Category: Mindfulness – The Basics

Fortunately, mindfulness is a life skill that can be learned by anyone. And you’re going to get there much faster than I did because I’m going to let you in on all the mistakes I made on my own journey!

My personal Path to Mindfulness

What didn’t work!

During my time at university I could pretty much read the assigned textbook and pick up the required knowledge. I thought I could do the same with mindfulness – just casually read about it and, presto, I would become a mindful person.

Well, that approach failed miserably.

It soon became apparent that as long as things were going my way I was fine. However, when challenged by life, all my bad traits still reared their ugly head.

So, despite having acquired a strong intellectual understanding of the core mindfulness teachings, when life didn’t go my way I immediately defaulted back to being judgmental, reactive, unthinking, lacking in compassion, …… Well, you get the picture – I was definitely not mindful!!

What worked!

Here are the steps that turned the corner for me in my quest for mindfulness:

I implemented a daily meditation practice

I belatedly discovered that my intellectual approach to mindfulness had been doomed to failure from the start because it did absolutely nothing to fix the root cause of my mindless behaviour – it didn’t fix the structure of my brain.

In very simplified terms, repeated behaviour builds super-highways in your brain’s neuronal network. These highways become your go-to neuronal pathways. Each episode of mindless behaviour reinforces all the previous ones. Eventually you end up reacting mindlessly to every challenging situation you face, no matter how insignificant.

This is why we all tend to react to the world habitually, unthinkingly, and unconsciously – because this is what we have inadvertently trained our brains to do.

“What makes the Buddha’s understanding of the mind so powerful is the recognition that because perceptions are conditioned by our mental habits, we can also train our perceptions in a way that supports happiness and freedom.”

Joseph Goldstein, “Mindfulness – A Practical Guide to Awakening“

The question then is, how do we break this unhelpful cycle? And the answer? Through a dedicated, daily meditation practice.

While I was studying mindfulness a number of the books I read suggested meditation. However, I routinely ignored those passages. Unfortunately, my short-sighted attitude was, “Right, I’m going to start meditating! I don’t think so!” Meditation just struck me as so much New Age mumbo jumbo.

Well, it turns out I was dead wrong.

I simply cannot stress strongly enough that a daily meditation practice is absolutely essential to achieving mindfulness.

And the reason is this: without changing your brain’s neurological wiring you’re going to keep exhibiting the same old tired, predictable, unhelpful behaviour you’ve always exhibited.

Numerous studies make it clear that regular meditation rewires your brain. It dampens the harsh, reactive part (i.e. the amygdala and related limbic system) while enhancing the wise part (i.e. the frontal cortex).

So, please don’t make my mistake – start a meditation practice today!

I regularly read about mindfulness

As a personal financial advisor for thirty-three years I read extensively about investing from expert sources, mainly academic journals. In doing so, I often came across the same teachings but presented in different ways, each one helping to deepen my understanding. In this manner the material became deeply ingrained in my mind.

My study of mindfulness followed the exact same path; repeated exposure lead to deeper understanding. This process helped immeasurably to ingrain these teachings into who I now am – a more mindful individual.

To help you follow this same path I have provided a list of suggested readings, all from highly-respected authors and presenters.

I make quiet time to ponder what I read

The profundity of mindfulness wisdom is not readily grasped through casual reading; it just isn’t. It must be pondered. Setting aside time for quiet reflection of the teachings is essential.

Yes, I know, the thought of fitting yet another task into an already busy day may seem unrealistic. But life is always a case of prioritizing what really matters to us. Only you can weigh the importance of leading a more peaceful, contented life.

I sought out daily exposure to mindfulness wisdom

In addition to daily reading, early in my exploration of mindfulness I also made use of the following three resources to provide a quick dose of daily wisdom:

1. “Arriving at Your Own Door – 108 Lessons in Mindfulness“, by Jon Kabat-Zinn
2. “The Power of Now – 50 Inspiration Cards“, by Eckhart Tolle
3. “The Four Agreements – 48 Cards“, by Don Miguel Ruiz

I incorporated some quick and simple mindfulness practices into my daily routine

When I talk about a “mindfulness practice” I am referring to two distinct parts:

1. A formal daily meditation practice.
2. Informal mindfulness practice. These techniques, some of which are outlined below, are quick and easy, designed to be incorporated into one’s daily routine to help keep us mindful.

