The nature of mindfulness is to live life with awareness and participate in each moment with intention and focus.These are very succinct, wonderfully precise articulations of what we are talking about when we talk about mindfulness.
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Mindfulness is not escaping from reality, being non emotional or letting life pass you by. Instead, it is a way of learning to live life fully in each moment without preconceived notions and without judgement.
Instead of creating expectations of what should or should not be happening, cooperate with the form that this moment takes. Bring a 'yes' to the isness, because it's pointless to argue if it already is. A greater intelligence is available to you when you no longer reject, deny, or 'don't want' what is.
What would happen if we made it a practice not to discount giving close attention to the seemingly familiar? Maybe we would learn to see in a true way what we just think we see so far.In nature, one never really sees a thing for the first time until one has seen it for the fiftieth.
I don't know about you but I really don't want to get to the end of my life thinking, "What was that all about?" Really.Why do so many of us not give ourselves permission to be alive until we are absolutely assured that we will die? ...If we are not in [this present millisecond of life and conscious experience], we are not alive; we are merely thinking our lives. Yet we have seen so many die, looking back over their shoulders at their lives, shaking their heads and muttering in bewilderment, "What was that all about?"
Be humble for you are made of earth.
Be noble for you are made of stars.-- Serbian Proverb
The words 'I am...' are potent words; be careful what you hitch them to.
The thing you're claiming has a way of reaching back and claiming you.
[Mindfulness is] the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of experiences moment by moment.That sums it up nicely, doesn't it?
There are 7 elements of the mindfulness attitude that are required for someone to achieve a mindful state:
1. Non-Judging: taking the role of an impartial observer to whatever your current experience is. This means not making a positive or negative evaluation of what is happening, just simply observing it.
2. Patience: cultivating the understanding that things must develop in their own time.
3. Beginner’s Mind: having the willingness to observe the world as if it was your first time doing so. This creates an openness that is essential to being mindful.
4. Trust: having trust in yourself, your intuition, and your abilities.
5. Non-Striving: the state of not doing anything, just simply accepting that things are happing in the moment just as they are supposed to. For people from Western countries like the United States, this tends to be one of the more difficult components.
6. Acceptance: completely accepting the thoughts, feelings, sensations, and beliefs that you have, and understanding that they are simply those things only.
7. Non-Attachment: avoidance of attaching meaning to thoughts and feelings, or connecting a given thought to a feeling. Instead, let a thought or feeling come in and pass without connecting it to anything, observing them exactly as they are.
It works.PRESS ON THE ROOF
Tense people have tense jaw muscles. To relieve this tension, simply press on the roof of the mouth, behind the front teeth, with your tongue.
You wander from room to room
Hunting for the diamond necklace
That is already around your neck!-- Rumi
Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer. Go some distance away because then the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.
“If it is going to rain, let it.”
-- anonymous
Learn how to carry a friendship greatly, whether or not it is returned. Why should one regret if the receiver is not equally generous? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion. If he is unequal, he will presently pass away; but thou art enlarged by thy own shining.
That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and impermanent, is the first mark of existence. It is the ordinary state of affairs. Everything is in process. Everything—every tree, every blade of grass, all the animals, insects, human beings, buildings, the animate and the inanimate—is always changing, moment to moment.
-- Pema Chodron
Plan, but don't plan the outcome.I think it's important to remember that our culture tends to imprint a default sort of black and white thinking on us even when this attitude is not really part of our personal outlook or philosophy. Many people over the years who have come to talk to me have objected to the idea of letting go of an outcome believing that such an approach will turn them passive and that they then won't bother to make responsible plans. We need to remember that reality is not that kind of an either-or proposition. Larry's little reflection here is very helpful in that regard, I think.
It is all right to make plans, but it is not okay to insist on a particular outcome. Sometimes I may do things expecting particular results, but in focusing on the goal instead of the things I should do to reach that goal I may create a set up for disappointment. I can take action, but I cannot rigidly determine the results. When my mind is not set upon the end state, I can be sanguine about failures by saying I did my best (returning the focus to my behavior). With emphasis on what I'm doing instead of emphasis on where I'm going, I will be able to handle the times when things didn't work out.
And how do we quiet the mind?Only in quiet waters things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world.
-- HANS MARGOLIUS, quoted in A Toolbox for Humanity
And I like this:My mind is a clear, blue sky. My mind is a clear, blue sky.
And I breathe in, and I breathe out.
And my mind is a clear, blue sky.
My mind is a clear, blue sky. And the feelings come, and the feelings go.
And my mind is a clear, blue sky. My mind is a clear, blue sky.
Take a breath. Pay attention as the air goes in…and out. There, you’ve just had a moment of mindfulness.There are some interesting comments in the article about impulse control and hyperactivity. Recommended.
Suppose we asked the following: What in my life have I considered to be great that turned out to be unimportant? What have considered to be small that turned out to be quite important indeed? How can I cultivate the sort of perception that will take this history into account?Wisdom is the perception of the unimportance of the things we call great, and of the importance of the things we call small.
And here's another observation I think is valuable:It's not that I'm so smart, it's just that I stay with problems longer.
~Albert Einstein
I may not be there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday.
~Author Unknown
Play a Calm RoleThis approach is hugely helpful to me because I am not by nature particularly calm. My mother once said that I got through my childhood and youth entirely on nervous energy. I supposed some people might not think I'm calm these days either but, trust me, I'm much more calm than I used to be and strategies like the one quoted above have helped a lot.
Pretend you are calm: adopt the characteristics of a calm person. Pertend that others see you as a calm person, and in not time you'll be a calm person.
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