Monday September 5th - Meditations on Labor DayIt’s Labor Day. Today seems like one of many holidays that has become a generic “holiday” without reference to its original purpose. Memorial Day and Labor Day mark the beginning and end of the summer season in the Northeast United States. You’re not supposed to wear white pants after today. I doubt many of us consider the significance of the holiday beyond that.
Labor Day celebrates the contributions (often of their lives) of American workers. It became a Federal Holiday in 1894 and was celebrated by most states before then. Is that what you’ll be contemplating today? Labor Day is a good time to think about our work in the world, what the Buddha called Right Livelihood. What efforts do we make? What service do we provide? We are problem-solving animals. Our brains grew so large, in part, by successfully solving problems — where to find reliable sources of food, for instance. We are also manual creatures. We evolved using our hands to make tools, and to engage effectively with the world around us. Today, many of us have professions where we do not use our hands in meaningful ways (I don’t think moving a mouse and keyboard qualify). What impact does the work we do have on the world? Is it beneficial for others? Is it harming others? Like speech and action, livelihood depends on context and intention. You could work for the greatest charity on the planet, but if you engage with your work with anger, rancor, and bitterness is it still right livelihood? You could be a butcher with love and compassion bursting from your heart. Is this not right livelihood? It’s tempting to want certainty, neat categories that tell us what is OK and what is not. The world is much grayer than this. Mindfulness can help us to engage with life in ways that will be beneficial to others and ourselves. Life can be praxis — the lived experience of practice. Life isn’t a theory; it is here right now. “What do we want to do today” and “how do we want to be today” are two questions that when brought together can help us towards right livelihood. Courtesy of belief.net |
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Monday August 29, 2016
Being Present
The Amazing Power of Being Present
How can you bring calm and peace to the middle of a stress-ful, chaotic day?
The answer is simple, though not always so easy to put into practice: learn to be present.
No matter how out-of-control your day is, no matter how stressful your job or life becomes, the act of being present can become an oasis. It can change your life, and it’s incredibly simple.
When I asked people what things prevent them from having a peaceful day, some of the responses:
How Being Present Solves Problems:
When you look at all of the problems above, you can see if you look closely that the problems are entirely in the mind. Sure, there are external forces at work: an uncontrollable job, the stress of kids and chores and interruptions and digital distractions. But it’s how our mind handles those external forces that is the problem.
If you are completely present, the external forces are no longer a problem, because there is only you and that external force, in this moment, and not a million other things you need to worry about.
If your kid interrupts you, you can stress out because you have other things to worry about and now your kid is adding to your worries or interrupting your calm. Or you can be present, and there is then only you and the child. You can appreciate that child for who she is, and be grateful you have this moment with her.
If your job demands that you focus on an urgent task, you can stress out because you have a million other things to do and not enough time to do them. Or you can be present, and focus completely on that task, and now there is only that one task and you. When you’re done, you can move on to the next task.
Social media and other digital distractions don’t interrupt us if we close them and learn to pour ourselves completely into the present task. And if we need to do email, Twitter, or read blogs, we can set aside everything else and just be present with that one digital task.
Being present becomes, then, a way to handle any problem, any distraction, any stressor. It allows everything else to fade away, leaving only you and whatever you’re dealing with right now.
How to Practice Being Present
The method for being present is fairly simple, but it’s the practice that matters most.
Most people don’t learn to be present because they don’t practice, not because it’s so hard to do.
When you practice something regularly, you become good at it. It becomes more a mode of being rather than a task on your to-do or someday list.
Practice, practice, and being present will become natural.
Here’s how to do it: whatever you’re doing, right now, learn to focus completely on doing that one thing.
Be joyful in whatever you’re doing, grateful that you’re able to do that task, and fully appreciate every little movement and tactile sensation of the task. You’ll learn that anything can be an amazing experience, anything can be a miracle.
