The Beginner's Guide to Walking Meditation

In order to have peace and joy, you must succeed in having peace within each of your steps. Your steps are the most important thing.

- Thich Nhat Hanh

It might sound funny, but the very first time I practiced walking meditation was when I was walking my oldest son to sleep one night in a baby carrier.

For quite a while before then I had sat in meditation, practicing zazen (the Japanese word for sitting meditation in Zen).

But it was really after beginning to read Thich Nhat Hanh that I was introduced to the idea of bringing my practice into my everyday life.

The first time I was introduced to walking meditation, I didn't make any immediate effort to practice it and just thought it would be a nice thing to add to my practice at some point. Well, one night that opportunity presented itself most clearly.

As I was walking my son around one night, back and forth across the room to put him to sleep, it hit me: my mind was off in la-la-land.

I then remembered what I had read about walking meditation, and decided to give it a try. That's when I discovered how amazing walking meditation, and really mindfulness practice throughout everyday life, was.

I can't really describe what it feels like to walk mindfully. To walk intentionally, closely and carefully aware of each step that you take.

Each step that you take you're fully present in that moment with all of your being. It instills in you a quiet sense of peace that I find very hard to describe.

The words that most come to mind are: peaceful, harmonious, and connected.

This is a guide intended to help you discover that same sense of peace I feel when I practice walking meditation in my own life.

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What is walking meditation?

So, what exactly is walking meditation? Is it just walking around mindfully? For the most part yes, it's really mindful walking, but depending on how you practice it there's more to it than just that. And there's definitely more to it than simply the practice in itself.

Walking meditation is something which has perhaps been practiced for thousands of years in some form. Indeed, moving meditation of various kinds has always been popular (which includes walking meditation, other mindfulness practices, Yoga, Tai Chi, and others) and walking meditation is one of the most popular.

During the Golden Age of Zen in China, practitioners would travel all across China searching for a teacher who was a perfect fit for their style of learning and who could transmit the highest awakening to them (meaning essentially that they could communicate clearly to them in a way that resonated with them, a sort of chemistry). Because of all the traveling they did, walking meditation was the most common form of meditation at that time in China.

Indeed, as long as you're walking, you might as well walk mindfully. On the surface, there really isn't anything more to walking meditation than to walk mindfully. But just as with sitting in meditation, it's deceptively deep and profound.

To understand that more clearly, let's go over why walking meditation is so significant.

Why practice walking meditation?

Walking is one of the single most common activities in everyday human life. Across all countries, cultures, and lifestyles, walking is a major part of daily life.

We walk from our bed in the morning to the restroom, from our room to our kitchen, to our kitchen back to our room, from our home to our car/bus/bike, from our mode of transportation to work, from work back to our mode of transportation, from there to whatever stores or locations we visit along the way, back from our car/bike/bus to our home, and within our home constantly (all depending on your own specific daily schedule of course).

There are few things we do more often than walk, and so walking meditation is one of the single most powerful and nourishing practices you could ever adopt.

But there's more to it than that. Walking meditation can work as a highly effective "bridge" for bringing mindfulness into your daily life. After long sessions of zazen (sitting meditation), Zen practitioners will get up and practice sessions of kinhin (walking meditation in Japanese).

Why do they do this? The intention is to bring that state they've cultivated during their sitting meditation practice into motion, into their everyday actions. And walking provides the best gateway for doing just that.

Using walking meditation as a bridge for making meditation a way of life, instead of just sitting for a few minutes a day, is invaluable. And for that reason, walking meditation is probably the most important thing you can begin doing if your intention is to take your meditation practice to the next level.

But even if you've never practiced meditation, walking meditation can be an incredible introductory practice. Mindfulness practice of all kinds, especially walking meditation, is highly nourishing and allows you to find a moment of peace and a sense of being grounded or "balanced" each day that's invaluable for our well-being.

I would still suggest beginning with sitting meditation, but if you're naturally very active and tend to find it difficult to sit still for even short periods of time, walking meditation may be the perfect practice to begin with (or preferably to mix in with your sitting practice).

How to practice walking meditation

Walking meditation is simply mindful walking, but depending on whether you're a beginner to mindfulness or you've practiced for a bit, and depending on the situation, the actual practice can vary.

Detailed below are really the 3 major walking meditation techniques along with instruction. Keep in mind, there isn't much of a hard rule about how you're supposed to practice walking meditation, but the first 2 practices listed have been practiced for a very long time, and so I'd suggest following the walking meditation instructions below at least for a time, until you really get the idea.

Counting your steps

The first walking meditation technique is counting your steps, and it's the most common. Counting your steps, like counting your breath, is the easiest walking meditation technique and so the form I'd suggest starting with.

Like counting your breath, counting your steps is all about counting each step as 1 (left 1, right 2, left 3) until you get to 10. Unlike following your breath though, there's an extra step to walking meditation: matching your steps to your breath.

Let's get into the steps exactly:

1. Begin walking at a naturally slow pace. Walk slowly, but naturally.

2. Posture & positioning. Walk with good posture and bring your hands up to around your diaphragm. Place your left hand up against your diaphragm and your right hand directly in front of it, then allow your thumbs to cross so that your left thumb is in front and your right thumb is against your body. Your forearms should be horizontal with the ground.

This hand positioning helps balance and stabilize you while walking.

3. Match your steps to your breath. Breathe naturally and pay attention to how many naturally slow steps you take for each in-breath and each out-breath. The in-breath tends to be shorter, so keep that in mind (in-breath may be 3 steps, while out-breath is 4).

4. Count your steps. Now that you know how many steps you're taking for each in-breath and out-breath, count them. 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3, 1-2-3-4. Left-right-left, right-left-right-left, right-left-right, left-right-left-right. In-breath, out-breath, in-breath, out-breath.

5. Be mindful. Be fully present as you count each left step and each right step. You're being mindful of the count here most of all, that's what you're focusing on. You can be mindful of the movement of your legs in between counts as well.

6. Acknowledge that which arises. Throughout your walking meditation you'll be concentrated(*) on your steps, but because this is mindfulness practice your awareness should be open and welcoming.

What this means is that as thoughts, feelings, sensations, and even sometimes outside distractions come into focus, gently acknowledge them nonjudgmentally (which is code for: don't intentionally think anything about them. You're just noticing them. Not judging them) so that you can observe them clearly, and then shift your focus back to your breath.

