Mindfulness

When you wash the dishes...wash the dishes

simple Buddhist description of mindfulness

What the Buddhist teachers are trying to get across here is that when we do something we should really be doing just that something.  We should be concentrating on the issue at hand.

I don't know about you but I never do that.  When I'm washing the dishes (a task I try to avoid) I'm thinking about the kids and Jennifer's new baby, Kristin's new job, Kurt's poetry and writing that he's waiting to hear from a publisher about.  I'm not thinking about the cheese I'm washing off the plate, I'm wondering why I keep coughing, and how I'm going to raise the money I need to keep the monastery open. My mind is on money and figuring out if I have enough to make it this month. The dishes wash themselves, really.

Truth is we all do this a lot.  We are always thinking about something else right?

The past for me is bitter sweet, and I think about it a lot.  I've had a good life but man did I screw up a lot of things.  I think often of things I should have done better with the kids and my relationships.  I wonder about my jobs and how I could have done them better, and I think about all those people I've hurt, things I messed up, pain I caused others...

And the future?  Always on my mind.  Will I have enough money to survive?  Will my relationship last?  Will my kids stay healthy?  Will I stay healthy?  Will the election mean more war?  More punishing of the poor?  More hate and rancor in public life?  Will we ever really be at peace?

I think about that stuff too.  I dwell on the past and the future extensively during the course of my day.

Which, of course means I spend an awful lot of time thinking about stuff I can't do a damn thing about. 

I can't fix the past.  No matter how many movies I watch that have people going back in time, nobodies figured it out yet.  I can't fix the screw ups or relive the good times.

I can't predict the future either.  Oh, I don't mean I should completely ignore the future--I do have to think about things and make plans.  But worrying about it?  Waste of time.  No matter how much time I spend wondering about what is going to happen, inevitably it turns out different than I expected.

Of all the spiritual disciplines I have worked on-being mindful and living in the moment-this moment has taken the most work. And yet, I could argue it is the one discipline that when and if I conquer it it will provide the most happiness.





It should be the easiest discipline to master too, right?  I mean, how hard is it to simply keep my mind on my knitting?  On the thing in front of me?  The so-called task at hand.

It isn't easy.  Hell, while I'm typing this I'm thinking about going over to the park to shoot some baskets (the place I have gone my entire life when I had to think something through-the playground basketball court.  Yet, you know what I do when I shoot the baskets?  Think about other stuff...that's why I do it.)  So here I am writing about mindfulness, while being un-mindful about going somewhere to be even more un-mindful.

See what I mean?  Mindfulness is hard. 

But it can be mastered.  I do have periods of time when I really am living in the moment.  I wouldn't say I have 'mastered' it so much, as gotten better at it.  And I have figured out some simple rules for being mindful:

1.  It takes work and you have to be intentional about it (remember that in our first attitude described above?)  If I want to be mindful I have to regularly remind myself when I start daydreaming about the past or the future to just stop it.  Of course that means I'm telling myself to stop it all day long, but so what.  It's the only way I can do it.

2.  Periods of meditation or prayer can help me with my mindfulness effort.  My meditation periods are mindfulness to the extreme.  So when I am walking, or sitting or even reading as meditation, being mindful helps me enjoy it more and feel it work within me and the actual exercise is mindfulness.

3.  I'm going to fail more than I succeed so I need to stop worrying about it.  It doesn't do much good to decide to be mindful-meaning living in the moment and not punishing myself about stuff-and then punishing myself when I fail to live in that moment.

4.  There's some good stuff out there to help us understand mindfulness.  Jon Kabat-Zinn has written and taught extensively on mindfulness practice.  His book Wherever You Go There You Are is still the one I return to regularly for help in mindfulness practice.  And the great Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has written great books on the practice including Being Peace that can help.  (Unfortunately he keeps writing the same stuff over and over again, in my opinion, so sticking with his earlier writing is all you need.)  As with all spiritual writing, however, there is also a lot of junk out there.  Be selective in what you choose.

I strongly encourage you to make mindfulness an exercise worth your time.  I promise even a little bit of success will add peace of mind.  When I'm in those periods of what I call my 'buddha nature' when the only thing I'm thinking about and concentrating on is now, I'm happiest and more at peace.  And those times increase in frequency and duration all the time.

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In our fourth installment of Simplicity, Silence, Sabbath  we will spend time on the attitude of flexibility.  Yea, I know, that's more a state of being than an attitude, but I think you'll see it's an attitude too.