Informal Mindfulness Practices

Here are some quick and easy mindfulness practices you can use throughout your day or whenever you are feeling anxious, stressed, or overwhelmed:

1. Download a mindful-moment reminder app to your cell phone. An example is one called “Mindful Me” that can be set to chime on a frequency of your choosing.   Each time it chimes simply stop whatever you’re doing and take a short mindful break making use of one or more of the techniques outlined below.
2. Take a 5-senses break. Stop whatever you’re doing and cycle through your senses – touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight – and focus briefly but intently on each one in turn.
3. Use your non-dominant hand. Unless you happen to be ambidextrous, briefly using your non-dominant hand to work on a physical task forces you out of auto-pilot and into the present moment because you suddenly have to focus intently on what you’re doing.
4. Take a ponder break. Stop what you’re doing and, using one of the wisdom-quote tools referenced above (e.g. “The Power of Now – 50 Inspiration Cards“), take a moment to ponder the wisdom presented. Doing so will bring you into the present moment and help to incorporate the wisdom deep into your brain.
5. Keep mindfulness reminders around such as a small Buddha figurine or a mindful computer screen-saver or background image – little things to periodically snap you out of your fog of thinking and back into the present moment.  
6. Periodically take a break and go into what I refer to as “photography mode”, looking for interesting photo opportunities.  Rekindling the curiosity from your childhood in this manner takes you out of the confines of your tiny skull and into the wonders of the present moment. This is a wonderful exercise when you’re stuck in a slow-moving grocery line or in traffic. 
7. Practice S.T.O.P. :  1) Stop whatever you are doing. 2) Take a few slow, deep breaths. 3) Observe any troubling thoughts, feelings, and emotions, becoming consciously aware of them and naming them (“I’m feeling anger”, “I’m feeling frustration”, etc.).  Naming a feeling has been found to diminish its ill effect. 4) Proceed to do yourself a kindness; go for a brief stroll, grab a healthy snack, etc. This helpful exercise is nicely summarized by Dr. Elisha Goldstein in an article she wrote for Mindful magazine.
8. Before picking up the phone, answering an email, or leaving a return voice message, take two mindful breaths and reaffirm your intention to be mindful and to embody compassion, understanding, peace, kindness, patience, and love – all integral components of what it means to be mindful. Your interaction will assuredly be better for having done so.
9. Let the first minute of every meeting be one of silence.  Doing so helps calm participants’ minds, essential to accessing the creativity, emotional control, and impulse control resident in the frontal cortex of the brain.
10. Take a gratitude break. Periodically pause whatever you’re doing and reflect on all the things you are grateful for in your life. This practice brings us back into the present moment and helps overcome our negativity bias.
11. When doing a chore, focus your full attention on just doing the chore because doing so keeps you in the present moment and so helps alleviate frustration and impatience. This runs counter to our norm which is to begrudge having to do the chore and so try to rush our way through it. But not only does this not make the chore go any faster, it also renders it totally unpleasant because our attention is focused on its unpleasant nature. Better to simply accept that chores are a necessary part of life and just do them, minus the drama.
12. Go for a mindful stroll. This is a form of walking meditation – you simply pay close attention to the physical sensations you feel in your feet as you walk. Doing so keeps you in the present moment and settles an over-active mind.
13. Keep some of your favourite comics close at hand and, periodically, throughout your day, read a couple to yourself. My personal favourites are Herman (by Jim Unger), Dilbert (by Scott Adams), and The Far Side (by Gary Larson). Doing so brings you into the present moment and helps you to lighten up and stop taking things so seriously.
14. Wear a distinctive band on your finger or wrist and each time you notice it, use it as a reminder to slow down and be mindful.
15. Take a moment each day to practice a random act of kindness. Grand gestures are not required here, just simple acts that let others know you care.  They need not even know that you are their secret patron.  Doing so gets you out of your tiny little world of self and into the broader, joyous world of caring for each other.
16. Do a quick body scan. Close your eyes and consciously turn your focus to each of the parts of your body in sequence, taking in the feeling of warmth or cool, tingling, the feel of your clothes against your skin, etc. This exercise, which takes only a minute or two, calms and focuses the mind and brings you back to the present moment.
17. Practice mindful eating. Whenever you’re eating, focus all your attention on just eating, noting the appearance, aroma, taste, texture, and even the sound of what you are eating.  Again, this practice keeps us in the present moment.
18. Half a day a week, keep a tally of all the times you experience negative feelings and emotions. This practice not only keeps you in the present moment by forcing you to stay alert to your feelings, it is also excellent practice for noticing when your wisdom is going off-line, which is each time you experience negative feelings and emotions! These are your cue to pause, slow down your thinking, breathe, laugh at yourself, accept reality with equanimity, and proceed with wisdom.
19. Take a smile break. Periodically throughout your day stop whatever it is you are doing, take a few slow, deep breaths, and just smile, physically or just in your mind. This practice brings you back into the present moment, improves your mood, and forces you to lighten up and stop taking yourself, and life in general, so darned seriously.  The simple act of smiling, even if faked, has been found to release such beneficial hormones as dopamine (the ‘feel-good’ hormone), serotonin (calming), and endorphins (our body’s natural pain killer).
20. Practice colour awareness. Choose a colour, any colour, and then for the next hour take note each time you encounter it as you go about your day. Doing so keeps you in the present moment and nurtures the habit of consciously noticing the world – to stop and smell the roses (or at least notice their colour)!