If you're new to meditation, you may find yourself interrupted constantly. This is perfectly fine and will wear off in large part over time. No matter how often a thought, feeling, or sensation arises acknowledge it mindfully and then shift your focus back to your breath.

*A note on concentration: By concentration, I don't mean a head-splitting, vein-popping concentration. I'm referring to a light concentration which still allows your open mindful awareness to take in everything that arises.

Following your steps

Following your steps is the natural progression of counting your steps and is a slightly more difficult walking meditation technique.

If you find it difficult to go directly from there to here, you can always try counting your left (or right) and following your right (or left). In this way, you're doing a practice which is in the middle of the two, which can sometimes be easier if you're finding it hard to transition to this version.

Like sitting in meditation and counting your breath, after you get to a point where you've gotten used to counting your steps and can do it relatively effectively, I'd begin simply walking and following the full length of each individual step.

It's at this point that it's important to really break down the act of walking, because in mindfulness practice it's important to know exactly what you're doing in each moment so that you can be fully present for that moment.

When walking, are you just moving your legs forward, one step at a time? Not quite! Walking is a gross movement, meaning there's multiple movements included within the greater action of walking.

What specifically? The act of walking can be broken down as follows:

Lifting the foot up -> Swinging the foot forward -> Placing the foot back down

And this is really what you should be paying attention to as you follow the length of each complete left step and each complete right step.

To practice walking meditation by way of following your steps, follow these instructions:

1. Begin walking at a naturally slow pace. Walk slowly, but naturally.

2. Posture & positioning. Walk with good posture and bring your hands up to around your diaphragm. Place your left hand up against your diaphragm and your right hand directly in front of it, then allow your thumbs to cross so that your left thumb is in front and your right thumb is against your body. Your forearms should be horizontal with the ground.

This hand positioning helps balance and stabilize you while walking.

3. Match your steps to your breath. Breathe naturally and pay attention to how many naturally slow steps you take for each in-breath and each out-breath. The in-breath tends to be short, so keep that in mind (in-breath may be 3 steps, while out-breath is 4).

Why do we match our steps to our breath, even though we're following our steps in this version? Because bringing our steps in line with the rhythm or our breath creates a sense of unity with our mind and body, and this is a very important principle in meditation.

4. Follow your steps. This is really the essence of this version of walking meditation. Follow the movement of your left foot from the time you begin lifting the foot, as you transition to swinging it forward, and then as you place it back down. Then the same with the right foot back-and-forth.

It's 3 movements, but you'll quickly realize that the act of following your steps is very fluid and that there is no separation between the movements.

5. Be mindful. Be fully present as you count each in-breath and each out-breath.

6. Acknowledge that which arises. Throughout your walking meditation you'll be concentrated on your steps, but because this is mindfulness practice your awareness should be open and welcoming.

What this means is that as thoughts, feelings, sensations, and even sometimes outside distractions come into focus, gently acknowledge them nonjudgmentally (which is code for: don't intentionally think anything about them. You're just noticing them. Not judging them) so that you can observe them clearly, and then shift your focus back to your breath.

Simply walking (in everyday life)

This is both a simple practice and at the same time the most advanced walking meditation technique.

Sure, nothing is technically required for you to get up and begin walking down the street mindfully. But, without some practice with one or both of the first two forms of walking meditation, walking effectively in a typical everyday situation can seem altogether impossible.

First, there's the fact that when you begin your walking meditation practice you generally walk rather slowly so that you can maintain mindfulness (something which won't be a problem with practice, but at first a slow pace is required). This obviously isn't the pace you ever walk in your everyday life.

Then, there's the fact that there's a million other things vying for your attention as you walk: passing cars, street signs, advertisements, store windows, and other people.

So, what do you do? The best advice I can give is this:

1. Continue to practice. Just make the effort to be mindful while walking at a normal pace in your everyday life. This won't be all you need to help you get the hang of it, but it will help.

2. Allow some of those other objects to come into your awareness from time to time, acknowledge them, and gently shift your awareness back to your steps. Even if this happens repeatedly at first, this will still help overtime to improve your practice.

And besides, as long as you're being mindful of what's going on in the present moment, you're practicing mindfulness to some degree (even if it's not of your steps).

3. Have a dedicated walking meditation practice. A dedicated walking meditation practice is different from walking in everyday life. I suggest both striving to walk mindfully throughout your daily life as well as having a dedicated time for walking meditation (preferably right after your sitting meditation practice). In this way, you help support your effort to walk mindfully throughout your daily life.

As far as actual instruction, this is simply the act of walking in the way you walk every single day of your life and at your normal pace, so nothing needs to actually be done except to be mindful of each complete left step and right step. Although that's easier said than done as noted above.

Just use the instructions for 'following the length of your steps' and walk at your normal everyday pace (you may not have your hands up in the kinhin position too, and that's fine).

If at first it seems too difficult to do, just practice for a few minutes at a time and then let go of it. With time it will become easier and your practice will be more fluid.

Additional practices

Aside from the traditional walking meditation instructions, there are other highly beneficial practices you can do.

I'd urge you to get creative and realize that any and every opportunity to walk is an opportunity to practice walking meditation. Some opportunities might make for deeper and more nourishing versions of the practice, but there's many ways to practice and some of those ways have added benefits which I haven't yet listed.

Here are 2 other very powerful walking meditations techniques:

Walking in nature (Walk of Life walking meditation)

Walking in nature can be done simply as-is, meaning as walking meditation is usually practiced, or you can integrate it with your surroundings to create an even more nourishing and balancing meditation.

That's what walking in nature is all about. This is a variation of a simple meditation from my guide, The Mindfulness Survival Guide:

1. Discover the path. To practice the walk of life walking meditation, find a nice quiet place to walk, preferably in nature. If you know of a local park, hiking trail, or somewhere else close to nature you can walk that would be ideal.

2. Connect with the Earth. It's also preferable that you take your shoes off and walk barefoot so that you can feel the Earth beneath your feet. Both above mentioned points will enhance the meditation but are not required.

3. Walk the path. Simply begin breathing mindfully. Once you've taken a few breaths, begin walking. Walk relatively slowly.

4. Walk mindfully. Continue to walk and breathe naturally, don't force a certain pace. Your focus during this meditation is the raising, swinging, and placing down of each individual foot. Be mindful as your left foot raises, swings, and lowers. Then, once your left foot has been placed down on the ground, be mindful of your right foot being lifted, swung, and lowered as well.

