Section B) is about mindfulness, which is a very important concept to me. In my dictionary mindfulness means intentional use of sufficient amount of information to make decisions. Mindfulness forces me to be aware of the alternatives and the consequences of my decisions. In my daily life a lot of mistakes are avoided by being mindful. To take a simple but personal example when I choose what kind of cosmetics I put on my skin I pay attention to choose cruelty free products instead of just buying the most advertised option without thinking. The reason behind this is that the safety of animals matters to me and even if I can’t see the entire process of the production myself I know that the making of cruelty free products don’t harm animals. When I brought this concept up during a conversation with a friend she agreed with the useful side of mindfulness although she brought it to my attention that the danger of mindfulness is sometimes facing the harsh reality which is not always comfortable. They say ‘ignorance is bliss’ well, that is not an option in mindfulness.

The features of my life that influenced me are countless. I grew up and still live in a post-soviet influenced country. History has a close impact on my life because I grew up with my grandparents who lived in a very dark period of history and my brother was born on the day of the first democratic elections in my country so we are quite literally the first generation that lives in democracy as we know it today. I also have twins in my family as I have mentioned earlier which means watching their similarities and differences and how they changed over time was a journey in itself. I was also very much effected by the professions of my family members. Most of my family works/worked in the medical field which made me aware and sensitive to the topic of health and numb to a lot of doctor’s mantras at the same time (like “You need to do sports regularly!”). Getting admitted to schools and being rejected by schools and then getting jobs and not being chosen for certain positions was also a learning curve and I like to believe all of the failures made me stronger and more determined and maybe even more successful. 

I’m not sure how I should do the next task as the naming conflict was my research originally, but the questions were a useful guide which showed me how to start from obtaining the most basic information and build up a case from there.

I wish to look at the first three Noble Truths of the Buddhist Tradition not as a triangle but as a process. What I mean is the three components are three stages in the educational systems that I grew up in. First they teach us to listen and understand the teach. We don’t necessarily need to answer, but we don’t need to understand instructions. Then they encourage us to think and form our unique thoughts about the topic, which mostly comes out as a raw version which still needs a lot of work. The final stage is when the verbalization comes. The most crucial part is the wise speaking because that reveals all the other flaws in the process, that’s why it needs to be the finishing touch.