Deepening Your Mindfulness Practice: Attending to the Moment
Improving the quality of your life can take many forms.
When we think about life quality, we often think about things like having enough time to spend with our friends and family, keeping our anxiety levels low, maintaining good physical and mental health and generally enjoying the experience of living.
Some of the ways you can improve the quality of your life take time, such as developing new skills, expanding your knowledge in specific areas and increasing your level of physical fitness, but there are things that you can do right now and which will not cost you a thing, to immediately improve your life experience.
You're probably familiar with the term mindfulness, which is used to describe the state of enhanced presence and awareness to one's external and internal experience.
Teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh and Eckhart Tolle have written eloquently on this subject and more people are studying mindfulness as a way to improve the quality of their lives.
This article focuses on one of the many aspects of a mindfulness practice, attending to the moment.
If you're not familiar with the concept of mindfulness, I invite you to do a simple online search, reading some articles so you may familiarize yourself with the basics.
Like any practice, there are many approaches to mindfulness.
Some may include more "classical" meditation rituals, such as sitting in a specific way and/or yogic breathing techniques, also known as pranayama.
What's most important is not how you practice mindfulness, but that you practice mindfulness.
There is no right or wrong way to practice.
There is only practicing and not practicing.
Attending to the Moment When we attend to something, we place our focus and interest on it.
We become fascinated by something, not lost in it, but brought into his state of wonderment.
As we experience life, we often encounter what seem to be repetitive situations.
We awake in the same bed, open our eyes to the same view, go through similar rituals of preparation in the morning and in the evening and we may see many of the same people and do many of the same tasks day after day.
Because all of these events appear to be similar, there is a tendency to place our attention outside of the experience as our minds are constantly seeking "new" and "different" experiences.
Because we think that we have "Been there and done that," we often find ourselves in a state that many would describe as daydreaming.
As we eat breakfast, we are thinking about past events or planning for the future.
As we travel to work, our minds are often occupied with visions of upcoming tasks and possible scenarios.
The result is that we often are not fully present in much of what we do.
Our minds are mostly occupied by our memories of the past and our visions of the future.
We are literally allowing life to pass us by.
The way to correct this is to increase your depth of attention to each moment.
On a very basic level, you can start by beginning to notice details about an experience.
Using all of your available senses, allow the abundance of information to flow into your awareness while you maintain a state of deep wonderment.
The reality is that you have never experienced this moment before and you will never experience it again, so it's important that you do not miss it! Look, listen, feel, smell, taste - embody the experience.
How amazing is to be alive! The entire world is a dynamic and beautiful work of art that is waiting for you to pause long enough to fully appreciate it.
Traveling farther along the path towards enlightenment, we come to acknowledge ourselves and all others as part of this beautiful creating we call the universe.
You have been given an extremely rare opportunity to be a witness to the unfolding of the manifested world and the only thing you really have to do to greatly improve your life experience is to notice this.
The next time you are engaged in what you would normally consider to be a repetitive or mundane activity, remind yourself that the experience is entirely new and unique-because it is.
Experience the textures and sensations that enter through all your senses.
Look, listen and feel, but also be amazed and appreciative that you can look, listen and feel.
Experience yourself experiencing the world.
What is happening in your body? What thoughts and feelings are prompted from moment to moment? Rather than allowing the river of thoughts to carry you away, simply stand at this river's edge and notice that it is flowing.
One of the biggest obstacles you will face with regard to maintaining a state of presence and attending to the details in every moment is the tendency to allow yourself to be swept away by your own thoughts.
Know that your mind is a wonderful tool that produces thousands of thoughts each day and is always looking for problems to solve.
This is the role of your mind, and something I will discuss in greater detail in future articles.
For now, simply accept that you will have many different thoughts presented to you each moment of your life, like a flowing river through a valley.
It will help you to remember that there is more to your inner landscape than only this river! The other thing you will do to deny yourself your present experience is to act on the desire to label things.
Naming, categorizing and labeling things and events that occur in your life robs you of unique and potentially wondrous experiences.
You don't actually experience what occurs from moment to moment because your mind has already defined the experience and placed it into the BTDT (Been there.
Done that) category.
Rather than taking the time to fully experience life as it is, you allow your mind to define the moment for you by superimposing preconceptions, assumptions and even your own biases over what is actually a unique and once-in-a-lifetime experience.
This relates to the Buddhist concept of "beginner's mind.
" Resist naming, labeling and engaging in any mental activity that appears to define an experience before you actually have it.
Even if you think you "know" what something is, approach each moment without judgment or expectations.
Your mind will likely wish to move ahead, searching for novelty, but the novel and unique exists in every moment when you allow yourself the pleasure of attending to it.
Attending to the moment is something you can do right now, even as you read this.
If you would like to learn more about this topic, see an article on my personal website called "Seeing as New.
" In future articles, I will discuss more aspects of mindfulness as well as techniques included in the Thoughtfulness Practice.