5. Breathe the walking. Walk the breathing. Try to match your steps with your breath to create a sense of unity within your entire being. If you can do 2 slow steps for each in breath and another 2-3 steps for each out breath, then say to yourself silently, "step, step" on each in breath, and, "step, step" to yourself on each out breath (or just count 1, 2, 3).

6. Become the tree. Take a moment from time to time to stop and imagine your feet extending down into the Earth, like the roots of a great and immovable tree (you could continue walking and do this as well, but that sense of stability is easier to get while standing with both feet on the ground).

Continue to imagine yourself expanding out indefinitely, your legs as roots, your arms as branches, and many leaves blooming all around you. Focus on your abdomen for a moment, keep your feet planted firmly on the ground, and feel your sense of stability and groundedness.

Walking with others

Walking with others mindfully can be a great joy, although it can be difficult to do at first and therefore is relegated to a rather advanced walking meditation practice.

Walking with others has huge benefits: we're walking mindfully, spending time with others, getting outside (usually), and getting a little exercise while we're at it. It's really a quadruple whammy for our well-being.

While walking with others, I'd suggest keeping it as simple as possible and simply following the length of your steps. Get a little practice in counting your steps in first, then once you're accustomed to this move on to following your steps. Then, if you've done this for a week or two every few days (or every day, better yet), you should be ready to try this.

While in conversation, be mindful of the words the other person is speaking. When speaking, be aware of the words you're speaking. Don't think you have to continue to focus on your steps during that time. There is a way to walk more mindfully while still hearing the other person's words though, which you'll realize with a little practice.

So, where should you walk? If it's a dedicated walk with a friend or loved one, I'd suggest a natural setting outdoors such as a park or hiking trail (suggested in the Walk of Life meditation). Being in a natural setting such as that has many added benefits for our well-being. Simply feeling more connected to the Earth has a powerfully nourishing effect.

So take a moment and try mindful walking with others. You could even get them in on the practice of walking meditation as well and have a silent walk. Walking together mindfully, silently, is a truly beautiful experience (even if for only a few moments).

Walking Meditation FAQs

There are a few things I wish I had known when I began my personal walking meditation practice (which few people seem to be very clear about), and it's here that I seek to clear those questions up for anyone else looking to adopt a regular walking meditation practice.

You might notice some overlap between these questions and some of the information in the guide, that's intentional. I wanted to make sure I mentioned them repeatedly to get the point across, because they tend to be pretty important points.

Here they are:

Q: What pace do I walk while practicing walking meditation?A: It's a common misconception that when you do something mindfully you have to do it slowly. While this isn't true, it is true that:

• It can be very nourishing to do things in mindfulness slowly.
• When first beginning a mindfulness practice, it's better to start slow to get the practice down.

So, how fast/slow should you walk? These are my suggestions:

1. At first, walk slowly. About 1 step every 3-5 seconds.

2. After a while, you can practice your dedicated walking meditation practice a little more quickly. About 1 step every 2-3 seconds. I prefer a bit of a slower pace for my dedicated walking meditation practice, but you can choose to walk at a completely normal everyday pace. Many Zen monasteries do so, depending on the school and monastery itself.

3. When walking in everyday life, after doing your dedicated practice for some time, walk at your normal pace. Don't purposely slow yourself down. At first, you may feel the need as you're getting the hang of things. This is OK, but quickly work to be able to walk at a normal pace mindfully.

Q: I find it really difficult to match my steps to my breath. It feels unnatural. Am I doing something wrong?

A: This is something I really wish I had an answer to at the beginning of my personal practice.

No one really goes over this, but it may feel highly unnatural and uncomfortable to try to match your steps to your breath when first practicing walking meditation. Don't worry though, this is perfectly natural and will wear off with practice (and you'll begin to feel the rhythm instead). These are the important tips to keep in mind:

• Both walk at a natural pace and breathe at a natural pace. Don't force either.
• Try to notice how many natural steps you take for each natural in-breath and out-breath. This is the number you should be counting if you're counting your steps.
• Oftentimes, your in-breath will be shorter than your out-breath. This is natural and perfectly fine, but the point is you won't be counting 3 then 3. You'll be counting, say, 3 (3 steps on in-breath) then 4 (4 steps on out-breath) for example.
• Sometimes, it can be best to just let both go for a while until you feel you're doing both naturally, and then after a minute to come back and simply focus on one, like your steps, and to focus on bringing them in sync.

Q: How long should I practice walking meditation?

A: Like sitting meditation, there's no specific amount of time that you should practice walking meditation. If you find yourself with 5 extra minutes in your day, practice walking meditation. If you have 1 minute, practice walking meditation. For your regularly scheduled practice of walking meditation, I'd suggest starting out with about 10 minutes.

If you feel any sort of mental resistance to this, you can lower that amount down to 5 or fewer minutes while you develop it into a habit. I'd suggest doing your dedicated walking meditation practice right after your sitting meditation practice, to begin bringing the essence of that single-pointed awareness, mindfulness, that you're cultivating if you're sitting in meditation regularly.

Q: What do I do when I'm taking a walk with someone else? Practicing walking meditation? Or be present for them?

A: This can be really confusing at first, and again few people, if anyone, really answers this question. Here are my tips:

- Sometimes you're posed with difficult situations in your mindfulness practice where you're seemingly being asked to choose what to be mindful of. During these moments you have to use your best judgment and primarily be mindful of the most important thing in that moment. If you're walking with a friend of loved one, it's most important to be present for your conversation with them.

- You should though begin practicing with the expanded levels of awareness, which essentially means broadening your awareness to encompass more objects of focus during your meditation and sort of "shifting" or bouncing between the two as each moment is different. While your friend may be talking one moment, there may be a moment of silence the next, and knowing when and what to be mindful of is key to an effective practice.

The expanded levels of awareness are a bit beyond the scope of this guide, but if you'd like to learn about them in detail I'd suggest either my book Zen for Everyday Life, or my online course Journey to the Present Moment.

Additional Resources

If you'd like to take your mindfulness practice further, including the beautiful practice of walking meditation, my books below are the most complete resources I've created for both beginners and experienced practitioners alike:

Zen for Everyday Life

Learn how to live with the energy of mindfulness throughout your everyday life with this moment-to-moment practice guide. You can get the first 2 chapters free by clicking here.

 

The Little Book of Mindfulness

Discover the power of mindfulness meditation in simple, straight-forward, and crystal clear language. You can get a free download of The Little Book of Mindfulness exclusively on Buddhaimonia by clicking here.