Practice throughout your day, every day. Little “mindfulness bells” are useful to remind you to come back to the present. Thich Nhat Hanh once recommended that stoplights be your mindfulness bell as you drive. You can find mindfulness bells everywhere: your child’s voice, your co-workers appearing before you, a regular event on your computer, the noise of traffic.
Meditation is a fantastic way to practice, only because it removes much of the complexity of the world and allows you to just learn to be aware of your mind, and to bring yourself back to the present moment. It’s not complicated: meditation can be done anywhere, anytime. A meditation teacher is useful if you can find one.
Practice, repeatedly, in small easy beautiful steps. Each step is a wonder in itself, and each practice helps you to find that calm in the middle of the traffic of your life.
Courtesy of Zen Habits
Being Present
The Amazing Power of Being Present
How can you bring calm and peace to the middle of a stress-ful, chaotic day?
The answer is simple, though not always so easy to put into practice: learn to be present.
No matter how out-of-control your day is, no matter how stressful your job or life becomes, the act of being present can become an oasis. It can change your life, and it’s incredibly simple.
When I asked people what things prevent them from having a peaceful day, some of the responses:
- Work, the internet, my own lizard brain.
- Social media and other digital distractions.
- For me it’s too many things coming at me all at once. Whether it’s news, or decisions, or work to be done.
- My four children.
- Dishes, Laundry, Kids.
- Needless interruptions.
- Lack of control. I work in IT, and often “urgent” things will come up that need to be investigated/fixed right away (their definition, not necessarily mine).
- My own monkey mind.
How Being Present Solves Problems:
When you look at all of the problems above, you can see if you look closely that the problems are entirely in the mind. Sure, there are external forces at work: an uncontrollable job, the stress of kids and chores and interruptions and digital distractions. But it’s how our mind handles those external forces that is the problem.
If you are completely present, the external forces are no longer a problem, because there is only you and that external force, in this moment, and not a million other things you need to worry about.
If your kid interrupts you, you can stress out because you have other things to worry about and now your kid is adding to your worries or interrupting your calm. Or you can be present, and there is then only you and the child. You can appreciate that child for who she is, and be grateful you have this moment with her.
If your job demands that you focus on an urgent task, you can stress out because you have a million other things to do and not enough time to do them. Or you can be present, and focus completely on that task, and now there is only that one task and you. When you’re done, you can move on to the next task.
Social media and other digital distractions don’t interrupt us if we close them and learn to pour ourselves completely into the present task. And if we need to do email, Twitter, or read blogs, we can set aside everything else and just be present with that one digital task.
Being present becomes, then, a way to handle any problem, any distraction, any stressor. It allows everything else to fade away, leaving only you and whatever you’re dealing with right now.
How to Practice Being Present
The method for being present is fairly simple, but it’s the practice that matters most.
Most people don’t learn to be present because they don’t practice, not because it’s so hard to do.
When you practice something regularly, you become good at it. It becomes more a mode of being rather than a task on your to-do or someday list.
Practice, practice, and being present will become natural.
Here’s how to do it: whatever you’re doing, right now, learn to focus completely on doing that one thing.
- Pay attention: to every aspect of what you’re doing, to your body, to the sensations, to your thoughts.
- You will notice your thoughts, if you’re paying attention, jump to other things. That’s OK — you are not trying to force all other thoughts from your mind. But by becoming aware of that jumping around in your thoughts, you have found the tool for gently bringing yourself back to your present task. Just notice the jumping thoughts, and lovingly come back.
- Do this once, then do it again. Don’t worry about how many times you must do it. Just do it now.
Be joyful in whatever you’re doing, grateful that you’re able to do that task, and fully appreciate every little movement and tactile sensation of the task. You’ll learn that anything can be an amazing experience, anything can be a miracle.
Practice throughout your day, every day. Little “mindfulness bells” are useful to remind you to come back to the present. Thich Nhat Hanh once recommended that stoplights be your mindfulness bell as you drive. You can find mindfulness bells everywhere: your child’s voice, your co-workers appearing before you, a regular event on your computer, the noise of traffic.
