Setting an intention to meditate daily is an admirable endeavour, not to mention incredibly rewarding when achieved. However, building the 'muscle' of focus, presence and peacefulness can be practised throughout your day.
“When a thought subsides, you experience a discontinuity in the mental stream —a gap of “no-mind.” At first, the gaps will be short, a few seconds perhaps, but gradually they will become longer. When these gaps occur, you feel a certain stillness and peace inside you. This is the beginning of your natural state of felt oneness with Being, which is usually obscured by the mind. . . With practice, the sense of stillness and peace will deepen. In fact, there is no end to its depth. You will also feel a subtle emanation of joy arising from deep within: the joy of Being.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
At first look, you may well believe your day is crammed full of reasons why you can’t meditate.There’s the morning rush to get out of the door on time, your commute, your busy day, your commute, your need for some sort of sustenance at some point and an increasingly long list of domestic and life admin to fit in along the way.
Now some of these may feel like arguably good excuses for not sitting down for a morning meditation practice. However, on closer inspection you may well discover your day actually offers a multitude of opportunities for creating a more mindful state.
What is a ‘mindful state’ and why would I want to create one?
‘Mindfulness’ may seem like a slightly gimmicky word du jour these days but the essence of mindfulness is really learning to live life in a joyful state of appreciation. Its name however is really the antithesis of what it actually is. Rather than a state of intense cognitive analysis of what you are doing it is a state of no-mind. It is the experience of applying an intense (yet relaxed) focus to the moment that you are in without the mind interpreting, analysing or judging it.
And why might that be an enjoyable thing to do? Because it takes you off autopilot. Rather than experiencing life through a veiled lense of your conditioned beliefs, perspectives and your analytical mind, you partake in life directly.
You experience the experience, if you will.
This altered state of being brings everything into a new sort of technicolour. Your senses perceive things more richly and vividly and life feels more ‘alive’ than ever before. You notice that when you shed the constraints of your analytical mind not only do the problems of your past or anxieties about the future subside, but that there is a seamless shift into a feeling of unshakeable, subtle joy.
Mindfulness versus Mindlessness
Let me give you an example.
Say that in the mornings I like to start my day with a cup of tea. One way to carry out this daily ritual would be to glide into the kitchen on autopilot, thinking ahead to plan my tasks and activities for the day. Before I know it I am sitting at my kitchen table with a luke-walm half drunk cup of tea. I don’t particularly remember drinking the first half of the cup because although I was technically drinking it, my focus lay elsewhere - planning what to have for lunch or what I was going to wear today. After a brief moment of noticing that I’m halfway through my tea, my mind is off again - wondering where I put my laptop charger and whether I remembered to put the bins out last night.
The tea has been consumed. But that’s about all that can be said for it. The scattered, unintentional nature of my thoughts will leave me either generally lost in my head (on a good day) or with a feeling of general unease and mild panic at the amount I have to do (on a bad day).
Now say that I attempt this activity again the next day but I decide that I will concentrate my full attention on what I am doing as I do it. I notice myself placing the teabag in the cup, I watch the movement of the hot water and listen to the sound of it as it fills the cup. I watch the steam rise from the surface and feel the warmth of the cup as I pick it up. I revel in the flavour of the first sip and notice the warm trail it leaves through my throat and chest on its way down to my tummy. My senses slightly heightened now, I might feel the rise and fall of the breath weaving in and out of my lungs. Feel the texture and warmth of my clothes against my skin.
The activity has not changed but my experience has been both amplified and simplified at the same time. With my full attention focussed on the process of making and drinking my tea, I have been immersed in the activity of living, rather than analysing it through critical thought processes. With my conscious focus being on one singular activity my mind is prevented from speeding off into the ether. The main appeal here is that it always (always) leaves me feeling calmer, more refreshed, more content and happy afterwards.
Yes in some ways this may be viewed as a less productive use of my time but I know for a fact that the thinking, planning and analysing I do after a mindful practice like this will be about ten times more effective, creative and inspired than it would have been beforehand. It’s very much as if I have given my mind a good deep-clean and therefore it is able to function more effectively.
How could daily mindfulness help me to experience a more effective meditation practice?
Many people find that seated meditation can be a frustrating task in the beginning. One reason for this is because emptying the mind can feel very challenging at first. It is a skill which, more often than not, takes practice. Otherwise it’s a little bit like trying to apply the brakes on a fast moving car but the pedal seems to be missing.
That’s where mindful activities come in. The more you practice being fully present within the task or event at hand, the more often the mind is gently quieted. This can be a particularly beneficial gateway into meditation if you have a very active mind. Coaching your mind to focus intently on simple tasks starts to flex those meditative muscles.
With regular practice you will notice that your ability to clear your mind becomes less allusive and much more enjoyable.
Creating mindful 'gaps' in your day
Now, even the opportunity to peacefully sit and drink your morning tea might feel like an unattainable dream to many people. If relentlessly busy schedules, kids, pets, family (etc; etc; etc) mean that moments of quiet or solitude are rare then the same practice can be applied to most daily activities.
Simply take a moment to use all your senses to fully (fully fully fully) engage with the moment that you are in. Notice the shapes, colours and light of your environment, listen to the loudest and softest sounds and everything in between that you can hear. Notice the textures of your immediate environment: the smoothness of your desk and the cushioning of your office chair counts! Notice the subtle and unique aromas of wherever you are, and the various flavours of any food or drink you taste.
Notice that when you do this not only does your mind slow down but your feeling of aliveness is amplified.
In conclusion
So, in conclusion; if practising a mindful state during your daily activities has the ability to weave a feeling of both peace and vibrancy throughout your day AND is beneficial to building a deeper meditation practice (the benefits of which are countless - a few of which are mentioned here) then maybe all this buzz around ‘mindfulness’ isn’t just a gimmick to sell us scented candles and self help books after all ;)
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