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Walk It Off

I hope you've enjoyed this guide to the beautiful practice of walking meditation. It's time to get out there and begin your own practice of walking meditation. However you decide to do that, if you let this beautiful practice into your life, it's sure to have a powerful effect.

What is Mindfulness? A Guide to Mindfulness Meditation

What is mindfulness?

So, what is mindfulness? In a nutshell, mindfulness is a complete and nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment.

But perhaps my favorite mindfulness definition is this:

“Moment to moment awareness of present events”.

Keep in mind, there’s no one agreed upon way of defining mindfulness. This is because it's is a state of being beyond words or concepts. One must practice mindfulness in order to truly understand what mindfulness is.

The origin of the word mindfulness is in the Pali word “sati”, and its Sanskrit counterpart “smrti”, which both literally mean “memory”. But perhaps more precisely they represent “presence of mind” or “attentiveness to the present”.

This is what the Buddha was referring to when he said, "When we sit, we know we are sitting. When we walk, we know we are walking. When we eat, we know we are eating." He meant that when he and his disciples sat, walked, or ate they were fully present for the act of sitting, walking, or eating.

Even when becoming lost in thought, while practicing mindfulness the practitioner is fully aware that they just became lost in a particular thought and are mindful of the thought itself. This is because mindfulness isn’t just mindfulness of an object in the present moment such as one’s breath, steps, or food. It’s also mindfulness of anything which might arise in the present moment while concentrating on an object.

In a way, mindfulness is the observer of change. While concentrating on the object of meditation, such as one’s breath or steps, we become distracted by thoughts, feelings, and other sensations. These are “changes” in the field of mindfulness, the area which mindfulness observes.

In this way think of mindfulness as a motion detector. If nothing moves, if nothing changes, then nothing is detected. You're still there observing, just as the motion detector which detects no motion is still there observing its area of detection, but until a thought, feeling, or some other sensation arises the practitioner just continues to concentrate on the object of meditation. When this happens is when the real work begins.

Mindfulness is a complete and nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment.

Think of mindfulness as a “field of attention” with a point of concentration in the center acting as an anchor to the present, rather than just a pointed concentration on something while pushing away everything else around you.

Imagine a dream catcher. The idea behind a dream catcher is it’s supposed to “catch” your bad dreams as you’re sleeping. Just as a dream catcher catches your bad dreams, imagine each thought, feeling, and sensation being caught by your “field of mindfulness”. Except in this case, you don’t label any thought, feeling, or sensation either good or bad.

While in mindfulness, each thought, feeling, and sensation that arises automatically enters into this field and, this is the important part, is gently acknowledged and accepted “as it is”. By “as it is” I mean without judging it in any way.

If this is hard to imagine, don’t worry. For the most part this nonjudgmental awareness happens naturally when you practice correctly. The important thing to remember for now is that mindfulness is not a rejection of anything.

Mindfulness is an open acceptance of everything that comes into your awareness. If you’re practicing mindful breathing, don’t reject thoughts that come into your mind just because they interrupt your mindful breathing. Observing these thoughts, which are typically unnoticed but always dispersing our awareness and coloring our perception, is a major part of practicing mindfulness. So this is perfectly fine.

Simply acknowledge the thought in mindfulness, just as you were doing with your breath, and then let the thought pass. Then bring your focus back to your breath. As time goes on your ability to concentrate on one point for a period of time as well as your ability to detect things with your mindfulness will improve. And with it, the quality of your mindfulness practice will improve as well.

Mindfulness has a number of different “qualities”. It's for this reason that a simple mindfulness definition doesn't really suffice. But, If you break mindfulness down based on these qualities it becomes much easier to understand it as a whole.

We’ve covered the basic workings of mindfulness so far, but in order to gain a deeper understanding of mindfulness let’s break it down and look at each quality individually. There’s 6 key aspects of mindfulness which I’ll cover below.

But first, before I continue, this post is an excerpt from my eBook, The Little Book of Mindfulness. You can get The Little Book of Mindfulness free by entering your name and email below:

Let's continue...

Mindfulness is…

1. ...mindfulness of something

Mindfulness is always mindfulness of something. It’s not just a conscious directing of your awareness to the present moment, it’s a conscious directing of your awareness to something which is occurring or existing in the present moment.

Common centers of focus are your breath, steps, or some other area or areas of the body. Concentration, or samadhi in Sanskrit, is a force which works in tandem with mindfulness. Concentration is “single-pointedness of mind” and it’s just that- the act of focusing on a single point.

While practicing mindfulness, you will be developing your power of concentration as well as your mindfulness. There is no separating mindfulness and concentration. They’re partners on the path to attaining a tranquil and clear mind.

Think of concentration as the “hard” force and mindfulness as the “soft”. Concentration is exactly what it sounds like, it’s the forceful act of focusing on a single point.

Imagine your field of mindfulness enveloping everything within your perception in a soft glow. Next, imagine a thin line piercing out from your mindfulness directly to an object. This is your concentration. Mindfulness, on the other hand, is a sort of soft awareness.

Remember the dream catcher? Mindfulness is the field of awareness which then “sees” everything that arises while concentrating on an object. Mindfulness is what notices when your concentration lapses and your thoughts stray.

Think of mindfulness as the ultimate, voiceless, and nonjudgmental observer. It judges nothing. It makes no distinctions. It simply observes everything that comes into its field of awareness. Your concentration, the force anchoring your mindfulness to some object in the present moment (the object of meditation), is the instrument of mindfulness.

Mindfulness decides where the point of concentration will be. It observes the anchor point (the point of your concentration), notices when concentration strays, and where it strays to. This might be difficult to imagine at first, but for now just know that the act of practicing mindfulness will feel much like concentrating on an object, such as your breathing, and then doing your best to notice or acknowledge when your thoughts stray.

Just being able to acknowledge when your thoughts stray will take some time. In the beginning, your practice will look and feel like this:

1. Concentrate on your breath.
2. Lose concentration within a few seconds, sometimes aware of the thought or feeling you strayed to, most of the time not.
3. Back to concentrating on your breath.

That’s it. But after a while, you’ll begin to notice these thoughts and feelings more often, more clearly, and that will allow you to acknowledge them with your mindfulness.

2. ...mindfulness of something in the present moment

Moving on from the last point, mindfulness is always mindfulness of something in the present moment. If you think hard on this, you'll realize that this goes without saying, because there is nothing but this moment. Any recollection of the past or imagination about the future occurs in the mind, within the present moment.