Some General Mindfulness Practices

In addition to the daily informal practices listed above, here are a handful of general practices that will also help you become, and remain, mindful!

1. Slowwwwww dowwwwwwn!!!  Doing so not only reduces stress but also helps you make better decisions.  How?  By calming the reactive part of your brain (the amygdala, the locus of our fight, flight, freeze stress mechanism) and putting you back in touch with the wise part of your brain (the pre-frontal cortex, responsible to emotional control, impulse control, and creativity).  
2. Get regular exercise.  Not only will you feel better physically, but doing so has also been shown to improve mood, decrease anxiety and stress, and helps us sleep better.
3. And speaking of sleep, get a good night’s sleep! Lack of sleep makes us irritable, anxious, emotionally reactive, easily frustrated, impulsive, prone to negative, repetitive thinking, and lacking in empathy. 
4. Seek out quiet solitude on a regular basis.  Give your brain a much-needed rest.  Turn off your cellphone, put away your earbuds, slip into your hiking boots, and head out for a peaceful stroll through a nearby forest (or wherever you can get away from the rush and noise of life).
5. Set up a quiet room in your home dedicated to meditation or simply opportunities to be on your own, in peace and quiet, so you may close your eyes and decompress.   
6. Learn to say “no” to undesired requests of your time.  
7. Actively maintain simplicity in your life.  If you don’t set boundaries on what’s important to you, life will set them for you, and it’s most unlikely you’re going to be happy with its choices.
8. Practice being content with doing nothing at all.  Turn an old saying on its head:  “Don’t just do something, sit there.”  In my own experience, this will not be easy, for we are a society of “doers”, anxious if we encounter even a brief moment without an activity to fill the void.  Our cellphones have become little more than adult pacifiers.  What on earth did people do before the advent of such devices!?  Relax more, perhaps?  🙂

“Patience, Young Grasshopper”  

Lastly, your journey on the path to mindfulness will be aided by nurturing these qualities:  patience, non-judgment, and perseverance.

Patience & Non-Judgment

Am I always mindful?  Of course not – I’m human!

So, as you practice mindfulness, be patient and gentle with yourself when you periodically fall short of your best intentions. Just acknowledge each stumble and then continue with your journey on the path of mindfulness.

Perseverance 

As with acquiring any new skill, some stick-to-it-ness is essential. 

“It’s not hard to be mindful, it just takes training to remember to be mindful.”

