Right Mindfulness Itself is Buddha (EP-42)
To practice mindfulness in us is to cultivate the Buddha within.
Right mindfulness is not closing your eyes and focusing on your breath. No.
Right mindfulness is to sustain your attention throughout the day. Accepting everything without any judgment or reaction.
Right mindfulness is like a mother. She loves her child no matter what. In a similar vein, we need to be equally attentive to our every feeling.
The Sanskrit word for mindfulness is Smriti. It means “to remember”. So, mindfulness means to remember to come back to the present moment.
In Chinese calligraphy, the word mindfulness is expressed by two characters: The top character (a shelter) represents the word now; below that is the character for heart. The literal translation means bringing the heart into the present.
Mindfulness to me
I am mindful when I am completely, fully, and wholly involved and attentive in the present moment. I could be doing anything.
Let’s take the example of eating. You are eating your dinner. But inside your head, you are regretting the harsh words you said to your mother a few hours ago.
This means you are not fully present at the dining table.
Eating with mindfulness would mean just eating with your eyes closed and giving full attention to how every morsel of your meal is felt inside your mouth and through the throat to your stomach.
Listening mindfully would mean listening to every beat of the song preferably with eyes closed. You are so engrossed in listening that thoughts are coming and going and you don’t even notice them.
So, when I am mindful of the coffee brewing and its aroma wafting through the air I not only acknowledge the aroma but also the instant inclination inside my mind in favor of the aroma.
That is to say that the mind generated a liking for the sensation (smell in this case) and termed it as pleasant.
Right mindfulness tells me that I need to smell the coffee aroma without any judgment - liking or disliking. But it doesn’t happen that way, right? Liking or disliking gets generated almost instantaneously.
What can we do, then?
Just be mindful of the liking or disliking.
The best thing about mindfulness
What I love about mindfulness is that we can be mindful at any time of the day. I need not be sitting cross-legged on the Yoga mat to practice mindfulness.
I can be eating and be mindful.
I can be doing the dishes and be mindful.
I can be stuck in a traffic jam and be mindful of how it (irritating) feels.
I can be walking through the woods and be mindful of the sights and sounds around me.
I can be walking barefoot on the lawn and feel the grass underneath my feet and how it produces a tingling sensation.
Overcoming bad habits through mindfulness
We want to overcome a habit, let’s say smoking. So, when you smoke you inhale and exhale, right?
Now, during inhalation be completely focused on the inhalation of the nicotine. The way it feels. But don’t judge or react.
During exhalation just focus on the exhale. And feel it.
Gradually, as your mindfulness energy becomes more powerful than the habit energy you will notice a transformation in you.
One day you will start to hate smoking. And that’s the day when you will quit.
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Conclusion
Mindfulness is the energy that brings the eyes of a Buddha into our hands.
When we practice mindfulness, we generate the awareness of the Buddha within us and around us, and this is what can save our world.
A Buddha is someone mindful all day long. We are only part-time Buddhas. But with the practice of right mindfulness, we can inch closer to full-time Buddhahood.
With the right mindfulness, we can change the world and bring happiness to many people.
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