As we spoke about earlier, that can be mindfulness of a thought that arises in the present moment while concentrating on your breath, body or some other object. What mindfulness isn’t is consciouslyreflecting on the past or thinking about the future.

When reflecting on the past or thinking about the future, you’re consciously directing your attention to the past, future, or some altogether imagined place. But, you can always be mindful of what arises after contemplating the past or future. In any case, mindfulness is always the observing of what is occurring in the present moment.

As we go about our daily lives, we often don’t notice how our perception or mental filters, such as bias, affect how we see the world around us. And we think that what we’re thinking and seeing with our eyes are two different things. But they aren’t. What we see with our eyes passes through our perception before we even realize we see the object.

It’s like we have an internal checkpoint which we’ve built up from our life experiences. And this checkpoint has, over the years, gotten filled with both good and bad things which “color” our perception and affect our experiences.

In this way, you and your mindfulness are like the house cleaners come to clean up this internal checkpoint and empty it of all those things keeping you from experiencing reality in its true form.

Imagine someone offers you a piece of food which you’ve never tried before. This food somewhat resembles, say, Brussels sprouts (bleh!). As soon as you lay eyes on it you have a negative sensation. Maybe you get a bad taste in your mouth, your body cringes a little, and a bad memory of eating Brussels sprouts flashes into your mind.

This new food item could be amazing. You have no idea if it is or isn’t. You’ve never actually tried it. But your perception has already completely colored your experience to the point where it can even affect how it will taste.

This is an example of how our perception colors everything around us. Everything you perceive is your mind. You might think you’re observing your breath, a Brussels sprout, or a flower. But what you’re really observing is your perception of those things.

Mindfulness is about observing what is occurring in the present moment so that you can pierce through perception itself to witness reality as it is without any mental filters getting in the way.

This is why mindfulness is mindfulness of something in the present moment. The point of mindfulness is to experience reality as it is, allowing you to touch the true nature of a thing in that moment.

3. ...a conscious decision

Mindfulness is a purposeful directing of your consciousness to the present, it doesn’t happen on accident. To be fully awake to the present moment you have to decide “I am fully awake to this moment” by directing your consciousness to an object in the present moment. You decide to be mindful in any given moment. It doesn’t happen by accident.

I mentioned earlier how the point of your concentration, or object of meditation, works as your anchor point to the present moment. The starting point for the anchor and the eventual anchor point is this conscious decision.

Think of mindfulness as a ship and you’re the captain. You make the conscious decision to place the anchor down and where to place it. You then throw the anchor, your concentration, off the ship. The anchor then hits the intended anchor point, or object of meditation, where it will rest.

Of course, at first, this anchor won’t be very strong. It will be made of, say, plastic. Not a very good anchor. But with time, it will develop into a heavy and resilient anchor.

4. ...a nonjudgmental awareness

All spiritual practice in an overall sense is about realizing our connection with the ultimate and finding true peace and happiness through accomplishing total liberation (or freedom) from the various factors that hold us back from it. And so we become liberated by discovering the truth. That is, by uncovering all those things which cloud our vision.

This is the ultimate purpose of mindfulness. It’s this nonjudgmental awareness that makes mindfulness so important in finding true peace and happiness.

Mindfulness accepts everything as it is. As I mentioned earlier it makes no distinctions, holds no bias, and is completely separated from all mental filters which distort your perception of reality.

Mindfulness allows you to experience true reality. This is liberation. And as I also mentioned earlier, if you’re not sure how to do this at first then don’t worry.

Mindfulness is itself nonjudgmental. It’s helpful to keep this point in mind at times, but you’ll find this will happen somewhat naturally. If you sense bias or get the feeling that you’re somehow coloring your perception of something while practicing then this is a good thing. Simply noticing this is to become mindful of your various mental filters.

If this happens, know that you’re on the right path. As always, simply acknowledge it and bring yourself back to your object of meditation. It’s not wrong that you lose your concentration. What’s wrong is not observing the distraction with mindfulness.

5. ...developed like a muscle

Mindfulness works like a muscle. At the beginning, your energy of mindfulness will be very weak. But over time, your mindfulness will strengthen and you’ll notice a significant difference both in your ability to concentrate and in your ability to see with mindfulness.

This is important to know at the beginning because it’s at the very beginning stages where things are most difficult. While trying to establish the practice of mindfulness as a part of your life, you’ll be constantly fighting old habits.

In Buddhism, this is sometimes called “habit energy”. Imagine everything you do carries with it a certain energy. The more you do something the more energy it develops, and with it, the more “pull” it has.

You can develop energy anywhere in your life, in both positive and negative places. So when starting out don’t become discouraged when you’re having a hard time sticking to your mindfulness practice, such as when you forget to practice for an entire day altogether.

I went through this constantly at first and it’s just part of the challenge. But I promise you that if you just make your best effort, you'll make your way and establish a strong daily practice over time.

6. ...like turning on the “HD” switch to your life

Most of the time, without us even knowing it, our consciousness is split in many directions. It’s split between various sensations in the present moment and various thoughts in our mind.

When sitting at your computer at work, for instance, you could be typing up an email, but really, you’re typing up the email while semi-listening to two people talk a few feet away from you, noticing how cold you are, thinking about that episode of Lost you watched last night, and thinking about the fact that you feel like you’re gaining some weight.

That’s really what the “present moment” looks and feels like for most of us: our consciousness, bouncing constantly from one place to another. As you begin practicing mindfulness, you’ll start to observe this very behavior for yourself. This bouncing around makes us live in a way to where we’re only half-awake to anything that occurs around us.

Let’s call this life in “standard-definition”. More on this in a bit.

The last point I’d like to cover in this chapter is that it’s important for you to know what mindfulness feels like. I can put as many words as I’d like on a page describing how it works, how to do it, the benefits of doing it, and you could read it all, but if I don’t clearly explain how you’ll feel while truly being mindful then you won’t have much more than a guess at whether or not you’re really practicing mindfulness properly or not.

So what does mindfulness feel like? In a few words…it feels like turning on the “HD” (High-Definition) switch to your life.

By that I mean that the moment you make the conscious decision “I’m now fully aware of what I’m doing and what’s happening to me in the present moment” you should feel as though you’ve come alive. As though, before you made that conscious decision and “activated” your mindfulness, you were half-asleep. With time, you’ll notice things you never noticed before and everything around you will be magnified.

Don’t expect the feeling to be that intense at first, though. When you first start practicing the feeling will be subtle, which is all the more reason why one of the first mindfulness practices you adopt should be mindful sitting (traditionally just called sitting meditation, which we’ll cover in Part 2).