Joseph Goldstein, “Mindfulness – A Practical Guide to Awakening“

Should you need incentive from time to time, just keep in mind the reward for your practice:  a happier, more peaceful, better-lived life. 

How many undertakings can promise that?  Not many. 

“When Cognitively-Based Compassion Training (CBCT – based on mindfulness) was taught to abused teenagers in the Atlanta foster care system, simply being exposed to the class didn’t have a significant effect.  But the more the kids practised, the bigger the reduction in stress hormones and inflammation.”

Jo Marchant, author of “Cure – A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body“

Warmest wishes,

Rob @ Living a Mindful Life

In the previous post we learned what it means to be mindful. But you may be asking yourself, “Okay, so what’s the big deal? Why should we care if we’re being mindful or not?”

That’s a fair question, because becoming mindful (just like learning any new skill) will require a modicum of effort, commitment, and practice on your part. Good things rarely come easy, so there had better be a payoff in the end.

And there is, because I’ve personally experienced it.

The Promise of leading a mindful life

Based on my own personal experience (and confirmed by untold others), here are some of the benefits of instituting a daily mindfulness practice:

1. Your stress and anxiety levels will decrease materially.
2. Pointless moments spent dwelling on past regrets or future worries will steadily diminish.
3. You will be calmer, more at peace, and begin to live life with an ease of being.
4. You will notice yourself becoming less ruffled by life’s challenges and petty annoyances.
5. Your life will feel less rushed (even if filled with much activity).
6. You will experience less conflict with others and whatever conflict does arise, you will handle it with greater grace, ease, and wisdom.
7. You will be less judgmental, of yourself and others.
8. You will be more compassionate, understanding, and considerate of others.
9. You will be more generous.
10. You will be more patient.
11. You will be more accepting of whatever life brings your way.
12. You will be more easy-going, more able to lighten up and start taking life less seriously.
13. You will be more comfortable in your own skin, less egotistic, more able to laugh at yourself, more confident about who you are as a person (warts and all), and less affected by what other people think of you.
14. You will respond to life’s challenges with wisdom rather than react to them habitually and unthinkingly.
15. Your external circumstances will no longer dictate whether you are happy or sad.
16. You will experience greater joy, most noticeably from the simplest of things.
17. You will notice and sense more and, in doing so, find that the world becomes more interesting.
18. The feeling of boredom will virtually disappear from your life.
19. Your ability to focus on the task at hand will increase.

In short, the promise of mindfulness practice is to help us become better people and to lead happier, healthier lives. This is why it’s worth bothering about.

Well, if it’s this good, why doesn’t everyone choose mindfulness?

I believe there are a number of reasons most people do not practice mindfulness:

1. While mindfulness is steadily making its way into popular culture, most people remain unaware of it.
2. Mindfulness is not yet taught in most of our schools.
3. Most people lead such hectic lives that, even with the best of intentions, making room for mindfulness practice just doesn’t happen.
4. Even with full awareness of mindfulness and its benefits, becoming a mindful individual requires a long-term commitment. Given society’s short attention span, this is a tall order for most people.
5. Becoming mindful also requires quiet reflection, particularly through daily meditation sessions. In this manner the teachings become an integral part of who you are. However, society’s frantic pace is antithetical to making time for moments of quiet reflection.
6. Our evolutionary inheritance biases us toward being mindless (see this post).
7. Tragically, being mindless is our cultural norm and so seems, well, normal; just the way life is, with no reason to give a moment’s thought that there’s perhaps a different way – a better way – to lead a life.

Not Mindful? Then You’re Mindless

The opposite of being mindful is to be mindless.

To get a feel for what this means, take a moment to re-read the nineteen Promises of Mindfulness listed above but, this time, mentally make each one into its exact opposite.

For example, point number one becomes: “Your stress and anxiety levels will increase materially” – if you are mindless.

Take some time to observe those around you and ask yourself if this exercise doesn’t paint a pretty fair picture of most people’s lives – perhaps even your own! Needless to say, this is not a healthy way to get through life.

This is why practicing mindfulness is so important; it provides us with the means to counter our base human tendencies and become better, happier, wiser people.

