The quiet art of attention

Stoicism explores these ideas. One of the basic premises is that all external events are out of our control and to focus on what is, basically what is in our mind and our actions. Then we should try to discipline our ideas around virtues which are always good instead of outcomes and externals. That summary doesn't do it justice, if interested in exploring further. There are some good books on amazon or check out dailstoic for a quick overview. https://dailystoic.com/what-is-stoicism-a-definition-3-stoic...

Buddhism explores these ideas too.

For a modern approach to this mindset I highly recommend "Seeing That Frees" by Rob Burbea.

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/08772fe1-564c-4a95-9a5d-...

Vipassana Meditation formalizes this to a large extent and is extremely approachable. I would highly recommend anyone looking at guided meditation to give this a try:

https://www.dhamma.org/en-US/index

The single best decision of my life was to attend one.

Wouldn't stoicism be at odds with political action? Why protest if it's all out of our hands?

Stoicism is not resigned helplessness. It is a realization that you can do what you feel you need to do (vote/protest/influence) while also realizing that the outcome is not under your control.

Seeing that Frees for sure is the one that I suggest people read. Long and slow read where every paragraph seems like I could read it and sit and appreciate what he says before needing to read the next paragraph.

Burbea has many talks as well, youtube or on other podcast platforms. Hours and hours and hours of talks that are all so helpful on understanding in the word form.

Channel of his talks: https://www.youtube.com/@boubabuddha

I find this playlist great as a starting point if you want to get into it, and one that I can go back to: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLO6hhaAzLmioyOxMi8ELP...

Yes, Stoicism can be seen as sort of the western version of Buddhism, at least as far as mindfulness is concerned.

An important part of Stoicism is making purposeful "responses" instead of suffering kneejerk "reactions." You can be more effective in all things, including political action, if you can master this.

I will also point out that one of the founding documents is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, a Roman emperor. He was nothing if not political.

Can you provide some additional details? In what ways has it helped you? Would you have gotten the same benefits had you done a immersive meditation session outside of that structure?

I kept expecting a Buddhism pitch in the article. It reminded me so much of the opening premise of The Untethered Soul.

I'm not too interested in Buddhism specifically, but I have been separating myself from technology more, and It's been great savoring the little moments I used to completely miss.