Ah yes.
Beauty and sacredness? Can I tell what I hear right now?
Drilling. Banging. Shouting.
And yet, it doesn’t grate. The sounds of a construction site are just that - sounds.
I tend to associate this “beauty and sacredness” with special places: the pond outside the shrine room at the retreat centre, the lawn underneath my favourite kiepersol tree, hummingbirds and spring.
Maybe it is right here, in the banging and shouting, in the construction noise.
What can you hear right now?
One of my mindfulness activities that I’ve now chosen is:
Making the first cup of coffee in the morning mindfully.
This morning, I was making coffee but at the same time getting the birdfeed ready for the parrots. We’re not very a in the morning and we’re always late for everything, and it was one of the more important mornings to leave on time, so I was imbued with a feeling of “I have to hurry.” So I tried an experiment:
Can I be mindful while multitasking?
This morning, the answer is “No.” But I’m going to try this experiment again. I want to really dig into this “multitasking” thing.
Can you be mindful while multitasking?
Part of the mindfulness training we’re running at the moment is to add daily activities to be mindful with - making tea, brushing teeth, that type of thing. The idea is that during week 1 you choose an activity. Week 2 you add a second, week 3 a third and so on. Now, I’ve been struggling with this, but as I was making salad after Wednesday’s session (that was week 3 already) it dawned on me:
I have to make an active decision and actually choose an activity.
I feel silly about it now, but during weeks one and two I didn’t actually choose activities to be mindful about. So no wonder I wasn’t able to be mindful doing them!
Confession time: I didn’t do any of the homework during week two of the mindfulness based living course. During the feedback on Wednesday night it became apparent that I wasn’t alone in this - only a few people managed to do all the exercises.
My biggest reason is that the event calendar we had to fill in was an UN-pleasant events calendar. I’m not comfortable yet with being mindful of unpleasant events, and it went against my grain to look for unpleasantries at the end of the day. So the total opposite of the experience with the pleasant event calendar, where I was actively looking for and appreciating even mundane moments as pleasant.
Hannelie did mention that this is how the mind works: we keep the nice things very close, holding on tightly, and we push the bad things away. She re-iterated Rob Nairn’s definition of mindfulness:
“Being aware of what is happening while it is happening without preference.”
Without preference.
But first, we must become aware of our preferences.
Not the first synchronicity regarding the topic of “happiness” I’ve had today…
On May 8, 2012 award winning author and illustrator of the children’s book, Where The Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak, died. He was 83. In a postscript written about him in The New Yorker this week, MarianaCook revisited someof what he had offered in a 2009 interview. In that interview, Sendak shared hisfeeling thatitishard to be happy and that some people find it easier than others. He ended with the question,
“ Do you believe it when people say they are happy?”
In one of the final interviews Maurice Sendak allowed with Terri Gross on NPR in late2011,he said something different, “I have nothing now but praise for my life. I’m not unhappy. I cry a lot because I miss people.”
In his words, this very creativemanunderscores the challenge, complexity and possibility of happiness.
Resonating with this, I recently wrote a blog for the final newsletter of “This Emotional Life” entitled “ The Pursuitof Happiness: Your Inalienable Right.” In it I draw upon researchers to suggest that that happiness is a “ many factored thing.” Often considered a sense of wellbeing, I add that, as such, happiness is neither a static place, nor one that is incompatible with tears or challenge.
If we define happiness as a sense of well being, we find that based on genetic twin studies, we all have a happiness “set point” that determines 50% of our happiness – Maurice Sendak is correct. Some people do find it easier to be happy.
But there is something we can do about that. It seems that 10% of our happiness is due to life circumstances which we may not be able to control, but for which we often find ways to adapt. Maurice Sendak reports in the NPR interview that he wrote his final book Bumble-ardy as a way to cope with the dying of his beloved partner.
In addition to coping and adapting to what we face in life, it is very important to know that 40% of our happiness is under our control. There are certain strategies,perspectivesand behaviors that have proved valuable in the pursuit of happiness.
Here are a few of those offered in “The Pursuitof Happiness” blog:
Engaging in something that grabs your attention, effort, passion and interest is an indispensible ingredient to happiness.It results in a lifeof purpose.