“Our minds are reactive: liking and disliking, judging and comparing, clinging and condemning. As long as we’re identified with these judgments and preferences … our minds are continually thrown out of balance, caught in a tiring whirlwind of reactivity.

It is through the power of mindfulness that we can come to a place of balance and rest. Mindfulness is that quality of attention which notices without choosing, without preference; it is a choiceless awareness.”

Excerpt from “Seeking the Heart of Wisdom” by Joseph Goldstein & Jack Kornfield

Mindfulness benefits

In the previous post this is how we defined mindfulness:

mind-ful-ness: noun. 1. on purpose, non-judgmental, moment-to-moment awareness of your thoughts, feelings, senses, and bodily sensations. 2.  being focused on, and accepting with equanimity, whatever you are experiencing in the present moment. 3. focusing on the present moment and not dwelling on the past or the future.  4. purposely noticing and being curious about the world around you. 5. choosing wise, compassionate behaviour rather than reacting mindlessly.

Let’s explore the rationale behind some of these components:

1. You choose to focus your attention on what is happening at this present moment.

If your mind isn’t focused on the present moment then you’ve got a wandering mind or, more colourfully, a monkey mind. In such a state your thoughts are scattered and you carry on an incessant monologue with yourself. To some extent the only difference between you and the “crazy” guy who talks to himself is that you have the good sense to keep your mouth shut!

Why this mode of thinking is unhealthy is that a mind not focused on the present moment is an anxious, unhappy mind. 

This was confirmed by an interesting study done by two Harvard psychologists who discovered that we are not thinking about what we are doing almost half the time – our thoughts are in the past or in the future – not in the present moment.

While interesting in itself, their key finding was that we are happiest when we are thinking about what we are doing. This means we are happiest when we are being mindful.

Of course, if we’re spending half our time not thinking about what we’re actually doing, then we are effectively cutting our lifetime in half! Think about it; time spent in the past or future or simply zoned out in semi-conscious auto-pilot is time un-lived. Imagine being able to double your actual lived life simply by focusing on the present moment! This is the power of mindfulness.

2. You choose not to dwell on an unchangeable past or fret about an unknowable future.

The only moment we get to experience is the present moment. Dwelling on the past just causes angst because we can’t do anything about it. The only thing we can do about past regrets is to take responsibility and make things right in the present moment.

Similarly, fussing over the future just leads to stress and anxiety because the future is unknowable and not actionable – it can only be dealt with when it becomes the present.

And the plain truth is that the future inevitably turns out to be far better than we feared. This is delightfully captured in a quote from the French Renaissance philosopher, Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592):

“My life has been full of terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened.”

Of course, avoiding thinking about the future doesn’t mean we don’t plan for it. But planning is obviously a very different type of thinking than the scattered, worried thoughts we have when dreading some future situation.

3. You focus on one task at a time and give it your undivided attention.

This is simply a different way of phrasing the first component of mindfulness – to focus your attention on what is happening at this present moment.

I break it out separately because we live in a world where multi-tasking has become the pernicious norm. Tragically, it is also the cause of needless anxiety and stress.

In the article, “The Perils of Multitasking“, from Psychology Today we learn that multi-tasking:

• Interferes with learning.
• Reduces productivity.
• Promotes stress and fatigue.
• Becomes addictive and chronic through use.
• Leads to a short attention span.
• Reduces working memory capacity.

And the stated solution to this litany of woes? To quote the article, “To use mental discipline to condition good attentiveness and thinking habits”. In other words, to practice mindfulness!

4. You experience life directly through your senses.

To become aware of your body’s sensory inputs – hearing, seeing, feeling, etc. – you have to pay attention.

Living life directly through your senses means actually noticing life as it unfolds: you make it your practice to take note of your coffee’s aroma, to consciously hear the chickadees chirping on the branch outside your window, and to feel the cool evening breeze against your exposed skin.

Living life in this manner forces us into the present moment, which is when we’re happiest. And it also gives us the opportunity to take in and treasure the richness of our world.

5. You choose to live life with the renewed curiosity of a child instead of the jaded familiarity and disinterest of an adult.  You consciously try to notice things and look for the fine details in the familiar as if experiencing them for the first time. 

