My own definition of mindfulness is very simple:
Mindfulness is the gentle effort to be continuously present with our experience.
But I like Jon Kabat-Zinn’s definition of mindfulness:
“Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way;
On purpose,
in the present moment, and
nonjudgmentally.”
Kabat-Zinn, if you haven’t heard of him, is a famous teacher of mindfulness meditation and the founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center.
First of all, mindfulness involves paying attention “on purpose”. Mindfulness involves a conscious direction of our awareness. We sometimes (me included) talk about “mindfulness” and “awareness” as if they were interchangeable terms, but that’s not a good habit to get into. I may be aware I’m irritable, but that wouldn’t mean I was being mindful of my irritability. In order to be mindful I have to be purposefully aware of myself, not just vaguely and habitually aware. Knowing that you are eating is not the same as eating mindfully.
Let’s take that example of eating and look at it a bit further. When we are purposefully aware of eating, we are consciously being aware of the process of eating. We’re deliberately noticing the sensations and our responses to those sensations. We’re noticing the mind wandering, and when it does wander we purposefully bring our attention back.
When we’re eating unmindfully we may in theory be aware of what we’re doing, but we’re probably thinking about a hundred and one other things at the same time, and we may also be watching TV, talking, or reading — or even all three! So a very small part of our awareness is absorbed with eating, and we may be only barely aware of the physical sensations and even less aware of our thoughts and emotions.
Because we’re only dimly aware of our thoughts, they wander in an unrestricted way. There’s no conscious attempt to bring our attention back to our eating. There’s no purposefulness.
This purposefulness is a very important part of mindfulness. Having the purpose of staying with our experience, whether that’s the breath, or a particular emotion, or something as simple as eating, means that we are actively shaping the mind.
Left to itself the mind wanders through all kinds of thoughts — including thoughts expressing anger, craving, depression, revenge, self-pity, etc. As we indulge in these kinds of thoughts we reinforce those emotions in our hearts and cause ourselves to suffer. Mostly these thoughts are about the past or future. The past no longer exists. The future is just a fantasy until it happens. The one moment we actually can experience — the present moment — is the one we seem most to avoid.
So in mindfulness we’re concerned with noticing what’s going on right now. That doesn’t mean we can no longer think about the past or future, but when we do so we do so mindfully, so that we’re aware that right now we’re thinking about the past or future.
However in meditation, we are concerned with what’s arising in the present moment. When thoughts about the past or future take us away from our present moment experience and we “space out” we try to notice this and just come back to now.
By purposefully directing our awareness away from such thoughts and towards the “anchor” or our present moment experience, we decrease their effect on our lives and we create instead a space of freedom where calmness and contentment can grow.
Mindfulness is an emotionally non-reactive state. We don’t judge that this experience is good and that one is bad. Or if we do make those judgements we simply notice them and let go of them. We don’t get upset because we’re experiencing something we don’t want to be experiencing or because we’re not experiencing what we would rather be experiencing. We simply accept whatever arises. We observe it mindfully. We notice it arising, passing through us, and ceasing to exist.
Whether it’s a pleasant experience or a painful experience we treat it the same way.
Cognitively, mindfulness is aware that certain experiences are pleasant and some are unpleasant, but on an emotional level we simply don’t react. We call this “equanimity” — stillness and balance of mind.
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I am for meditation, but I don't think focusing on breathing works, I have tried it. We easily follow an interesting movie with all out attention, but our attention wanders all over when watching a boring movie or a blank screen. Some people can train themselves to look at a blank screen/ breathing but it is not for every one, perhaps only monks who dedicate their life to this and live a regimented life centered on this.
Sorry if I am not bullish about such mindfull meditation, but may be there is something that works for the lay man. If we change the object of the focus in meditation it works, at least for me.
Of course your mind wanders when you pay attention to your breathing. That's what's meant to happen :)
And when it does, you're meant to bring your awareness back to the breathing. That's where the training lies.
I have sympathy for your view, though. I think a lot of people have a very narrow understanding of what the breathing is, and so they're trying to stay focused on a very narrow range of sensations. I encourage people, these days, to have a very full experience of attending to the breathing, as I outline in this article. Of course the mind still wanders, but I find it does so less than if you're only paying attention to a narrow range of sensations.