When we think about life quality, we often think about things like having enough time to spend with our friends and family, keeping our anxiety levels low, maintaining good physical and mental health and generally enjoying the experience of living.
Some of the ways you can improve the quality of your life take time, such as developing new skills, expanding your knowledge in specific areas and increasing your level of physical fitness, but there are things that you can do right now and which will not cost you a thing, to immediately improve your life experience.
You're probably familiar with the term mindfulness, which is used to describe the state of enhanced presence and awareness to one's external and internal experience.
Teachers such as Thich Nhat Hanh and Eckhart Tolle have written eloquently on this subject and more people are studying mindfulness as a way to improve the quality of their lives.
This article focuses on one of the many aspects of a mindfulness practice, attending to the moment.
If you're not familiar with the concept of mindfulness, I invite you to do a simple online search, reading some articles so you may familiarize yourself with the basics.
Like any practice, there are many approaches to mindfulness.
Some may include more "classical" meditation rituals, such as sitting in a specific way and/or yogic breathing techniques, also known as pranayama.
What's most important is not how you practice mindfulness, but that you practice mindfulness.
There is no right or wrong way to practice.
There is only practicing and not practicing.
Attending to the Moment When we attend to something, we place our focus and interest on it.
We become fascinated by something, not lost in it, but brought into his state of wonderment.
As we experience life, we often encounter what seem to be repetitive situations.
We awake in the same bed, open our eyes to the same view, go through similar rituals of preparation in the morning and in the evening and we may see many of the same people and do many of the same tasks day after day.
Because all of these events appear to be similar, there is a tendency to place our attention outside of the experience as our minds are constantly seeking "new" and "different" experiences.
Because we think that we have "Been there and done that," we often find ourselves in a state that many would describe as daydreaming.
As we eat breakfast, we are thinking about past events or planning for the future.
As we travel to work, our minds are often occupied with visions of upcoming tasks and possible scenarios.
The result is that we often are not fully present in much of what we do.
Our minds are mostly occupied by our memories of the past and our visions of the future.
We are literally allowing life to pass us by.
The way to correct this is to increase your depth of attention to each moment.
On a very basic level, you can start by beginning to notice details about an experience.
Using all of your available senses, allow the abundance of information to flow into your awareness while you maintain a state of deep wonderment.
The reality is that you have never experienced this moment before and you will never experience it again, so it's important that you do not miss it! Look, listen, feel, smell, taste - embody the experience.
How amazing is to be alive! The entire world is a dynamic and beautiful work of art that is waiting for you to pause long enough to fully appreciate it.
Traveling farther along the path towards enlightenment, we come to acknowledge ourselves and all others as part of this beautiful creating we call the universe.
You have been given an extremely rare opportunity to be a witness to the unfolding of the manifested world and the only thing you really have to do to greatly improve your life experience is to notice this.
The next time you are engaged in what you would normally consider to be a repetitive or mundane activity, remind yourself that the experience is entirely new and unique-because it is.
Experience the textures and sensations that enter through all your senses.
Look, listen and feel, but also be amazed and appreciative that you can look, listen and feel.
Experience yourself experiencing the world.
What is happening in your body? What thoughts and feelings are prompted from moment to moment? Rather than allowing the river of thoughts to carry you away, simply stand at this river's edge and notice that it is flowing.
One of the biggest obstacles you will face with regard to maintaining a state of presence and attending to the details in every moment is the tendency to allow yourself to be swept away by your own thoughts.
Know that your mind is a wonderful tool that produces thousands of thoughts each day and is always looking for problems to solve.
This is the role of your mind, and something I will discuss in greater detail in future articles.
For now, simply accept that you will have many different thoughts presented to you each moment of your life, like a flowing river through a valley.
It will help you to remember that there is more to your inner landscape than only this river! The other thing you will do to deny yourself your present experience is to act on the desire to label things.
Naming, categorizing and labeling things and events that occur in your life robs you of unique and potentially wondrous experiences.
You don't actually experience what occurs from moment to moment because your mind has already defined the experience and placed it into the BTDT (Been there.
Done that) category.
Rather than taking the time to fully experience life as it is, you allow your mind to define the moment for you by superimposing preconceptions, assumptions and even your own biases over what is actually a unique and once-in-a-lifetime experience.
This relates to the Buddhist concept of "beginner's mind.
" Resist naming, labeling and engaging in any mental activity that appears to define an experience before you actually have it.
Even if you think you "know" what something is, approach each moment without judgment or expectations.
Your mind will likely wish to move ahead, searching for novelty, but the novel and unique exists in every moment when you allow yourself the pleasure of attending to it.
Attending to the moment is something you can do right now, even as you read this.
If you would like to learn more about this topic, see an article on my personal website called "Seeing as New.
" In future articles, I will discuss more aspects of mindfulness as well as techniques included in the Thoughtfulness Practice.
Source...