Jaded familiarity and disinterest put us into auto-pilot mode, living out our life without actually consciously experiencing much of it.

But life is way too precious to waste in such a zoned-out state of mind where all we tend to experience is our old tired thoughts and judgmental commentary.

Just as with living life directly through our senses, active curiosity and noticing keep us in the present moment and help us treasure life’s simplest moments. We become grateful simply for being alive and having the opportunity to take in all of life’s many wonders.

Think of it this way – how precious would your “boring” commute to work be if you knew that by day’s end you were going to lose your ability to see and hear? How beautiful would the sky seem that day? How precious the sound of a passing jet? The answer is obvious.

6. You choose to respond to life’s challenges and frustrations with compassion rather than reacting unthinkingly and automatically with ego-centric aggression.

Simply put, getting upset over life’s unpleasant moments is a complete and utter waste of time. It achieves nothing of value but does much harm:

• Your mental and physical health is compromised (see this post).
• You become a decidedly unpleasant menace to those around you.

Better to accept that whatever comes your way is simply part of life. Then just deal with, with equanimity and in a matter-of-fact, calm manner because:

1. Remaining calm permits your wisdom to come to the fore. In an agitated state you are thinking with the emotionally-reactive part of your brain (i.e. your amygdala). In such a state your resulting words and actions will inevitably be neither helpful nor wise.
2. You do no damage to your mental and physical well-being.
3. You do no harm, mentally or physically, to those around you.
4. You make the world a better place, contributing to its peace rather than its aggression.

7. Through practice you develop moment-to-moment awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations and you use them as your guide to choosing the path of wisdom.

One of the greatest gifts I have received through mindfulness practice is a greater ability to sense, in the moment, when my wisdom is going off-line.

The blizzard of negative thoughts, the furrowed brow, tensed jaw, flushed face, clenched fists, the hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach, and the tightness in my chest all shout out their warning: STOP!! DO NOT PROCEED!!

These are my cues to immediately pause, breathe, relax my body, and slow down my thinking. Only then is it prudent for me to speak or act because if I proceed in an agitated state the outcome will not be one I look back at with pride.

Mindfulness – my only regret

When it comes to mindfulness, my only regret is that no one told me about it in my youth. So much needless, useless, silly drama could have been avoided.

This now serves as my primary motivation to spread the gospel, so to speak, so that others may avoid my pointless moments of drama and, in doing so, live fuller, richer, happier lives.

You would be doing me a great favour were you to bring my blog to the attention of friends and family, and I thank you for doing so.

Warmest wishes,

Rob @ Living a Mindful Life

mind-less: adj. 1. without intelligence, senseless. 2. unmindful, careless.

mind-ful: adj. 1. attentive. 2. careful.

mind-ful-ness: noun.

1. Non-judgmental moment-to-moment awareness of thoughts, feelings, senses, and bodily sensations.
2. Accepting with equanimity whatever life presents.
3. Focusing on the present moment and not the past or the future.
4. Purposely taking notice of the world around you, particularly its simplest moments.
5. Choosing to respond to life in a calm, compassionate, considered manner rather than reacting to it unthinkingly, unconsciously, and habitually.

Here is a rough depiction of some of the differences between being mindless versus being mindful:

Mindfulness practice holds the promise of helping you become a better person, a happier person, and one who leads a fuller, richer life without any change in circumstance.

While the practice of mindfulness consists of basic principles and teachings, there is no dogma that must be taken on faith. Rather, it is an experiential philosophy that says, “Try these things and see if they work for you.”

While I will provide you with the principles and teachings, it falls on you, through application, to prove its benefits to yourself. I can proverbially “lead you to the water” but the drinking part, that’s up to you!

“Everyone knows that it takes time and perseverance to master an art, a sport, a language, or any other discipline. Why should it not be the same with training the mind?

It is a worthwhile adventure. We are not talking about acquiring some ordinary ability, but rather about a new way of being that will determine the quality of our entire life.”

