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Mindfulness of Everyday Life

by Philip L. Jones

Practicing sitting meditation allows one to develop one's ability to relax and one's ability to be mindful. However, the point of the practice is not to do sitting meditation. Rather it is to cultivate the ability to live mindfully, to live with less suffering, to live one's life fully.
    Practicing Clear Comprehension can assist us in cultivating mindfulness in our daily lives.

•        Clearly understanding our intentions:

•     Is this an activity that is arising from a state of desire, a state of hatred or of confusion? (If so, let it rise and fall, holding it with mindfulness.) 

•       Or, is this an activity arising from generosity, loving-kindness and clarity of understanding?

•        Clearly understanding the appropriateness of our intended actions:

•       Even if the intended action is in alignment with generosity, loving-kindness and clarity, is this the appropriate time and place for these actions?

•        Clearly understanding the domain or scope of meditation

•       Our whole lives are opportunities to practice with mindfulness, not just the times when we are sitting.

•        Clearly understanding our true nature.

•       Seeing through our perceptual distortions, our habitual tendencies. (Letting go of our tendency to identify with certain aspects of our experience as “me”, “not-me” or “mine”.)

•       Seeing the self-less nature of our moment-to-moment experience.
 

A few hints from Insight Meditation: The Practice of Freedom by Joseph Goldstein:

•        How can we remain present and mindful when we move from a meditation sitting or a meditation retreat to our other activities in the world? Making that crucial transition from awareness on the cushion to awareness of daily activities fundamentally affects our freedom.

•        Practicing mindfulness of the body is one of the easiest ways to stay present in daily life. ...

•        Our body is quite obvious as an object of attention, not subtle like thought or emotions. We can stay aware of the body easily, but only if we remember to do so. The remembering is difficult, not the awareness.

•        Remember to use your body as a vehicle for awakening. It can be as simple as staying mindful of your posture. ... Be inyour body as you move, as you reach for something, as you turn. It is as simple as that.

•        Staying present in the body is one reason that walking meditation has been so helpful to my own practice. ...

•        ... Just patiently practice feeling what is there -- and the body is alwaysthere -- until it becomes second nature to know even the small movements you make. If you are reaching for something, you are doing it anyway; there is nothing extra you have to do. Simply notice the reaching. You are moving. Can you train yourself to be there, to feel it?

•        It is very simple. Practice again and again bringing your attention back to your body. This basic effort, which paradoxically is a relaxing back into the moment, gives us the key to expanding our awareness from times of formal meditation to living mindfully in the world. Do not underestimate the power that comes to you from feeling the simple movements of your body throughout the day.

•        Another way to develop a strong investigative mind outside of sitting practice and meditation retreats is to pay particular attention when your experience becomes intense or difficult. Some of our most incisive moments of opening and insight can come at times of difficulty -- physical pain, illness, emotional turmoil, danger, any of those moments of heightened experience that come to us all.

•        Simply because an event is strong, because it naturally rivets our attention anyway, we have a good moment to look carefully, precisely. We bring investigation to bear on what is happening and on our response to it. Am I getting caught? How am I getting hooked? What is skillful means in this situation? Where can I open more or let it be?

                                                                                                                                                -- pp. 139-40.

"Because speech is so predominant in our lives, and because our words are so consequential, learning the art of skillful communication needs to be a significant aspect of our ... practice. "

" ... Although there is great elaboration of right speech in the texts, it all condenses into two principles: Is it true? Is it useful? "              "... The practice of communication is the great art of relating to another person, of being open, of listening so well that you can see where you can actually make contact. Can you let the other person in? What is the right vocabulary? Can you speak to what is really important to that person? We learn to listen and speak from a feeling of metta, basic goodwill. Wise discernment and metta enable us to connect"

--p. 150 
 

" A sense of humor is indispensable in the practice .... When we reflect for a moment on the quality of mind a sense of humor implies, we see that it creates some inner space. Being able to see the humor, the lightness, and the emptiness of phenomena is really a great blessing during those times when we become caught in the various dramas of our lives." -- p.163

 

These are just a few hints. There are many others offered by many of the people teaching insight meditation in the West. If you ever have any questions about practicing insight meditation, please feel free to contact me. I hope you've found this exploration of insight meditation useful.

May you be happy.

Phil