Mindfulness Is An Act Of Love

Today I'm gonna talk about this idea that without mindfulness we slowly die.

How can that be?

And you might be thinking,

Wow that's kind of extreme.

It's all dramatic.

It's deadly serious too,

This whole concept that without mindfulness we slowly die.

But let me just illustrate my point and I'll start by talking about this notion of right effort,

Which in Buddhist traditions is along the same path as one of the paths of the Noble Eightfold Path,

Which is right mindfulness.

So when we talk about right effort or right mindfulness or wise effort,

What does effort really look like?

What is effort really mean?

Most of the time we all equate effort with lots of hard work or ambition or struggle or trying to get somewhere or achieve something,

Right?

Hard work.

We think of effort as hard work.

But wise effort or right mindfulness is different from how we normally consider it.

It's really simply the effort not to be lost in our plans to try to get somewhere and instead to just be present to the way things are right here and right now.

And that is what is then referred to as right mindfulness.

Being mindfully aware of the way things are and allowing them to be that way.

That's what mindfulness actually looks like.

The Sanskrit term for mindfulness is samriti.

And samriti actually translated means to remember.

So mindfulness then really is remembering to come back to the present moment.

Not to be mistaken for having a mind full of chaos and activity and thought.

It's quite the opposite.

Quite the contrary.

Mindfulness.

So this is actually one of the most valuable aspects of the practice of meditation.

Because meditation isn't so much about training ourselves to notice those thoughts and then help return ourselves to a state of present moment awareness using a mantra or your breathing or some other vehicle.

While that is true,

That is definitely part of the practice of meditation.

Really the practice of meditation is about training ourselves to return but also be okay with the way things just as they are.

So clearly this is not an easy task.

Because as human beings we are conditioned to see something and almost immediately judge it or label it based on some kind of conditioned belief or experience perhaps that we've had in the past.

Or maybe at a minimum our internal dialogue gets created about what we're seeing.

But that effort or that kind of effort to be present with the way things are is actually an act of love.

And you might be thinking well how in the world is being mindful an act of love?

Well because being mindful actually invites us to show up to life with an open awareness,

With an open heart.

It really invites us to see what's true in our own bodies and in the world around us and with the people in our world.

It's about being present without the judgment or the need to label our experiences.

So becoming present with love is actually a gateway to freedom and liberation.

So wise effort really asks us to show up to all of the healing and the care and the loving attention for ourselves first so that we can then also be present for everything else around us.

Whether it's the sky or right now for me I'm staring beyond the camera to this gorgeous view of snow falling here in Sedona.

So I get to stop every now and then with what I'm doing to be just present with the beautiful snowflakes that are falling and how quiet it is outside.

Trust me I tried to videotape this with the camera turned around so you all could enjoy the snow with me but it just didn't work in terms of light.

But the idea of mindfulness is so that we can also be present to everything.

The snow,

The sky,

A flower,

Our children,

Our employer,

The heater.

Today for me it's the heater.

So mindfulness offers us a chance really to see each other just as deeply as well as nourish the object of what is our attention.

Wherever our attention is placed we're then providing a loving presence,

Right?

A loving awareness.

So if we aren't truly present then,

Right?

On the flip side then everything is just like some kind of a dream.

I don't know about you but sometimes I notice that I just kind of float through a day and I don't really notice or can I identify the moments in which I felt like an honest and present connection with someone that I interacted with or something that I was doing.

Sometimes I get so caught up in what I'm doing that it's just the doingness that takes over and I'm not really fully present.

So maybe you could ask yourself did you glide through your day and not really remember if you actually landed on any person or anywhere in particular?

Do you remember an encounter that you had today where someone you really heard what someone was saying or you really felt what someone was describing as an emotion or you really understood what they were trying to convey?

When was the last time that you really connected and were really completely present with your lover,

Your child?

Maybe you think you know your spouse or your child really well and you probably do,

Right?

But when you're in the car traveling to go to on some errand or something maybe you're both sitting there in the car just lost in thought and maybe as you're traveling there's not that much said between the two of you.

So it's almost as if you're both existing in two different universes,

Two different realities as you're driving to the same place and maybe without even knowing it you're taking each other for granted.

So Thich Nhat Hanh would say that without mindfulness towards each other each of us slowly dies.

But with attention that it's possible for us to discover all kinds of new and wonderful things about one another or maybe even we notice a joy in that other person we hadn't seen before or we hear some hidden aspirations or talents that they had that we never knew about.

So Thich Nhat Hanh has this really neat saying that I absolutely love,

With mindfulness your attention will water a wilting flower.

And that that saying was actually the impetus for this particular video.

So one of the ways to begin to nurture mindfulness is to tend to your body with love.

Like start asking your body what does my body need?