Connecting to people, pets, and groups that allow you to feel you make a difference as well as affirmed and cared about – is crucial. Sometimes it is the family of friends that bring more happiness than the family of origin.
Laughter is not just a by-product of happiness. Laughter enhances happiness. When we laugh, our brain releases endorphins- the feel good hormones of serotonin and dopamine that foster a sense of wellbeing.
At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.— Jean Houston
Positive Perspective enhances happiness and functioning. Whileit may seem unrealistic is face of life’s unexpected curves, positive perspective actually serves us no matter what we face.
Assume the best and figure you will handle the worst.
Most people havehad more practice“ surviving” than they credit themselves for. It is worth considering that whereas negativityconstrictsour thinking and functioning, positive perspective broadens and expands our creativity. It is a far better place to come from when walking though life.
Gratitude is a proven component of positive mood and happiness. We have a tendency as humans to begin to take for granted the life we have, the people we love, the view we see, and the freedom we share.Gratitude shakes up this adaptation. In the very consideration and expression of thanks we make visibleto ourselves the reasons to be happy.
Happiness is a way of living. When we pursue happiness, we find that place in our hearts and lives- Where All The Good Things Are!
During the very first session of the mindfulness based living course, we were asked to introduce ourselves and explain why we had enrolled for the course.
“Because I keep walking into doors, and I want to be mindful enough of where I am so I can stop embarrassing myself like that.”
This thing that I do, where while I’m walking I’m already thinking about where I’m going to such a degree that I don’t open the doors on the way, is becoming a problem. It’s embarrassing, for one, but I managed to bruise the back of my calf against the car door so badly that the skin broke - keep in mind that it’s winter and I was wearing a lot of padding. You can imagine the impact! Don’t try and imagine the mechanics of walking into a door backwards because I still can’t figure out what exactly I was doing.
We started the Mindfulness Based Living Course on Wednesday. A lot of what was said I’ve heard before, but here is something new: the mind consists of four things namely the body, the emotions, the thoughts and the sensations. Up to now when practicing mindfulness, I’ve always concentrated on the sensations alone. I “know” that the thoughts and emotions should be watched too, but I don’t know it and I tend to focus very heavily on sounds or the feeling of the breath on my skin. One of the exercises we have to do daily is to note the sensations AND the thoughts, emotions and bodily experience of a pleasant experience. I’m finding it rather difficult - there is so much going on in this moment, and what is really the thoughts that are here and what are the thoughts that are about watching the thoughts?
Anyway, five more sessions to go, obviously I still have a lot to learn!
Where does this idea, that thoughts are the enemy of meditation, come from? Why is it not enough to be able to feel the breeze from the open window, how it moves my hair against the skin in my neck, how the Simon and Garfunkel song is on repeat in my head, to feel these things now?
Some of our meditation sessions are quite empty. When it’s just Willem and I, it leads me to ponder: Why should I get in my car and drive to a place to do something I could be doing at home?
The better question would be: am I doing it at home?
If you are like me, the answer is “No, I’m not.” (This is why I volunteered to host the group when it threatened to disband two years ago.)
Why are you not meditating at home? And how can I, as the host of a meditation group, entice you to sit with us?
Let’s have a look at the good reasons to meditate in a group:
• Someone else is going to be looking after the time, so you don’t have to.
• Gentle but timely reminders to come back to the meditation focus.
• The discussion afterwards is a valuable opportunity to learn from and teach others.
• There is an energy in a group that isn’t found when you meditate home, alone. Concentration comes more naturally in a group. In philosophy school they promised to tell us why but we quit before that lesson.
These are all good reasons, but the most important reason is:
• Mingling with those with the same beliefs as you.
The ways of meditation aren’t the “normal” ways. Most of your neighbours, your family, your colleagues won’t be engaged in regular practise (am I generalizing too much here? Most of mine aren’t). We humans are social beings and we enjoy interacting with those who share our interests and hobbies. I’ve met the most interesting people through the meditation group – some of them have become close and dear friends.
The flip side of it is, though: most people who are drawn to meditation are the “Hestia” people: they want to turn inward, to engage with themselves, to sit in the hearth of their own homes. They tend to be unconcerned with the social aspect of being human.
Do you find benefit in going to a meditation group, or are you happier sitting by yourself?
