What Else is Mindfulness?

Some individuals tell me they learned meditation as a tool to call up only when they are feeling anxiety or fear. A broader view reflects multiple elements of mindfulness that can help us to cultivate a stable foundation in all spheres of life, including teaching. This orientation can guide our personal daily practice, and over time, become integrated into our ways of being in and responding in more complex situations (e.g., teaching, meetings, family and other interactions). Consider this frame for practicing mindfulness to develop a way being in our ever-changing lives, while sailing calm seas and through the inevitable storms.

1. When we practice mindfulness, we focus our awareness and attention on something in this moment. Sensory experiences are good anchors because they unfold only in the present. An anchor might be sounds we hear entering and changing in our setting, our breath as it enters and leaves our body, or changing sensations in our body. By bringing our awareness to something in the here and now (without judgment or stories about these), we orient our mind to the present moment. We allow our mind (to some degree) to begin quiet the inner chatter of stories, planning, worry scenarios, or re-playing past experiences (positive or not). Our mind can pause, settle and join with our body to experience the present moment, and grow the capacity to extend this to more moments.

2. Mindfulness includes the element of intention. We choose to try our best during this personal practice period to be alert / awake. Our intention is not to be perfectly present, but to notice when our attention has slipped away into thinking or when we have checked out. With intention, we choose to bring our minds back to our anchor, again and again. Whether we have been “gone” (inattentive, thinking) for 10 seconds or five minutes, as soon as we notice, we invite our mind back to our anchor and begin once more. We respond with kindness to ourselves and our human patterns. Some days it may feel like we have to come back dozens of times in twenty minutes. No matter. Each time we meet our intention to notice and come back, we are growing our capacity for awareness. This coming back is mindfulness practice.

3. When we commit to practicing mindfulness, we accept the invitation to see, feel, hear our actual experience in the present moment, just as it is. We practice to be with it without judging or striving to change it, whether it is body sensations, feelings, thoughts or mood. We don’t practice to achieve a particular state or outcome. Sometimes we feel calmer and more settled after a session, but sometimes we may not. For me, over time, this began to open into viewing my life experiences and relationships (positive and otherwise) with greater clarity. I generate and attach to fewer “stories” about my view. (Or if I do have a story come up, I recognize sooner that it is “my story” and can let it go.) I can more often see things just as they are, and practice to tend and be with whatever feelings may arise. I am reminded of this Zen quote from an unknown source.

If you understand, things are the way they are.

If you don’t understand, things are the way they are.

This fuller view of mindfulness helps us to understand that practice is much more than a “tool” to calm down when we are activated. Mindfulness is a capacity that we can cultivate over time through our daily practice, without expectation or attachment to some outcome. We practice regularly with attention and intention, accepting the invitation to experience and respond more skillfully to reality as it unfolds. We reflect and notice how mindfulness impacts our own personal experience, on the inside and the outside, as we move through our sometimes joyful, sometimes messy, and always unpredictable lives. Teaching can be joyful and messy and unpredictable. This is the kind of mindfulness practice I need to cultivate a sense of stability and bring more mindfulness to my teaching.