What is mindfulness?

Multitasking has become a way of life in today’s fast-paced, profit-driven corporate world. There is an assumption that efficiency and productivity are increased by having a few workers do the work of the many. Our performance in the workplace is tied to our job security, our material well being, and ultimately our sense of self-worth.

While having a sandwich on lunch break, we may find ourselves making a business call or planning next week’s presentation and forget altogether that we are eating. As if our hectic schedules are not enough, we must make time for our families, friends, and religious and civic obligations. In the West (and perhaps the industrialized East), the fast-paced, high-pressure life that revolves around material accumulation is one made necessary by economic and technological progress. Lagging behind is our capacity to make sense of our chaotic lifestyles and to find meaning in the hustle and bustle of everyday living. This kind of life may give us financial security and good social standing but yet leave us in a spiritual vacuum.

Much of our lives are spent in a sort of waking dream in which we are half-awake and half-asleep. It is a dream because we are seldom fully aware of who we are or why we do the things we do. While reality itself unfolds in a continuous and wholesome manner, our perception of it is often distorted and fragmentary. We simply respond to the demands and expectations of everyday life by force of habit, without really participating in the creation of our own reality. Often we would react to the people and circumstances we encounter only to later regret our actions. Although our lives may at times seem like an extended dream, the struggles that we face are very real.

We may try to escape our current predicament by seeking a new life in a different place, a different environment– perhaps one in a far-away land. We may think that by fleeing from the conditions and circumstances that contribute to our troubles, we would finally find a more suitable place where we could live happily ever after.

However, such a path is motivated by the romantic but misguided view that happiness is “out there” for us to find. It is a path that eventually will lead us back to where we began. As the Zen saying goes, “Wherever you go, there you are.” Wherever we go, we must take the baggage that is our own bodies with us. Sooner or later, we will have to face our own bodies, and all the sufferings that having a body (and mind) entails. We will then realize that the causes of our unhappiness stem not so much from the outside world as they are from deep within ourselves.

To face our own bodies is to face reality. Our bodies, which include our minds, can be a source of constant dissatisfaction or one of infinite joy and limitless possibilities. Many of our persistent struggles stem from not understanding or not accepting who we are. The goal of self-realization cannot be reached by blind faith to some higher power or by pursuit of intellectual knowledge. Rather, it is an intensely personal process that requires us to look deeply within ourselves, into the very core of our being.

Meditation is a vehicle for such inward journey. Contrary to popular misconceptions, meditation is not about conjuring spirits, acquiring supernatural powers, or “spacing out” in La-La-Land. Meditation is very much about engaging reality in the truest and deepest sense of the word. It is about seeing things as they really are, accepting our own limitations and the limitations of others, acknowledging the impermanence and uncertainty of life, and embracing changes as they arise. By awakening to reality as it really is, we come to terms with the circumstances in which we find ourselves, and we become more comfortable in our own bodies, more comfortable with our surroundings, and more comfortable with the uncertainties of everyday living.

Meditation is not limited to sitting in one place doing nothing. One can meditate by walking mindfully, driving mindfully, bathing mindfully, washing dishes mindfully, and so on.

Mindfulness is the art of living in the present moment. It is the practice of engaging reality on a moment-to-moment basis. While fully engaged in whatever we are presently doing, we attune our minds to what is happening right here right now. We watch our thoughts and emotions come and go, but we do not cling to them. Our primary focus is to maintain a calm, attentive, nonjudgmental state of heightened awareness.

Mindfulness offers a way to perceive reality in a more direct, intimate manner. Through mindfulness, our life experiences become richer and fuller. We learn to see more clearly, listen more attentively, taste more acutely, smell more discerningly, and touch more fully. It is in this exquisite state of increased receptivity that our True Essence blossoms. Every moment in life becomes immensely sacred, and ordinary daily activities take on a spiritual dimension.

We may think that we are already mindful of our life experiences, but this is just another trick fabricated by our mind to keep us in a semi-dream state. Our minds have an uncanny ability to weave fleeting sensations, memories, thoughts, emotions into a coherent story that reinforces our false sense of a permanent, unchanging ego. We cling to our ego at all costs, even at the expense of seeing things as they really are.

Mindfulness is the art of transcending the mind with the mind. By this we mean freeing the mind from its habitual attachment to thoughts, feelings, and other mental phenomena. Through mindfulness we wake up to the here and now, to reality as it is unfolding, and we gradually awaken from the dream (or nightmare) in which we have lived most of our lives. The calm, expanded awareness that builds up over time illuminates every aspect of our conscious experience and awakens us to our True Essence.