“It is impossible to practice coming into the present moment in this noisy environment. I am trying to be focused and aware, but this person over here is distracting me. I sit on my meditation cushion for 30 minutes every day; therefore, I am mindful.”
I am not sure when it hit me that my long-held and ineffectual mindfulness paradigm needed shifting. Yet continuing to embrace my hard-to-shad dogma was not bringing me into anything remotely resembling increased awareness.
Doggedly holding onto errant notions like someone else is responsible for my lack of being present. Simply paying attention in environments that are quiet or devoid of distraction seems naïve now that my “floating-above-the-messiness-of-living” bubble has burst.
Don’t think I did not get thoroughly soaked in slippery, soapy bubble goo when I careened into the paradoxical realization that 30 minutes of isolated daily sitting did not serve as a viable measure of my ability to practice mindfulness to any significant degree at any other time. (There have been many, myself included, who made no more progress toward elevated consciousness due to sitting than those who opted out.)
Choosing to consciously attend to whatever is happening in the here-and-now moments of daily life, dropping the habitual “laced-with-drama” labelling of those moments as necessarily good or bad is an art that requires more than bubble-building seclusion.
Granted, it can be quite challenging for most of us to be mindful in an environment where there is no lack of overstimulation and busyness.
Therefore, sitting quietly can prove helpful, and I highly recommend it.
It is no small task to set aside time each day to be still and watch what comes up without attaching too much significance to it. But, lest we place more value on formal sitting practice than on the moment-to-moment practice of being non-judgmentally aware in mundane life, I dare say that sitting on a meditation cushion stays just that… sitting on a meditation cushion.
Taking the show on the road, plunking it smack down in the middle of the “bubble-bursting-pins-andneedles” chaos of daily life, would probably do more for living with clarity, compassion and skill (what mindfulness intends to bring) than the popularly touted and followed sloka, “Don’t just do something, sit there”.
Now, I realize some folk get jazzed up with me for what will be perceived as my lack of insight. Maybe she meditates the wrong way, or she hasn’t spent enough time on her cushion, or maybe she wants to have an excuse not to sit and so forth.
Fair enough. But, dag nab it, if sitting meditation practice does not facilitate mindfulness during the rest of our multi-tasking required lives, then does it not, at least for some, remain an empty practice that merely serves as a “time-taker-upper”? Or, at its worst, an alluring and subtle thief- you sit and meditate; therefore, you are special, reinforcing self-righteousness of sorts that steals the living practicality right out of the practice?
If we cannot be mindful while driving and listening to
music, checking out at the supermarket, engaging with
family, friends and colleagues.
If we cannot be aware while breathing and walking,
attending to other sounds and sensations, moving
through the “action-packed-over-the-top” fulness of space.
If our awareness cannot hold it all (because that is what
an engaged “off-the-cushion-big-fat-fully-lived” life entails);
if we cannot go to church on Sunday and be the church
for the other six days of the week.
Then, perhaps, we need to rethink
our practice.
I, for one have decidedly embraced the “Don’t just sit there, burst bubbles” motto.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am still committed to sitting on my meditation cushion almost daily. And, I would be irrevocably remiss if I left the reader with the notion that I don’t think it is a good idea to do so. The research clearly indicates that taking time each day to come into some moments of quiet mindfulness can quite dramatically and change your brain, which, in effect, changes the way you think, feel and act. And better yet, these changes are positive- leading to stress hardiness, emotional resilience, more compassion and joy.
But the conundrum remains.
The Vietnamese Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh communicated, “The miracle is not walking on water, it is walking on earth.” And his message of being mindful while doing that, walking on the earth, is indicative of the imperative that we must take the practice into all of our earthly endeavours.
Is the life of the practice.
It would seem that authentic, transformative practice requires that one become “covered-in-bubble-burstedstickiness” and take up the queer but noble notion of re-soling one’s feet with proverbial meditation cushions. That one walks mindfully wherever one’s feet may tread.
It is not a solitary sitting meditation, lack of noise or distraction, church attendance on Sunday, or any other isolated spiritual practice or person that is solely responsible for our ability to maintain being mindful whilst embedded in what Jon Kabat-Zinn terms “Full Catastrophe Living” (the good, the bad, and the ugly of life’s day-to-day experiences).
Not by a long shot. Powerful conduits of mindfulness practising in a bubble may be. Not today, not for me.
Now, where did I put those
meditation cushions for my
feet?
Jeri Senor
Jeri Senor has been studying, teaching and writing about consciousness through her yoga practice and personal evolution for over 45 years now (yikes) and continues to evolve as a student, teacher, writer with a daily formal and informal personal practice that defines how she shows up in her world each day.
- Jeri Senor
- Jeri Senor
