's willful direction, just as the tides appear to be the work of the ocean and not the invisible gravity of the moon.

Concentration also represents the sixth limb in the philosophy of yoga. Dharana is the Sanskrit word with its root "dhar" meaning "to hold." But this is not the same as meditation, which in some ways is the opposite, like the large aperture full of light due to having no specific focus.

In this meeting, we will explore various creative and contemplative paths to concentration, it's material and spiritual benefits as well as it's relationship to meditation and other limbs of yoga.

Facebook event page

To join:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81852991100...

The cost to attend is $20.

Please make donation with
paypal: www.paypal.me/toddfink
venmo: www.venmo.com/michaeltoddfink

or become a patron (3rd tier) of the Kind Mind podcast to receive an unlimited pass to these gatherings:
https://www.patreon.com/kindmind

Topic: Hibernation and Rebirth

Perhaps seasonal affect disorder and winter blues were selected by evolution to help mammals, including humans, withdraw and survive the harsh outer conditions.

Meditation is looking for the inner light, a mini version of the dark solstice. The winter solstice is a mini version of a longer dark period in the world like the pandemic.

Therefore, the equanimity cultivated through contemplative practice prepares the mind to accept the cycles of life and nature and respond wisely.

After nine months of long retreat and outer difficulty, there are signs of hope and rare reminders, like the grand planetary conjunction, to look to the stars at night. Rebirth is coming.

Normally during the holiday season and new year, people ask each other what gifts they would like to receive. In this meeting, we will explore what gifts we have been gestating and would like to give when the time is ripe to birth into the world.

Attendance is free and open to everyone - located in the conference room in the lower level of the Edward Hospital ER building in PLAINFIELD, IL. Presented by Todd Fink.

24600 West 127th Street | Plainfield, IL Facebook Event Page

Free will is the ability to choose between possible courses of action. Many people feel themselves to be the authors of their thoughts, the agents of action and believe this to be true with respect to their decisions.

There is a sense that one could have behaved differently in the past, even though to rewind the tape of life would also remove the present insight. Or as one pop punk band sang it better: the past is only the future with the lights on.

However, most could readily agree that, at the very least, there is not always free will.

For example, a person with Alzheimer's or other type of dementia that severely impairs the ability to perform actions or utilize memory may not have the freedom to choose to behave politely or recognize their loved one. In addiction, it is widely understood that disruptions in the decision-making faculties of the brain lead to similar limitations of choice. Revelations in the neurobiology of drug use disorders continues to shape the moral implications and shift the legal interventions from punitive to rehabilitative.

To take this further, researchers have recently created choice experiments while observing the brain with magnetic resonance imaging and have been able to predict with statistical significance what subjects will choose up to 11 seconds before they are conscious of their choice!

Some argue that even if free will is an illusion, it is an illusion worth preserving. In this meeting, we will explore different philosophical perspectives and consider what is worth paying attention to including the overlooked mental health benefits of reframing our understanding of free will.

Attendance is free and all are welcome.

Edward Plainfield | 24600 West 127th Street | Plainfield, IL | Downstairs Conference Room in ER Building

Consider that 100 years ago, pneumonia and influenza were the leading causes of death, the first of two world wars of mass violence had erupted, and The Dustbowl and Great Depression were on deck. It was still a dangerous world as it had been for many centuries prior, especially for minorities and women.

Today, according to many metrics, we are living in the safest time in human history. Crime, especially homicide, is in long term decline, and people are more likely to die of old age than from violence. Malnutrition is down from 50% 100 years ago to its lowest rate in history of 13%, and for the first time more people are obese than hungry. Similarly, infectious disease and extreme poverty are also markedly down worldwide, though there are poignant exceptions to all these positive safety trends.

However, these improved outward patterns do not seem compatible with the general population's internal experience. 40 million adults suffer from anxiety disorders in America and 25% of all teens are affected, making anxiety the most common mental illness characterized by extreme fear and worry.

So, why are we so anxious? Is anxiety really on the rise, as it appears and does modern society actually breed it? Or is it possible that when you remove the outer clear and present dangers of the past, we are left with our ancestors' internal legacy of fear? Perhaps, this helps explain why scientists have been unsuccessful at significantly raising the level of worry about realistic existential threats such as climate change. There is already plenty of worry in the human system and global warming is still too abstract.

In any case, emotions are like ancient algorithms and the past few decades of safety is not enough time for evolution to re-program a more nuanced response to modern problems.

This points to two distinct possibilities for the chapter after this age of anxiety: a golden window of safety begins to close as scientifically predicted doom becomes more manifest, giving way to another age of fear and danger. Or, we develop an integrative understanding of anxiety along with the tools to speed up our emotional evolution, ushering in a welcome era of contentment and peace.

This meeting will include a deep dive into the latter scenario - a scenario that perhaps would be the necessary social reform to actually free up the mental space to solve those future threats.

“To put is still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.” -Alan Watts