practice mindfulness

It was Meditate, now its practice mindfulness.

When I finally climbed into bed late last night (or early this morning), I picked up this book from my bedside table, and it fell open to the chapter titled “Running in Place.” It’s a short chapter, but full of things that seemed very relevant last night, and still do today.

The author writes that “Running in Place” means experiencing our lives directly, being present as we are, right here and right now, instead of dreaming about how our lives might be if we did this, or had that. She asks:

What is there in our life right now that we don’t want to run in place with? Whatever is repetitive or dull or painful or miserable: we don’t want to run in place with that. No indeed!...It is frightening to run in place. A major component of practice is to realize how this fear and unwillingness dominates us.

According to the author, moving beyond that fear and unwillingness requires staying in place, until through patient and persistent practice, we learn to observe and become conscious of “the ego barriers of our life: the thoughts, the emotions, the evasions, the manipulations”, and then learn to return our attention, again and again, to “the direct experience of whatever the scenery of our life is at any moment as we run in place. Is it simple? Yes. Is it easy? No.”

So, back to running in place with my daily goals, continuing to practice, right here, right now.

When I was getting ready yesterday for my big challenge goal of having more people over, I was thinking of the phrase “This is it.” I remembered a cartoon about this phrase, and found it yesterday here. In this cartoon, two monks are sitting side by side, and the older one says to the younger one, “Nothing happens next. This is it.”

It’s sort of like the Buddhist saying that “everything is perfect as it is.” When I’m anxious about getting ready for guests to come, “This is it.” When I’m nervous/excited that the guests are arriving, “This is it.” When I’m happy that everyone is sitting together eating and talking in my living room, “This is it.” When I’m worrying that the chair that one of my guests is sitting in will fall apart, or that there aren’t enough places for people to set down their plates and glasses, “This is it.” When I am gratified that my guests are complimenting me, “This is it.” When I’m exhausted after they’ve all left, “This is it.” When I’m relaxing this morning and playing on the internet, “This is it.” When I’m uncertain about what to do with the rest of the today, “This is it.” It is being the anxious Buddha, the nervous/excited Buddha, the happy Buddha, the worrying Buddha, the gratified Buddha, the exhausted Buddha, the relaxing Buddha, the uncertain Buddha. Charlotte Joko Beck writes that “Real spirituality is just being with all that. If we can really be with Buddha, who we are, then it transforms”. (“Everyday Zen, page 13.)

As I was searching for the cartoon, I came across an essay called “This is it” by Alan Watts. I’ve only read the beginning, where he writes:

The central core of the experience seems to be the conviction, or insight, that the immediate now, whatever its nature, is the goal and fulfillment of all living…the immediate now is complete even when it is not ecstatic. For ecstasy is a necessarily impermanent contrast in the constant fluctuation of our feelings. But insight, when clear enough, persists; having once understood a particular skill, the facility tends to remain.

^{—Alan Watts, This is it.}

‘The easiest way to relax is to stop trying to make things different. Struggle comes from not accepting what is present.’

this is one of the hardest thing i find to practise, but through mindfulness it is becoming slightly easier.

...to something I heard about this morning on the radio. Jon Kabat-Zinn, an author who was instrumental in teaching me about mindfulness, is being interviewed on one of my favorite shows, Krista Tippett’s Speaking of Faith. The program will be aired twice tomorrow on the Georgia public radio channel, and I can also listen and read more here.

i have been on two mindfulness courses, but find it hard to practise on my own. we have set up a group of people from the course who go to each others house once a week to meditate to gether it has been great fun but we are not very disciplined but we are getting there slowly.

A student said to Master Ichu, “Please write for me something of great wisdom.”

Master Ichu picked up his brush and wrote one word: “Attention.”

The student said, “Is that all?”

The master wrote, “Attention. Attention.”

The student became irritable. “That doesn’t seem profound or subtle to me.”

In response, Master Ichu wrote simply, “Attention, attention, attention.”

In frustration, the student demanded, “What does this word attention mean?”

Master Ichu replied, “Attention means attention.”

^{quoted in Nothing Special, Living Zen by Charlotte Joko Beck}

This is VERY SERIOUS NOW… I NEED to lose weight and get fit and fitter and fitter still.

Also MY income needs to be dealth with too.

SO THIS IS A MUST NOW !!!

A good song can make you feel uplifted, or comfortably blue…
You can be completely full, but walk into a house where someone has been cooking and suddenly find yourself starving from the scent…
The sound of water can make you have to go to the bathroom even when you think you’re completely drained…
The point: Our environment directly impacts our feelings through our senses…

If you throw the physical clutter in your daily environment, the mental clutter will go out the door with it. This is how I’ve helped practice mindfulness.

...that has helped me in the past. It’s called a “constructive living journal”, and I first read about it in Thirsty Swimming in the Lake by David K. Reynolds. It’s a journal with two columns. The left-hand column records my thoughts and feelings, and the right-hand column records my actions. It seemed to help me be more mindful as I was attempting to clean my house today.