There’s a standard American joke that goes, “A man walks into a bar…” and proceeds to have a short story ending with a punch-line. To get this post started right, I’ll finish the joke:

U.S. Congressman Tim Ryan, a big believer in the benefits of meditation, is advocating for making mindfulness a part of the lives of everyday Americans.

Watch this interview with Arturo Behar, an Engineering Director at Facebook, on the opportunity for mindfulness, compassion and empathy in social media and the necessity for developing tools within Facebook for enabling it.

There is not one but four delightful, fresh roses on the table. They are glorious buds; a superb pink, and they smell divine. I am sitting having lunch while my wife Ruth and I are leading a meditation retreat. I find myself marveling at the attention to detail and then my mind turns to wondering how long it will be before people are paid to come to these programs?

Do you sometimes - or perhaps often - feel disconnected from your body?  Mentally overactive, an intellectual athlete, internet addict, or couch potato?  
Maybe you are like my friend who reads a book while holding her yoga stretches or the reluctant exerciser who devours the paper while walking briskly on his treadmill.  It’s possible: you may exercise and still be relatively oblivious to the felt sense of your body.

When the mind is highly active, even meditation can become a stressful game of catching the thoughts or emotions before they catch you.  It can be like watching a tennis match, where all your attention is on the ball.  So much so that there’s a sense of meditating from the head up.