But also, most of the clinical trials of meditation (which show that it "works") have been done with variants of mindfulness of breathing. I'm afraid your anecdotal evidence doesn't count for much when weighed against those statistics. I don't know how long you tried practicing mindfulness of breathing, or how much effort you put into refining what you do in your practice, but I'd suggest that more perseverance and a bit more investigation would pay off.
I am suffering from anxiety disorder. Can this technique restore my mental health?
Mindfulness can definitely help with anxiety.
i am a student and i have got a presentation on mindfullness can you please help me
Hi. We have an entire website of information here. Hopefully you'll find it helpful.
Thx, Excellent description !
Hi, thank you for your explanations for mindfulness above. I hope to clarify something about mindfulness, I found this online:
"If you are remembering your second-grade teacher, that is memory. When you then become aware that you are remembering your second-grade teacher, that is Mindfulness. If you then conceptualize the process and say to yourself, "Oh, I am remembering", that is thinking. "
I am confused, if I am doing administrative jobs like sorting information I need to conceptualize things and facts, If I am mindful administrating that means I am aware that I am conceptualizing things and facts? If I am aware that I am doing it, am I being mindful or just thinking.
1 more question, i heard some people says mindfulness is "no-self", however when I am mindfully thinking, when I aware that I remember some facts, I aware that thoughts like "Oh I remember." will appear. Is that means I am not mindful, that because there is still a "self" component?
Thank you for reading, looking forward for your precious insights.
i have been trying to be mindful all the time but it seems as if it needs that all the time i should pull back my thoughts to the present is there any shortcut way to make me easier to be mindful,should it be the life long practice,or will one day be naturally done.
I do hot yoga so I'm mindful of my breathing that keeps me focused on the present..doing hot yoga. I think that being able to focus is probably a first step to mindfulness that is more meditative.
Became aware of and practiced mindfulness about 4 years ago for about 4 months with limited success. Have been prescribed a number of different meds over the past few years for panic disorder, social anxiety and depression. The side effects have ranged from increased anxiety to a vegetative state. Is it possible that mindfulness training could be of benefit to me and is the training available online as I live in a rural area?
Hi,
Really nice explanation. I feel like some of the articles in other websites are misinterpreting mindfulness.
Personally I am able to do this by letting go of my thoughts and just looking at some object around me. At that point of time, I become positive, confident, am aware of my body language, etc and feel like every moment is an experience.
Paying attention to my breathing though has never worked for me.
I'm absolutely new to this whole mindfulness thing, and it's raising lots of questions.
The first is: if I am constantly being mindful, of the present, of the feeling of the keyboard under my fingertips, of my breathing, etc., then how do I get anything done? If thoughts are just thoughts to accept and let pass, then how do I do anything except just sit and observe my breathing? If mindfulness is just meant to occur during meditation, I might understand, but I thought (forgive me if I'm wrong) that the aim is to be constantly mindful? So I'm focussing on my breathing, and I think "it's probably time to go to work now"... but that's just another thought to accept and let go - so how do I do the work I want to do, or cook dinner, or do any of the other tasks that need to happen during the day, and remain mindful at the same time? In particular, how do I do work that is intellectual? I can be mindful and present while I'm cooking, but how do I be mindful and present while I'm writing an email, or figuring out what a chart means - things that require full mental attention? How do you practice mindfulness while you reply to questions on this website, for example? I appreciate any clarification you can provide on this point.
A little common sense is in order. If your intention is to type something, then yes, you can be mindful of the keyboard under your fingertips, but you'll be most mindful of that which is most central to your task, which is to write. So you'll be aware of the words as they appear, and to your evaluations of whether they're spelled correctly, whether you're saying what you want to say, whether your sentences are well formed or clumsy, etc. And if thoughts unrelated to your task arise -- "I wonder what's happening on Facebook?" -- you might notice them and let them pass.
If you have the thought “it’s probably time to go to work now” and it is time to go to work, then go to work. Just let go of thoughts that are irrelevant to your purpose. If you think “it’s probably time to go to work now” and it's time to go to work, and another thought comes up, like "I can't be bothered going to work today" then you might let the thought pass, notice the sense or resistance, and mindfully go to work.
Most often the thoughts we're letting go of are anxious, angry, or simply taking us out of our present-moment experience. Just let them go.