Matthieu Ricard, Buddhist monk and author of “Why Meditate?“

In basic terms, mindfulness can be summarized using the acronym “CAAL“:

• Concentration.
• Awareness.
• Acceptance.
• Love

Concentration

Concentration is the practice of directing your attention to where you want it rather than following unconsciously to wherever your wandering, unobserved mind takes you. In short, a wandering mind is problematic to leading a peaceful life.

Developing the skill of concentration is achieved through formal meditation practice coupled with informal mindfulness techniques deployed throughout one’s day.

Awareness

If our goal is to lead a peaceful life it helps to remain aware of the following:  

1. Awareness of the present moment and choosing to preferentially reside there (versus our tendency to dwell on our unchangeable past or fret about an unknowable future).
2. Awareness of our thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations. These are used as an early-warning system to alert us when our wisdom is going off-line.
3. Awareness of one of the primary causes of suffering – resisting reality.
4. Awareness of impermanence, the truism that nothing stays the same, that everything is in constant flux. To resist impermanence is to invite suffering.
5. Awareness of the many factors impacting human behaviour. Armed with this knowledge we just naturally adopt universal compassion as our credo.
6. Awareness of our highest intentions, including to bring peace and goodwill into the world.
7. Awareness of a broader perspective on life. This helps us stop taking life, and ourselves, so seriously.
8. Awareness of our interdependence and interconnectedness with others and, ultimately, with everything in the universe. Doing so helps overcome our self-absorbed, self-centred egoism.

Acceptance

Acceptance means that we adopt the attitude that whatever life brings our way, we’re okay with it, it’s all manageable. By doing so we drop all the usual drama and, instead, just deal with each situation matter-of-factly; we practice equanimity.

Love

Universal love is an essential component of mindfulness, because if you’re harboring anger, jealousy, envy, greed, selfishness, impatience or any of the other base traits of humanity, you cannot be mindful – these two states of mind are like oil and water.

Love is choosing to live your life with compassion, generosity, understanding, and goodwill toward everyone you encounter, without exception (see this post for why this is the right thing to do).

“In the practice of mindfulness, the mind is trained to remain in the present, open, quiet, and alert, contemplating the present event.  All judgments and interpretations have to be suspended or, if they occur, just registered and dropped.  The whole process is a way of coming back into the present moment, of standing in the here and now, without getting swept away by the tides of distracting thoughts.”

Bhikkhu Bodhi, Buddhist monk

“Mindfulness is the presence of mind, the quality of awareness, often described as “bare attention”.

Joseph Goldstein, “Mindfulness – A Practical Guide to Awakening”

Mindful Moments: Some examples

To help make the concept of mindfulness a bit more concrete, let’s look at some examples of mindful moments:

• You are walking through the woods trying to clear your head over an argument you just had with your parents. You regret the hurtful things you said to them out of anger and now are worrying about your future relationship with them. Your mind turns the past and future over and over in an endless loop. Then, suddenly, a clearing opens up in the woods and there, in the vast expanse right in front of you, is the most amazing sunset you’ve ever seen, and you are instantly awestruck. At that moment, all those negative thoughts fall away and your entire world closes down to just that experience. You have left the past and the future and, once again, are living fully in the present moment – you are mindful. In this more peaceful state you see the wise path forward with your parents and commit to calling them when you get home. You enjoy the rest of your woodland stroll.

• You are taking a shower after two hours of tiring, sweaty yard work and your senses open up completely to the experience – the warm water cascading over your body, the scent of the lathered soap, the sound of the drops hitting the shower walls, the blurring of your sight as the water runs down your face, and the sweet taste of the water as you take small sips to quench your thirst. At that moment, that shower is your entire world – you are being mindful!

• You are sitting comfortably in your backyard on a mild spring day taking in the warmth, the sound of the birds in the trees around you, and the scent of flowers just coming into bloom. Suddenly, your yard-obsessed neighbour fires up his gas-powered beast of a lawnmower, jolting you out of your serenity. A surge of judgmental anger takes hold of your being and thoughts of what you’d like to do to him race through your mind. Then, you notice these unhelpful feelings and choose to pause, breathe, slow down your mind, and relax. You laugh at yourself for your habitual reaction to life’s unpleasant moments and remind yourself, once again, that pleasant and unpleasant are both just part of life. In your now-mindful state you smile and wave good-naturedly to your neighbour, closing your eyes and resting as you wait patiently for him to complete his chore.

