Imagine a person, that person has always been able to get by, they might work at a job, they might have friendships or a family - as a functional member of society they’re doing fine. They do, however, feel stressed or anxious quite often, sometimes they feel down, sometimes they feel angry and struggle to find the right way to express it. They might feel guilty for experiencing so they suppress it.
But more than that, something bubbles underneath the surface, a suspicion that things aren’t quite right, their life as they’re living it is not quite enough, a feeling of general dissatisfaction. Something that’s hard to explain to their friends, something that’s missing, almost like a part of yourself that you’re not in touch with.
We might sometimes wonder what that missing part of us is - some event or new relationship, something outside of our mundane lives that would give it meaning but the opposite is true - what's missing is the world in front of us, available in every single moment, every breath we take. JKZ describes it very well as a way of being. Its an attitude, its a path. Mindfulness is the process of connecting with that world in front of us.
How do we practise mindfulness? When we talk about mindfulness, we’re talking about being mindful of something - our breath, our walking, our eating, our sitting, the sound of the wind moving through the trees, the sight of a bird landing on a branch. Mindfulness is being aware of what's happening inside you and around you. Through practising that way of being, the evidence is clear that it improves your mood, reduces your anxiety and enables you to more fully enjoy your life.
The purpose of this podcast is to take you through the elements of the practice of mindfulness in as accessible a way as possible in order to transform your suffering and ultimately to transform the world we live in (more on that in a later episode). As we refresh the basics in January, we’re going to cover several aspects.
The first is Stopping - mindfulness is sometimes called the art of stopping. We spend a lot of our time rushing around and doing things rather than being still and present. By being still in our body we can allow our mind to settle and become still as well.
The second is cultivating happiness. When we stop distracting ourselves from the present moment and feel gratitude and joy for the life we have, for the people around us, for simply being alive, we can grow the seed of happiness within us the same way we would tend to our garden.
The third is taking care of difficult emotions - what does this mean? We take care of our emotions the same way we would take care of a friend who is suffering - by welcoming them in, by listening and by accepting them just as they are.
The fourth is watching our thoughts. The thoughts we experience have power, they can sweep us away to another time and place. We can let go of difficult, repetitive thoughts to free us from suffering, free us from rumination and free us to experience the world in front of us.
Finally, mindfulness can allow us to experience the world as it truly is - to see the interconnections between you and other people, interconnections between you and the planet we live on to live a fuller, richer life. We can also see the impermanence of everything, freeing us from the pain of attachment.
Comments
Post a Comment