Meditation involves a principle of awareness that you can practice in every moment of your life.
While the time that we spend on the cushion most definitely has an effect on the quality of our emotional and mental life in the rest of the day, making an effort to practice mindfulness during so-called “ordinary” activities such as working, driving, doing housework, and spending time with our friends and families is a very powerful practice.
We often see these things as impediments to practice. In fact an interesting thing is that a lot of people fall into the habit of using the word “practice” as a shorthand for “meditation practice.” So they’ll say things like, “My practice is going very well. I’ve been sitting every day.” And this implies that the rest of our lives is “not practice.” But in fact, anything we do can be part of our practice, which I’d broadly define as the ongoing effort to cultivate mindfulness, compassion, and an awareness of things’ ungraspability.
So we can use eating as a practice. We can use driving as a practice. We can use showering, or shaving, or taking a leak as a practice.
No matter what we’re doing, we can always be more mindful when we’re doing it. No matter what we’re doing, we can always be kinder and more compassionate; even when we’re on our own, we can be kind with ourselves, or show an attitude of kindness and care in the way we handle objects. And we can always — always! — recognize when we’re hoping on in some way (to feelings, to anticipated outcomes, to thoughts) and learn to let go.
Living mindfully in this way is incredibly enriching. It helps prevent the arising of unpleasant states of mind such as stress and depression, and it also helps us to live with freedom, dignity, and with respect for ourselves and others.
Living with mindfulness brings us into the field ethics, of talking about how best we can live our lives. But it also is a way of living meditatively.
This section of the site will develop into an extensive guide to applying the principles of meditation to your daily activities.
We’ve started with a section on bringing Metta (lovingkindness) into your everyday life, and more information on mindfulness. Soon, we’ll add other tools to help you live with more awareness.
View Comments
I wanted to write a retort to Bodhipaksa's response for Andrea. You say that some mental states lead to suffering, and that mindfulness is about letting go of certain emotions and cultivating others, but I very much disagree, or perhaps feel that the wording is misleading. Suffering comes from not being mindful toward any mental state. Anger is not suffering, running from or clinging to it is, just as clinging to something that causes joy leads to suffering. Is mindfulness not a way of passionately and fully engaging all mental states that leads from dukha? Andrea, I say to you, feel out your anger and explore it, just resist the urge to become it, to make yourself its victim, rather experience it as a sensation, and as you sit with it, it will naturally resolve, this is the way of satipanna.
Hi Sam,
You say "anger is not suffering" but this is neither traditional nor does it fit with my experience. You say that it's running from or clinging to that is suffering, but anger is itself a form of running to or clinging to something we want or do not want to happen. It's certainly better to be mindful of anger than not to be mindful of it, but if we're mindful of our anger we'll see that there is suffering tangled up in our anger.
I also did not say that "mindfulness is about letting go of certain emotions and cultivating others." In fact I never mentioned the word mindfulness in what I wrote to Andrea.
Certainly, being mindful of and exploring our anger is one way to deal with it. But to say it's "the way" is narrow, and potentially dogmatic. The Buddha offered a full "tool-kit" with which we can deal with unskilful mental states (see this sutta, for example), and to suggest that only one of those tools is legitimate would be unfortunate -- even if to do so in certain vipassana circles is common these days.
Interesting picture in this article, but that's another topic for another day. In this thread of comments I do see that I am no longer "Buddhist". I used to teach mindfulness and insight meditation, but realized that people were clinging to them like hard core football fans who don't score touchdowns themselves, yet scream at the team on he field telling them how to do it.
Kathaleen: Your panic attacks may be either a chemical imbalance, or a form of PTSD. I lean towards PTSD only because you mentiones anxiety. That mention goes a long way towards it being stress/PTSD related. Some psychotherapists will recommend mindfulness meditation as a treatment option. I would recommend a more modern version, but this isn't the right place to discuss it.
Andrea, dropping mindfulness practice for a short time is better than frustration building until you stop practicing all together. Instead we can focus on non-practice related activities for a few days. Let the mind meander, then in a few days turn the focus towards the mind and it's mental processes. Explore some of the insight meditation practices. Insight meditation, when done properly and you actually gain insight, brings a natural mindfulness into your life. The whole of Buddhist derived practices revolve around "the middle way"...not to tight, not too loose. For some reason modern day practitioners tend to want to tighten the screws all the time.
Hello Bodhipaksa,
When one is practicing being mindful in daily life, should we allow distractions to get in the way of what we are currently doing (ex: getting work done or even watching a movie in a theater)? From what I have gathered mindfulness teaches to allow yourself to be with your emotion as it is happening, so what if strong thoughts or emotions come about when we are doing some task, should we try to focus on the event at hand or stop and be mindful of our emotions?
Hi, Maximus.
If a strong emotion comes up I think the emotion has to be addressed in some way. At least it has to be acknowledged.
In meditation, I take the tack that if something keeps demanding our attention, then we need to give it our full attention. The emotion becomes the object of our meditation practice. It may not always be appropriate in everyday situations to do that, but at least you can acknowledge what's going on and come back to it later.
Hello Bodhipaksa,
Thank you for reminding that all activities in our lives should be with mindfulness. I wished that in my elementary school they would have taught mindfulness meditation. I remember a report in the US where they used TM meditation in high school and it reduced violent urges and calmed down high school students.
Thanks,
Spencer
How do you answer those who say meditation is a valid and scientifically proven method but only for relaxation, and nothing more, that the spiritual side is overhyped mysticism?
I'm a little daunted by the claims that seeing this as anything more than relaxation is childish gullibility....I see it as more but wonder what you think.
I'd just ignore them, Ted. No matter what you do in life there are bound to be people with contrary opinions. Those opinions are worth taking on board if they are reasonable and supported with evidence, but claims that meditation is good only for relaxation cannot, by definition, be supported by evidence.
And I'm not sure what, in the "spiritual side," these people would be arguing against. The jhanas? Lots of us have been there. Enlightenment? Again, plenty of people have some experience of this. Now a skeptic can argue that people who claim they've experienced the jhanas or enlightenment are deluding themselves, but that would be a dogmatic stance, and not one we should take seriously.
Thank you so much. I appreciate and agree with your perspective given my own experience. I also have seen or felt a change in me for the good since I've been using the guided meditation on the development of loving kindness.
There's something here I'm excited about pursuing.
Dear Friend,
Is it okay if I try to be mindful/aware of myself--my body, my thoughts--as and when I am going about my daily things--walking, sitting, drinking my tea or just lying down on the bed, through much of the day? Or would this be obsessive and excessive?
Hi, Yoginder. This is exactly what we're meant to do. This would only be considered obsessive if there was anxiety, aversion, etc. involved -- for example if you were continually worrying about whether you were being mindful enough, or being angry with yourself for not being mindful enough. And if those attitudes do creep in, then this is just another thing to be mindful of; notice those thoughts and let them pass. It's also a good idea to bring as much metta/maitri (lovingkindness) into your day as you possibly can.