Thank your body for what it gives you every day.

Thank it for the cells that it turns over.

Thank it for allowing you to stand upright.

Healing awareness is what changes your body.

And if we start to pay attention with loving awareness we actually can start to listen and respond to what our bodies really need.

I think seldom do we really stop and feel those aches and pains in our body or feel that you know that sudden surge of anxiety or nervousness that sometimes erupts.

Maybe we're not even allowing ourselves to feel grief or sadness or some of our other emotions.

So as a practice maybe put your hand on the places of your body that most need your attention and healing.

Maybe you're feeling something emotional and so put your hand on your heart.

Maybe you have a stomachache or a headache so put your hand on that part of your body.

Allow the pain in your body to simply exist without resistance.

Just allow it.

Just notice it and let it be just as it is.

Without resistance.

Without trying to change it.

Without trying to hold on to it if you have a feeling of joy.

You know we never really notice ourselves.

So bring that loving awareness to your own body.

Notice its wrinkles.

Its extra pounds.

Use the practice as a way to begin recognizing that very body that you have and treasure it in all of the ways that it serves you.

And use the same practice with your heart.

Because our heart carries so many different feelings and emotions.

And while things have certainly changed over time with the introduction of yoga and meditation in some schools,

For the most part our educational system doesn't really teach us how to deal or tend to our own hearts.

So instead we're kind of just focused on the intellectual aspects of ourselves.

I don't know if you had a chance to listen to my last video but it really it talked about this idea that awakening and consciousness is not an intellectual endeavor.

While an intellectual endeavor is wonderful from a spiritual you know sense to read some of the amazing works that were written thousands of years ago and educate yourself on some of those things by all means is a fabulous idea but spiritual awakening and consciousness and enlightenment are actually not intellectual.

So one of today's most you know great spiritual leaders Jack Kornfield,

He ran Spirit Rock up in Northern California.

He told a story one time about an interview he had with his alma mater which I think was Dartmouth or what-have-you.

But they asked him how his college education had helped inform and inspire and direct his spiritual life in the path that he was currently on.

And his response was that his college education had only given him half of an education.

The intellectual half only.

So how do we go about handling that spiritual or emotional side of us?

Well if someone hurts you perhaps you become angry but maybe you've never really understood how to handle anger so perhaps you hang on to it for years and every time you think that situation that caused the anger or you think about that person who hurt you it kind of drives up that trauma or that incident almost as if it happened recently as opposed to however many years it might have happened.

No one really teaches us how to handle our emotional selves so here's a few practices I'd love for you to try.

When you have an emotion let's say anger just recognize and name it I'm angry just allow it to be there if we just see it and allow it I can promise you that that emotion in this case anger will literally last about 15 seconds and then it's going to change to something else maybe it'll change to regret or fear or sadness maybe it'll even turn into self pity or revenge but if we're present and we allow ourselves to hold all of the emotions longing,

Love,

Creativity,

Boredom,

Sadness,

Anger,

Self-pity whatever it is we may have a different experience of our emotions we might be able to bring loving-kindness to ourselves and our own emotional selves simply by noticing and allowing them.

I can't tell you how many people that I meet who maybe were raised in an environment that said oh what are you crying for don't cry about that that's silly or why are you so angry or you're so irrational or you're so this or you're so that so instead of shutting your emotions down instead of acting like you need to shove them down and pretend like they're not there practice naming the emotions this is what loneliness feels like this is what sadness feels like this is what anger feels like locate where it is where it resides in your body and then identify to where it resides in your heart and just allow it the practice isn't to change or fix the emotion it's rather just to bring attention to the emotion and love to the emotion and acceptance really also right practice becoming a field of love for others and you do that by practicing bringing loving-kindness to yourself and to all your feelings and not judging them and not holding on to them but rather holding them in loving-kindness loving awareness if you're happy and you're joyful bring laughter and joy if you're sad and grief-stricken bring tears and allow the release bring presence to all of it because who we are is love itself start to think about what it really means to be awake with love and be present with love because without presence without mindfulness without right effort wise effort we'll slowly die not just us but the people we interact with our relationships will slowly die engage with all the relationships in your life relationships need more than anything our loving attention it's what we all want right bring loving attention to all of their relationships even in the tough times even if you really need to answer that email right now and your child walks into the kitchen while you're about to put the phone down and be present and mindful to that child who needs your loving attention in that moment the fundamental energy that brings understanding to all of us is loving awareness learn how to bring this loving awareness to your own body and heart and mind and when we're looking or gazing with the eyes of love everything changes everything and when we can understand how to practice those we start to really understand how love actually does work and what mindfulness really is one little mantra that I love that might be helpful to you throughout the day is to just simply ask yourself the question what would love have me do what would love have me do