Meditation is a fantastic way to practice, only because it removes much of the complexity of the world and allows you to just learn to be aware of your mind, and to bring yourself back to the present moment. It’s not complicated: meditation can be done anywhere, anytime. A meditation teacher is useful if you can find one.
Practice, repeatedly, in small easy beautiful steps. Each step is a wonder in itself, and each practice helps you to find that calm in the middle of the traffic of your life.
Courtesy of Zen Habits
Monday June 1, 2015
This is Mindful Parenting
I am taking my kids to the park in the morning. As we walk on the path we’ve taken many times to get to the playground, I ask my children to stop any time they see something pretty.
Our normal 5-minute walk turns into a beauty-full 25-minute journey.
We see trees that had been cut down from a storm a few weeks ago, and count the rings.
We find lovely heart-shaped “weeds” along the path.
We see tiny flowers ~ yellow, purple, white ~ that we probably would have rushed past in a hurry to get to our destination.
We make our nature walk part of the destination.
I love discovering what they find beautiful ~ dandelions, cottonwood.
My daughter finds a tree stump that looks like a star.
A walk to the park can be a mindfulness practice. Mindful parenting isn't complicated.
We arrive at the park ~ they play, laugh, fight, run, and whine when we have to leave.
We start on the path toward home. “I’m the leader!” shouts my son.
“NO! You were the leader on the way here. Now I’M the leader!” yells my daughter.
Running, shoving, pushing, trying to get ahead of the other... I see a skinned-kneed, bloody disaster approaching.
“STOP!” I yell. “KNOCK IT OFF!” I yell, more loudly this time.
While half-running to catch up with them, I breathe. I take my mindful pause.
“You were the leader last time,” I tell my son. “How about your sister leads until two more turns in the path, and then you can both lead together?”
Pouting, my son eventually accepts the mommy-mediated compromise.
And soon, big sister is leading him through “jungles and vines” along the path to home.
I had yelled, and then I found my skillful response. This is mindful parenting.
My daughter stops in the path to admire a pile of cottonwood and forest debris that, to me, looks like junk. “Mom, it’s beautiful. It looks like it’s glowing! It looks like fairy dust!”
I look at it again. It is pretty.
My daughter kicks at it, sending a plume of cottonwood into the air. “Mom! It's magic!”
When the time comes to assume joint leadership, my children walk hand-in-hand.
We arrive home. It is a gorgeous day, so I give my kids a blanket to set up for a picnic, while I go inside to prepare lunch. I barely have time to spread the jelly when I hear the screaming and crying.
I rush outside.
“He's messing up the blanket!!”
“She punched me!!”
“Did you punch him?” I ask.
“No ... Well, I did shove him a little,” my daughter confesses.
Her brother is still crying.
“Both of you, in the house!"
Now they are both wailing. My son is shouting, “I didn’t do nothing! I didn’t do nothing!”
My daughter wails, “I want a picnic! I want a picnic!”
All of this screaming is taking place in our front yard, and I imagine all the neighbors staring out their windows, asking, “Isn't that the lady who has that blog about mindfulness? Clearly it’s a load of crap!”
I breathe. I try to remain calm. “We will have our picnic," I tell my screeching little ones. "But how about you come in and calm down first.”
The crying subsides, and we go inside. I talk to my daughter about not shoving her brother, and what she can do when he bothers her. I talk to my son about how much it upsets his sister when he messes up the picnic she is preparing.
They sit quietly for a few minutes, I make lunch, they apologize, and we go outside for our picnic.
This is mindful parenting.
Our picnic is delightful. When a cool breeze comes up, my daughter remarks, “That’s Mother Nature bringing us air.”
My son lays on his back to watch the sky and we talk about all the colors in the clouds.
This is mindfulness.
This is our morning~ beauty, laughter, sweetness, play, fights, screams, pushes, apologies, tears, and a picnic.
