HeartfulnessHeartfulnessHeartfulnessHeartfulness
  • PRACTICES
  • THE BOOK
  • TREATMENT PLATFORM
  • MY ACCOUNT
  • Login
  • JOIN US
    • EVENTS
    • LIVE AND ONLINE COURSES
    • WELLNESS PROFESSIONALS - LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR WORK
    • ORGANIZATIONS - LEARN MORE ABOUT OUR WORK
    • OUR TRAINING ACADEMY FOR WELLNESS PROFESSIONALS
    • INDIVIDUALS- FIND A GUIDE TO WORK WITH
    • LICENSE OUR FILMS
  • HELP
0

Film Eleven

Heartfulness

Heartfulness

Is the mindfulness movement actually mis-named?

There’s a marvelous story about a mindfulness researcher going to visit a monastery of Tibetan monks. The scientist comes with advanced western scientific equipment to show the monks that it is possible to measure mindfulness. As he begins to outfit a monk with the equipment, a tittering begins to pass through the assembly. Confused, he stops fastening the straps on the EEG helmet to the volunteer, turns to the translator, and asks, Why are they laughing? The translator replies, They’re saying that if you want to measure mindfulness, you’ve got the equipment connected to the wrong part of the body. He then places his hand on the center of his chest. Here’s where you should be measuring, he says.

At a certain point in European intellectual history, identity became equated with thinking, and the mind with the brain. When we say the word mindfulness, it has overtones of something mental, something cognitive, and yet this isn’t what we are talking about at all. Heartfulness would be a more faithful translation. What does it mean to begin centering our awareness—our intelligence—in our hearts, rather than our heads? This is neither an academic, or a merely theoretical question. The practice of heartfulness is this understanding. It is the practice of locating our center in the heart, rather than the head. Many cultures have understood that this is the proper center of intelligence. In Aramaic, for example, the word for heart is leba, which means the center of courage, intelligence, and feeling. The word courage itself come from the French word for heart: coeur. To lead with the heart. Our own culture now, at the leading edges of neurophysiology, by way of the Polyvagal Theory, and the science of neurocardiology, is beginning to substantiate what many ancestral cultures have always known. The heart is not merely a mechanical pump, but a center of intelligence, feeling, awareness. In fact, most of the cells in the heart are neural cells, not muscle cells. To practice heartfulness is to practice feeling, relationship, to practice connection.

Related Practices:

See Setting Down Thinking. See Quiet the Mind. See Relational Mindfulness. See Healthy Relationships. See Escaping the Prison of the Mind. See Follow Your Heart. See Becoming a Real Human Being. See Exiting the Language of Domination.

Who taught us this?

Our mentor Gurucharn Singh Khalsa taught us this first. Then Marcellus 'Bearheart' Williams. And others, many of them indigenous mentors.

Teach me how

Check here for classes.

Who taught us this?

Our mentor Gurucharn Singh Khalsa taught us this first. Then Marcellus 'Bearheart' Williams. And others, many of them indigenous mentors.

Teach me how

Check here for classes.

Video: | Photography: | Licensed from Pexels.com, used with permission.

JOIN US

Directory of Practitioners (Guides)
For Wellness Practitioners
For Organizations
Communities of Practice
The Complete Film Series
Analog Apps
Training for Wellness Professionals
Apply to teach on the platform
Join Our Newsletter

The Restorative Practices Alliance is headquartered in Northern California and serves internationally. Our mission is to re-center safety and connection as the baseline of an ecological human multi-culture. We are a philanthropic ancestral neuro-technology cooperative and culture repair engine, powered by intellectual property licensed from Applied Mindfulness, Inc., and held in trust from other sources of wisdom.

ABOUT US

Global Council of Governance
Faculty, Advisors, & Affiliates
HQ
Glossary of Terms
Privacy Policy
Legal
Press

GLOBAL HEADQUARTERS

San Francisco Bay Area, California

UNITED STATES LOCATIONS

Homer, Alaska

San Diego, California

Boulder, Colorado

Maui, Hawa'ii

Chicago, Illinois

St. Louis, Missouri

Sante Fe & Corrales, New Mexico

Stone Ridge, New York

Portland, Oregon

Seattle, Washington

INTERNATIONAL

Stroud, United Kingdom,

Cambridge, United Kingdom

Manila, Philippines

Bahia, Brasil

 

www.restorativepractices.com

CONTACT

tel: 1 844 REST PRA (737 8772)

support@restorativepractices.com

 

LOGIN

Remember me

    0