Please read  Home Practice and Introduction to Meditation before beginning.

One of the first meditations that anyone can practice is mindfulness. In this practice, the student learns to pay attention to whatever thoughts, feelings, or sensations are occurring, moment by moment. Another name for it might be ” the art of paying attention.” It’s what your teachers in school chided you to do: Pay Attention!

When I was in ninth grade, my math teacher pushed my desk over to the window and said, “There, maybe now you’ll grow up and learn to pay attention”

….it had something to do with my love of talking rather than sitting still, and –of course, Paying Attention to what he was saying and teaching at the blackboard.

I guess I’m a slow learner, but I did finally get the lesson, Mr. O’Rourke. Forty years later, I often sit for two hours per day, and sometimes I spend entire days in SILENCE.

fallen leaf at Lake Erie State Park (ckg photo)

It’s nearly impossible to do while multi-tasking, so if you are trying to download a few of your fav rock stars on YouTube as you read this, I beseech you to STOP one of the tasks at hand! Either totally get into the download music and enjoy every minute of it….or pay total attention to this page: read it and imbibe what I am saying–don’t half take it in while you are enjoying, or trying to enjoy your music. And if you are trying to read your email, check out your buds on Facebook, surf WIKI, chat someone up on SKYPE, or scarf down a portabella burger, or WHATEVER–just do that ONE THING and give yourself TOTALLY to that one thing. Come back to this page when you can devote yourself to reading it–and it alone. I’ll still be here. PROMISE.

Mindfulness means you should pay attention to whatever you are doing AT THIS VERY MOMENT. And don’t get too attached to this moment, because, well, you know what happens: this moment has already turned into this moment. So mindfulness meditators use something to focus on. It’s often the breath, but could be anything. Try meditating in a yoga pose. When you do, you will awaken to a much deeper practice.

Whatever is used as the focus though inevitably drifts into oblivion as the mind has its own way. Like a hive of buzzing bees, the breath-or whatever is the point of focus-is totally forgotten as the practitioner drops head-deep into a fuzzy buzz.

winter trees at Point Gratiot, Dunkirk NY (ckg photo)

One widely-practiced method to remain mindful while meditating, or doing anything else for that matter, is to use short labels. Without any sense of judgment, simply honor the buzz of thoughts, and label them, “Thinking.” To do this it’s often helpful to develop a sense of watching yourself thinking, breathing, being. There are different names for this widely used tool of meditation. Some call it the Witness, some External Awareness, some call it Soul. It’s as if you are hovering above your body, watching without any sense of right or wrong, without any desire, or sense of change, without control. Just observing, like a scientist watching an experiment, there you are, engaged in Choiceless Observation. Accepting whatever IS without attachment.

Mindfulness is about living life to the max, experiencing whatever it is that is happening RIGHT NOW. Did you get that? I mean righ t now! So you begin entering the space of the present moment. The dimensions of li ving grow deeper, more varied. Maybe you are getting the hang of this whole mindfulness thing. Ooops – here come the stampeding thoughts again, threatening to take over. Ahh, it’s just a moment you recognize as natural as being human. Love yourself. Befriend your mind. Gently return to the practice of the present. Exhale softly and with utter kindness.

You have rounded the bend of the stream before you even experienced the moment that just occurred. Worried about the future, obsessing over the past, you never felt the water flowing beneath your body now.And yes, if you thought you could wait until you have finished reading this, well, you missed; there is no waiting; this moment is gone already!

Delve Deeper into MINDFULNESS:

1. Check out the sources recommended on the Meditation Page.
2. Read Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche’s article, “How to do Mindfulness Meditation.”
   
3. Watch Jon Kabat-Zinn’s discussion of Mindfulness on You Tube.
4. Discover the Benefits of Mindfulness practice.
   
5. Dig into Laughing Yogini’s Meditation links on the right sidebar of every page.

apple blossom (ckg photo)