Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Mindful Clock

I ran across this nifty freeware program called "Mindful Clock". Its basically a timer that will ring a bell every hour, or 15 mins to remind you to be mindful. It also has a nice little meditation timer. The program was written by some devotees of Thich Nhat Hanh:

For those of us who practice in the tradition of Thich Nhat Hanh, when the temple bell or grandfather clock sounds, we stop what we are doing and come back to our breath, for at least three full breaths. Sometimes, to remind ourselves of our intent, we say the gatha:

Listen, listen,
this wonderful sound
brings me back
to my true self

In a Mindfulness at Work workshop in 1996, Mitchell Ratner mentioned that it would be wonderful to have a computer program that would simulate the bells of mindfulness and grandfather clocks at Plum Village, Thich Nhat Hanh's retreat center in France. David Steigerwald, a software and sound engineer, said it should not be difficult to design one. Several months later, he had a working model.

Mindful Clock