The Mindfulness Game

Nowadays, much is made of "mindfulness" in the literature on meditation. Mindfulness is usually described as the practice of giving careful attention to whatever is happening now, whether the object of that mindfulness is the mind, the body, or the objects of the external world. Especially when referring to time spent off the meditation cushion, teachers will say, "Mindfulness in all of your day-to-day activities is the key to a spiritual growth" or, more simply, "Mindfulness is all."

In my experience, it is fine to remind yourself to be mindful in all the activities of your day-to-day life (it's only common sense to be fully present when, for instance, you're driving a car). But real mindfulness, inspired mindfulness, comes gradually, after years of sitting meditation. It's like building a house. First you lay the foundation. Then you build the walls. Finally you put on the roof. You can't put the roof up before you have walls, and you can't put the walls up before you have a foundation.

It's pointless trying to practice what so many spiritual authors blithely refer to as "mindfulness in everyday life" before you've discovered what mindfulness really is.

In the same way, it's pointless trying to practice what so many spiritual authors blithely refer to as "mindfulness in everyday life" before you've discovered what mindfulness really is. If, in your day-to-day life, you remind yourself to "be mindful," as if you could accomplish that in an instant, as a meditative act of will, then you are only playing an elaborate game with yourself. It is much better just to be natural and meditate a lot. Then, in time, real mindfulness will come, in the way it has always come to meditators--breath by breath by breath.

Years ago, when I was living in a Zen Buddhist monastery, I saw an example of mindfulness that has stayed with me ever since. That day, the monastery caught on fire. It turned out that somebody was burning trash in the cook stove, and a piece of flaming paper floated out of the chimney onto the wood-shingled roof, which was very dry because of a drought.

As luck would have it, when the fire started, all the able-bodied men and women in the monastery were in the main building taking a yoga class taught by the head monk, so we were able to put the fire out right away. Later, when the volunteer fire department showed up (they were 15 miles away), they told us that if we had lost just three minutes more in responding to the fire the entire monastery would have been lost.

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