The Great Now

For those who are trying to get into mindfulness, I think a good way to start is by finding a good definition of mindfulness and understanding it. I want to help with that, and this is probably something I should do sooner rather than later. I can write all day about the benefits of "mindfulness," but without clearly explaining what I mean when I use that word, readers who are new to mindfulness may end up frustrated.  In his book Wherever You Go, There You Are , Jon Kabat-Zinn says that "Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgementally." I think this is a great definition. In order to understand this definition, we have to understand the following three things.  1. What it means to pay attention on purpose 2. What it means to pay attention in the present moment 3. What it means to pay attention nonjudgementally.  In this post, I'll focus on explaining what it means to pay attention on purpose.  To p

Back when I was working through IIH, there were some weekends when I wasn't busy. I didn't have to work during those weekends, and I didn't have any errands to run. During those weekends, I could spend hours each day practicing and therefore advance a lot. However, there were also weekends when I was very busy. Maybe I had to work, or maybe I had a lot of errands. Regardless, I couldn't spend a lot of time in my room practicing the exercises of IIH. When I couldn't practice nearly as much as I wanted to, I felt my progress was slow. When I felt my progress was slow, I'd lose hope and become pessimistic. This would make me not want to bother trying at all. Sometimes, I'd even fall into despair. Since despair is an unpleasant feeling, I'd try to escape from my despair, perhaps by allowing myself to become immersed in television or the pleasure of eating junk food. Of course that would make everything worse. Reflecting back on this, I learned t

Thich Nhat Hanh sometimes advises using an affirmation to help you remain mindful. For example, if you are inhaling, you can say to yourself "Breathing in, I know I am breathing in." If you are exhaling, you can say to yourself "Breathing out, I know I am breathing out." If you are washing dishes, you can say to yourself "Washing dishes, I know I am washing dishes." If you are walking, you can say to yourself "Walking, I know I am walking." You get the idea. Sometimes, we are mindless, which means our bodies are functioning on autopilot and we don't know what our bodies are doing because our thoughts have carried us off to la-la land. But if we are fully present, then we know what we are doing, whether it is breathing, washing dishes, or walking.  I remember that I'd often make use of affirmations like this when I was brushing my teeth before going to bed. These days, it is always easy for me to remain mindful. But back then, it was diffi

As the title of this post says, mindfulness is simultaneously simple and complicated. When I say that mindfulness is complicated, what I mean is that there is a lot to the subject in terms of practice, theory, and philosophy. Whole books can be written about the practice of mindfulness, and whole books can be written about the theoretical and philosophical aspects of mindfulness too. When I say that books can be written about these various aspects of mindfulness, I don't mean short pamphlet-sized books. I still remember when I first downloaded the eBook version of Jon Kabat-Zinn's Full Catastrophe Living , which is a very famous book on mindfulness. I was amazed by how many pages it had. I've never owned a physical copy of that book so I don't know how many pages the physical version has, but the eBook version I bought had over 4,000 pages. Wow! Most eBooks I read have between 1,000 and 2,000 pages. But even a 4,000 page eBook isn't enough to teach everything there