While sitting quietly in meditation, you’ll make the greatest progress towards improving your concentration and developing your mindfulness, as opposed to doing a more difficult activity before you’ve really developed your skill level.

This is because you’ll have fewer distractions and will be able to “hone in” on the feeling I described in the last chapter better. Once you’ve developed your mindfulness though it will be highly beneficial to practice mindfulness of more difficult tasks in order to develop your skill.

One last note: Even if you’re just beginning with mindfulness, while you might not be able to tell exactly what thoughts arise in your mind, you should still begin noticing these distractions as they arise. Simply noticing that some sort of distraction just arose in your mind is the second feeling you should look out for, even if at first you don’t know what the thoughts or feelings are exactly.

Take these two feelings described together and you’ll have a much clearer picture of what mindfulness should feel like. Use the information I described in this point to guide your practice in the beginning.

Breaking down mindfulness into parts helps us understand how it works. But we need to make sure not to make the mistake of actually thinking of mindfulness as a bunch of separate things.

Mindfulness is one thing: it’s the conscious act of bringing one’s complete awareness into the present reality, which allows us to see the world in a way we’ve never seen it before- beyond our wrong perceptions (and perception itself), preconceived notions, deep-seated emotions, and beyond the ego. Seeing reality in its purest state, filled with a limitless peace, joy, and freedom.

The moment you make the conscious decision “I am going to be fully aware of what I’m doing here and what’s happening to me in the present moment” you should feel as though you’ve come alive. As though, before you made that conscious decision and “activated” your mindfulness, you were half-asleep.

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FAQ : What’s the difference between mindfulness and meditation?

At this point you might be wondering: what exactly is the difference between mindfulness and meditation? Mindfulness is itself a form of meditation. One of various forms of meditation. Which is why, as you might have noticed, the word meditation has been used in place of, or alongside, mindfulness at various points in the book thus far. There’s just certain more traditional ways of referring to different types of mindfulness practices which can often make things confusing for a beginner.

Mindful sitting is traditionally called sitting meditation, simply meditation, or more recently mindfulness meditation. Mindful walking is traditionally called walking meditation, not mindful walking. Things like this can make it confusing for someone just starting out, especially someone who’s learning on their own without the guidance of a formal teacher, which is common in the age of the internet.

So, if mindfulness is a form of meditation, what is meditation? Meditation covers a pretty broad spectrum of techniques. But there is a central theme. All meditation has to do with developing the mind through becoming absorbed with something. In a nutshell, meditation is:

A mental technique characterized by absorption of the mind on an object (either mental or physical) and used to develop or maintain the mind. 

Like mindfulness, meditation can be defined in a number of ways. What’s important is just that you get the general idea. Your true understanding of meditation will come when you actually begin to meditate.

Why Practice Mindfulness?

"Mindlessness is the primary cause of our unhappiness. Mindfulness is the cure. "

The Buddha considered mindfulness a matter of life and death. Not a matter of whether we'll stay breathing or keel over and die from one day to the next, rather this means that whether you're truly alive and in control of your destiny or not is a matter of mindfulness. Mindfulness gives you back control of your life.

When mindless, you're not in complete control of yourself. Your deep-seeded limiting beliefs take control and direct you in a way that attempts to protect the ego. The ego has no concern for our happiness and well-being nor any care for reconciliation with our deep-seeded anger, sadness or any other limiting belief we may have.

On top of that, the outside world constantly pulls and pushes you wherever it likes. Life happens, and naturally, your mind reacts to it. That is unless you practice mindfulness.

When mindful, you awaken and see through all illusions. You see your limiting beliefs rise to the surface. This allows your body and mind's natural healing process to take effect.

Think of mindfulness as your anchor point. The way most of us live our lives, we're physically in one place but mentally in another. We're dispersed between what's actually going on in the present moment, what already happened (past) and what is yet to happen (future).

Without even knowing it, we're causing ourselves a lot of pain. We live unreasonably expecting or wanting something other than what's in front of us, we regret what happened in the past even though we have no control over it and then disconnect from what is because the pain of both of those things makes it more enjoyable to live in our imaginations. This is a major cause of unhappiness.

This mind dispersion, or mindlessness, heightens stress and anxiety, decreases our productivity, restrains our creativity, disconnects us from the world around us including our loved ones and overall makes us less happy. Instead of being at peace, when we're mindless instead of mindful, our minds are often in chaos.

In Buddhism this mind dispersion is referred to as "monkey mind" and is something we've all experienced at one point or another. Some more than others. This is the mind that bounces around from one thought to another uncontrollably. Mindfulness calms our monkey mind by creating an anchor point in the present moment.

At first, the monkey mind will resist, but with time you will tame it and gain back full control over your mind. This is the path to true happiness.

This is also the major reason mindfulness and mindfulness meditation is so powerful and attractive to us in our modern plugged-in 24/7 world. More than ever it's so easy to live in a mindless, disconnected, state of being. Mindfulness brings us back to ourselves. And it turns out, that's all that we ever needed in order to be happy.

Mindfulness is the practice for everyone. Children, adults, men, women, soldiers, athletes, scientists, teachers and everyone in between.  It's the most basic practice of peace, happiness and self-healing. And as I'm about to show you, there's a lot of science to back up this point.

The Science of Mindfulness

As if that wasn't enough reason to practice mindfulness, there just so happens to be A LOT of science to back its effectiveness. Below is a list benefits, many stretching beyond what I mentioned above. All of this comes back to the same thing-when we're fully awake to the present moment we become our best selves. Our true selves.

I mentioned earlier that mindfulness has become the focus of hundreds of scientific studies. I also mentioned that the results have been so positive that even Wall Street, Silicon Valley as well as medical centers, hospitals and even parts of our education system all across the U.S. have adopted the practice of mindfulness.

With that impressive list, it's needless to say that the scientific findings on mindfulness have been pretty stellar. Here are some of the scientifically validated benefits of mindfulness:

The Scientifically Validated Benefits of Mindfulness:

• Mindful eating helps you lose weight and encourages healthier eating habits.
• Mindfulness boosts our immune system's ability to fight off illness.
• Mindfulness increases positive emotions and decreases negative emotions (including stress).
• Mindfulness fights depression.
• Mindfulness reduces the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
• Mindfulness increases the density of grey matter in our brains (which is linked to empathy, emotion regulation, learning and memory).
• Mindfulness improves our focus.
• Mindfulness makes us more compassionate.(and here).
• Mindfulness improves our relationships by making us more satisfied, optimistic, relaxed, and accepting of one another.
• Mindfulness is great for parents and children- it improves our relationships with children, makes us happier with our parenting skills and improves the social skills of those children who practice it with their parents.
• Mindfulness helps both teachers and students(and here)- Mindfulness reduces student's behavioral problems and aggression and improves happiness levels and their ability to focus. Also, for teachers, mindfulness has shown to lower negative emotions, fight depression, foster compassion and empathy and lower blood pressure.