• You are playing your favourite sport and a crucial moment arises requiring your total focus. Suddenly, conscious awareness of the spectators drops away, all goes calm and quiet, all sensory input ceases, and your entire world narrows to the task at hand – you are “in the zone” in sports parlance and all worldly matters cease to exist for you at that moment. Welcome to mindfulness!

• You are focused on an important report for your manager that is due tomorrow, trying to get the words just right. Suddenly, an email notification pops up on your screen and part of your mind starts wondering what it’s about. Then, your phone rings and rings and rings, sounding urgent, and another part of your mind begins making up stories about who may be needing you. And then a colleague interrupts you to ask a question and suddenly you feel anxious and stressed – there’s just too much going on. And then you realize that your mind is scattered. You choose to turn off your email notifications, you put your phone on do-not-disturb, and you advise your colleagues that you need two hours of quiet time. Your mind settles and you’re able to focus productively on just the task at hand – you’ve chosen to be mindful.

• Your friend comes to you in a frantic state. You drop what you are doing, your full attention turns to her, and you just listen – no mental commentary, no judging, no thinking about what you’re going to say – you just listen, thus being mindfully attentive to your friend’s needs.

• Your spouse speaks to you in a harsh, aggressive manner over something he feels you should have done. You feel unjustly accused and really hurt. But in that moment you become aware of your body tensing, your blood boiling, your jaw clenching, and your racing mind – and you pause, slow everything down, and breathe. Rather than judging his outburst as childish and lashing out at him, your heart feels compassion because you know this isn’t his true self talking. You simply let him say his peace and resolve to speak to him later once he’s calmed down and both of you are more receptive to a wiser, heartfelt discussion about the issue. Responding with compassion and wisdom, rather than reacting in our habitual, unthinking way, you’ve chosen the path of mindfulness.

• You are driving to work along the same seemingly-boring and overly-familiar route you have for the past six years, only today you have your four-year-old grandchild with you and she begins asking you questions about what she’s seeing and hearing. Suddenly, through her eyes, you begin noticing new things about that “boring” route that you’d never really noticed before. The drive isn’t boring this time – in fact, it’s rather pleasant and interesting! Welcome to mindfulness practice!

What we can glean from these examples is that you are being mindful when:

• Your attention is focused on what is happening at this present moment.

• You choose not to dwell on an unchangeable past or fret about an unknowable future.

• You focus on one task at a time and give it your undivided attention.  

• You experience life directly through your senses minus commentary, opinions, or judgments.

• You choose to respond to life’s challenges and frustrations with compassion rather than reacting unthinkingly and automatically with ego-centric aggression.

• Through practice you develop moment-to-moment awareness of your thoughts, feelings, and bodily sensations and use these as your guide to pause before being taken over by our often-unhelpful instinctual reactions to the things in life we don’t like. Instead, we learn to create a wee bit of space to allow us to choose a path of calm wisdom.

While mindfulness practice can’t make the unpleasant aspects of life disappear, it can provide you with the tools to live a life of peace amidst life’s inevitable squalls.

Without question, implementing a daily mindfulness practice has made my life materially better – one of peaceful contentment regardless of circumstance. And I know it can do the same for you.

Warmest wishes,

Rob @ Living a Mindful Life

“The teachings others can give you are to show you the path, but that isn’t real knowledge. When people genuinely meet the dharma, they realize it directly within themselves. So the Buddha said that he is merely the one who shows the way. In teaching us, he is not accomplishing the way for us. It is not so easy as that. It’s like someone who sells us a plow to till the fields. He isn’t going to do the plowing for us. We have to do that ourselves.

Teachings can be most profound, but those who listen may not understand. Never mind. Don’t be perplexed over profundity or lack of it. Just do the practice wholeheartedly, and you can arrive at real understanding—it will bring you to the place the teachings talk about.”

Ajahn Chah, Buddhist monk, Tricycle magazine