Mindfulness

It's possible to write entire books on mindfulness. I'm not that prolific on any of my blogs so it's not likely that I can do justice to the subject. It is an important subject, however, when trying to create peace inside yourself.

In today's world we are more often than not expect to do several things at once. Attending to only one thing at a time is considered the mark of someone who is very slow and perhaps not as accomplished. Yet it is this attending to one thing at each moment that is so very important to mindfulness and to experiencing the beauty of the world as it is.

When we are driving and we are talking on our cell phones we are not being mindful to either the person on the other end nor to the driving. When we are not mindful, we often loose bits of the moment. Perhaps we miss the important comment our conversation partner made and they feel a bit as if we are not attending to them as they would like (and they would be correct). Perhaps we don't attend carefully to the brake lights in front of us and we forget to stop--thus causing an accident. Both of these incidents are lapses in mindfulness.

Mindfulness takes practice. It is difficult to stay focused in the moment on one thing when we are so used to being in the future and with 5 different things. It's important to start small. Take a few moments each day to practice something mindfully. My best mindful task was weeding my garden. I hate to weed but I found that I did a better job if I attended mindful to each weed. I have read that mindfulness has a place in each of those household chores that we so hate. Let's challenge ourselves to doing one task we dislike mindfully this week.