This is mindful parenting ~ noticing, accepting, responding, breathing, misstepping, adjusting, and starting anew. Every moment, every day.
Courtesy of Left Brain Buddah
They have a Mindful Monday email that will be sent directly to your mailbox.
This is Mindful Parenting
I am taking my kids to the park in the morning. As we walk on the path we’ve taken many times to get to the playground, I ask my children to stop any time they see something pretty.
Our normal 5-minute walk turns into a beauty-full 25-minute journey.
We see trees that had been cut down from a storm a few weeks ago, and count the rings.
We find lovely heart-shaped “weeds” along the path.
We see tiny flowers ~ yellow, purple, white ~ that we probably would have rushed past in a hurry to get to our destination.
We make our nature walk part of the destination.
I love discovering what they find beautiful ~ dandelions, cottonwood.
My daughter finds a tree stump that looks like a star.
A walk to the park can be a mindfulness practice. Mindful parenting isn't complicated.
We arrive at the park ~ they play, laugh, fight, run, and whine when we have to leave.
We start on the path toward home. “I’m the leader!” shouts my son.
“NO! You were the leader on the way here. Now I’M the leader!” yells my daughter.
Running, shoving, pushing, trying to get ahead of the other... I see a skinned-kneed, bloody disaster approaching.
“STOP!” I yell. “KNOCK IT OFF!” I yell, more loudly this time.
While half-running to catch up with them, I breathe. I take my mindful pause.
“You were the leader last time,” I tell my son. “How about your sister leads until two more turns in the path, and then you can both lead together?”
Pouting, my son eventually accepts the mommy-mediated compromise.
And soon, big sister is leading him through “jungles and vines” along the path to home.
I had yelled, and then I found my skillful response. This is mindful parenting.
My daughter stops in the path to admire a pile of cottonwood and forest debris that, to me, looks like junk. “Mom, it’s beautiful. It looks like it’s glowing! It looks like fairy dust!”
I look at it again. It is pretty.
My daughter kicks at it, sending a plume of cottonwood into the air. “Mom! It's magic!”
When the time comes to assume joint leadership, my children walk hand-in-hand.
We arrive home. It is a gorgeous day, so I give my kids a blanket to set up for a picnic, while I go inside to prepare lunch. I barely have time to spread the jelly when I hear the screaming and crying.
I rush outside.
“He's messing up the blanket!!”
“She punched me!!”
“Did you punch him?” I ask.
“No ... Well, I did shove him a little,” my daughter confesses.
Her brother is still crying.
“Both of you, in the house!"
Now they are both wailing. My son is shouting, “I didn’t do nothing! I didn’t do nothing!”
My daughter wails, “I want a picnic! I want a picnic!”
All of this screaming is taking place in our front yard, and I imagine all the neighbors staring out their windows, asking, “Isn't that the lady who has that blog about mindfulness? Clearly it’s a load of crap!”
I breathe. I try to remain calm. “We will have our picnic," I tell my screeching little ones. "But how about you come in and calm down first.”
The crying subsides, and we go inside. I talk to my daughter about not shoving her brother, and what she can do when he bothers her. I talk to my son about how much it upsets his sister when he messes up the picnic she is preparing.
They sit quietly for a few minutes, I make lunch, they apologize, and we go outside for our picnic.
This is mindful parenting.
Our picnic is delightful. When a cool breeze comes up, my daughter remarks, “That’s Mother Nature bringing us air.”
My son lays on his back to watch the sky and we talk about all the colors in the clouds.
This is mindfulness.
This is our morning~ beauty, laughter, sweetness, play, fights, screams, pushes, apologies, tears, and a picnic.
This is mindful parenting ~ noticing, accepting, responding, breathing, misstepping, adjusting, and starting anew. Every moment, every day.
Courtesy of Left Brain Buddah
They have a Mindful Monday email that will be sent directly to your mailbox.