How to Practice Mindfulness + Getting Started

This is the fun part. Now it's time to begin learning how to practice, and feeling the effects of, mindfulness. Before you read through this section and dive into the material though, remember the working mindfulness definition we covered earlier. It will help you initially get into the right mindset for practice.

As you go about your day you should begin to closely examine everything you do. Create the habit of "checking" yourself throughout your day. Ask yourself at random points in the day: "Am I here, or somewhere else?". Many times we don't even realize we're not being fully awake to the present moment. Let me give an example.

In The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation, ThichNhatHanh tells a story of how one day he and his friend Jim shared a tangerine under the shade of a tree. Jim began talking about what they would be doing in the future, attractive future projects and the like.

Jim became so immersed in this thought that soon he forgot altogether what he was doing there in the present moment. He'd put a section of tangerine in his mouth and, before finishing the piece he was chewing, would have ready another piece to put into this mouth. NhatHanh said:

You ought to eat the tangerine section you've already taken.

Jim was surprised. He hadn't realized it, but he wasn't really eating the tangerine at all. As ThichNhatHanh puts it:

If he had been eating anything, he was "eating" his future plans.

Why do I tell this story? Because in order to know how we can cultivate mindfulness it helps for us to be able to identifywhen we're not being mindful.

This story aptly sums up the way most of us live our lives. Everyone can relate to doing this at some point. We do this on a daily basis and many of us constantly throughout the day. This story does a great job of helping us identify what a lack of mindfulness looks like in our everyday lives.

This is a process, it will take time to notice when you're not being mindful and to build the habit of practicing mindfulness throughout your day. But, it's worth it, as you saw from the previous section. This isn't a race, so don't try to do everything at once. Take it one step at a time and you'll begin feeling the effects of mindfulness on your mind and body.

Let's go over some basic ways to add mindfulness into your everyday life:

Sitting

Sitting meditation is how most people are introduced to mindfulness. Many think mindfulness is just a form of sitting meditation, but to think so is to greatly misunderstand the purpose and downplay the importance of mindfulness.

In order to create new mental habits and condition your mind you need to be mindful throughout your day, not just during meditation. It can be beneficial to think of mindfulness as an extension of your meditation practice and sitting meditation as the foundation.

Walking

Walking meditation is great because you can do it anywhere and at any time. It's absolutely one of my favorite mindfulness practices and pairs well with being in nature. But, as long as you're walking you can practice walking meditation anywhere.

Resource:The Ultimate Guide to Walking Meditation

Following the Breath

This can be done anywhere and at any time and is really an extension of your meditation practice, yet still it's own distinct technique and worth mentioning here. All you have to do here is pay attention to your in-breath and out-breath. Make sure your breaths are easy, light and even. As you breathe be aware of where you are and what you're doing.

Feel the breath coming in and out. Don't attempt to control your breath, just pay attention to it (although your attention on it will calm your breathing somewhat naturally). During this moment, whatever you do, don't lose attention on your breath. Your breath is the most effective tool we have for practicing mindfulness. It's always there with us so it works as the perfect anchor to the present moment.

This exercise is great used as an occasional pause button in your day. When you first begin practicing mindfulness you'll have to remind yourself to practice, so pausing a few times throughout the day to do this is perfect as it begins to establish the habit.

Other basic activities

Other basic activities such as sweeping, doing the dishes, brushing your hair and teeth, gardening, drawing or painting and others can be very nourishing mindfulness activities. These types of activities are much easier to do in mindfulness than, say, having a conversation with someone, which won't be possible until you've built up a certain level of concentration.

You can pick to do any of the above activities in mindfulness once you've practiced mindfulness of breath for a bit. Just make sure you do these activities slowly so that you stay in mindfulness from start to finish. Be 100% fully committed to the task at hand.

If you're sweeping the floor, sweeping the floor becomes the most important thing in the world. Don't sweep the floor so that you can be prepared with a clean floor for when company comes over later. That isn't sweeping the floor in mindfulness. Sweep the floor to sweep the floor. That is mindfulness.

Get a free download of my book, The Little Book of Mindfulness

My first book is a complete 130-page A-Z guide on mindfulness that expands on this guide and gives you practical tips and strategies for effectively bringing mindfulness into your everyday life.

To get The Little Book of Mindfulness, just enter your name and email below, click the yellow button, and you're good to go:

 

Additional Mindfulness Resources:

Here's a list of additional resources, all to help you deepen your understanding of mindfulness, develop your practice, and make it a daily habit:

1. How to Practice Mindfulness: The Quick and Easy Guide to Learning Mindfulness Meditation
2. 6 Great Ways to Implement Mindfulness in the Workplace
3. The Mindfulness Survival Guid
4. How to Meditate for Beginner
5. ZfEL Ep. 8: How to Create a Home Meditation Practic
6. 5 Steps to Making Meditation a Daily Habi
7. 5 Tools to Help You Start Your Home Meditation Practice
8. ZfEL Ep. 6: How to Make Mindfulness a Way of Life: 7 Keys to Living a More Mindful Life
9. 7 Ways to Live More Mindfully in the Busy, Fast-Paced, and Plugged In Modern Worl
10. Free Guided Meditations for Greater Peace and Clarity

I hope this guide was able to give you a clear definition of mindfulness and answer the question "what is mindfulness?" fully and completely.

If you have any questions about the practice or about mindfulness itself, feel free to contact me here and I'll be more than willing to help.

Peace,

Matt

Notes:

1. Thanks to Greatergood.berkley.edu for putting together great high-quality articles on the various scientific studies on mindfulness.

Book Preview #2: The Little Book of Mindfulness, Chapter 2: Finding Peace Within

The Little Book of Mindfulness Book Previews: 1. The Little Book of Mindfulness, Chapter 1 2. The Little Book of Mindfulness, Chapter 2: Finding Peace Within (Current) 3. The Little Book of Mindfulness, Chapter 3: Awakening to Your True Nature

Making Progress

Writing a book is best done one chapter at a time. If you try to tackle too much at once you'll just end up overwhelmed and incapable of even finishing a single chapter. This has been a big challenge, but the biggest writing challenge for me has always been finding out how to explain things in a simple manner while still getting the complete point across.

"You never really know something until you have to teach it to someone." This isn't an exact quote, just something I've remembered roughly ever since I was a kid. And it couldn't be truer.

You might think you know something, or are good at something, but until you have to explain it/teach it to someone else you realize your knowledge was only fuzzy. Writing forces you to sharpen your focus on the subject at hand. It has the ability to help you develop an incredibly clear level of understanding. And for this reason, writing is best used to convey some truth which has the ability to teach either yourself or another something valuable. For discovering that in my own life I'm grateful, but it's because of this that I also feel the need to tell others about the power of writing.

If you're faced with a difficult situation, or sense some strong or confusing emotions rising to the surface, take out a pen and paper or sit down at your computer and just write. Write whatever comes to mind. "It kind of feels like anger.", or, "I think I'm jealous of my sister." Whatever rises to the surface when you begin to write, just let it out. This can be an incredibly healing activity and a great partner to mindfulness.

I hope you enjoy this exclusive preview of Part 1, Chapter 2 of The Little Book of Mindfulness: Finding Peace Within. Let me know what you think!

 Part 1, Chapter 2:

Finding Peace Within

So, now you have a general understanding of what mindfulness is. But why practice mindfulness? What’s so important about being mindful? Knowing how mindfulness works is only part of what constitutes a complete understanding of mindfulness. In the introduction, I covered briefly some of the reasons why you should practice mindfulness. In this chapter, I’ll expand on what I mentioned there and show you why mindfulness is the key to both finding inner peace and true happiness.

All spiritual practice can be broken down into obtaining and maintaining two states: 1) a calm mind, and 2) a clear mind. In Buddhism, these two states are generally referred to by their Pali/Sanskirt terms depending on the Buddhist lineage. The first state, samatha, is a state of tranquility, inner peace, or calmness of mind. And the second, vipassana, is a state of awakening or clarity of mind. The first state, samatha, is typically translated as “stopping” (referring to the mind). Samatha is the process of stopping, calming, fully resting, and healing the mind. The growing popularity of mindfulness as a way to “manage” one’s emotions and reduce stress comes from the samatha side of the equation.

Samatha, which moving forward I’ll refer to as inner peace, tranquility, or calmness of mind, is the necessary basis for the second stage, vipassana, which refers to seeing deeply or with clarity. The English equivalent of vipassana is “insight”, and it’s the word typically associated with vipassana. Insight is wisdom gained through direct experience, and insight into the “true nature of reality” is what vipassana is all about (moving forward I’ll refer to vipassana as awakening, insight, or clarity of mind). You’re likely familiar with the concept of “learning from experience”. You know, the idea that, say, reading something in a book and “knowing” it is different from experiencing it yourself. You might have read ten books on true love and think you know all about it, but until you actually experience true love for yourself you don’t really know true love. That’s insight. In the case of spiritual practice, though, this direct experience is typically a direct experience of the “Ultimate Reality”. This ultimate reality goes by many names: the ultimate or absolute dimension, the ground of being, or even God, depending on your interpretation. But we’ll get more into that in the next chapter.

Likewise, the “benefits”, or purpose, of mindfulness can be separated based on these two states as well. Which brings us to the topic of this chapter: the first “power” of mindfulness. The first power of mindfulness is the ability to help one obtain inner peace or a calm mind (samatha).

Inner peace is the very foundation of spiritual practice. Without it, we wouldn’t be able to obtain awakening, the state of complete liberation and true happiness. How does mindfulness help us attain inner peace? The process can be broken down into four components: stopping, calming, fully resting, and healing (the mind and body).

Stopping

Obtaining a tranquil mind, the practice of samatha, is ultimately about stopping. We need to learn how to stop. At first, this might seem silly, “I’m sitting while I’m reading this book. I’m stopping!” But it’s not so simple. By stopping I mean we need to stop both body and mind. A mind at rest is a peaceful mind. So we need to learn how to fully stop and let our minds calm. By doing so we bring us back to ourselves. This is called the practice of “going home”, and it’s the practice of going home to ourselves by reuniting mind and body. The practice of mindful breathing does just that- it allows us to reunite mind and body as they’re truly meant to be. This is important because the way we typically live our lives both mind and body are almost always separated.

Mindfulness is in opposition to the way we usually live our lives. That is, halfway in our heads, bouncing around in an endless stream of thoughts, and halfway in the present moment, only partially awake to what we’re doing. This state of semi-consciousness, or mind dispersion, is a state where we’re unable to attain complete rest and our minds are perpetually clouded.

This semi-conscious state, or mind dispersion, is what the Buddha often referred to as our “monkey mind”. Our monkey mind is constantly bouncing from one thought to another. We’re doing one thing (body) but thinking about another (mind). We’re driving home from work while we’re thinking about work, and then bills, and then dinner, and then that dinner date with your old friend coming up, and then your daughter’s school project, and then whatever happened to your favorite band because they seemed to drop off the map, and then “When was that TV special again?”, and then work, oh and then that sounds good for dinner, and then you look in your overhead mirror and think “I look tired today”, and then a Sit-And-Sleep commercial for some reason pops into your head and so you start thinking about how you really should get a new mattress soon, and then you think about home again and how the day is passing so quickly, and then, and then, and then…it never ends. That is, unless you take action.

Mindfulness delicately brings the mind to rest and unites body and mind as one force. When you walk to work you’re walking to work and you’re enjoying the walk with all of your being. You’re not thinking about what’s for dinner or what you’ll say to your boss about that project when you get into the office. When you drive home you know you’re driving. You’re not letting yourself be distracted by the billboard advertisements or passing retail outlet signs. You’re truly enjoying the drive home in peace and quiet. When you’re sitting down to play with your children you’re fully present for them, giving them you complete and undivided attention. When you live with mindfulness you’re able to truly appreciate the presence of your loved ones.

This state of mind dispersion does more than just make us stressed and take us away from our loved ones. On top of heightening stress and anxiety it decreases our productivity, restrains our creativity, disconnects us from the world around us, and overall makes us less happy. Instead of being at peace, our minds are in chaos. And as long as our attention is dispersed this monkey mind will rear its mischievous little head. The only way to stop our monkey mind is with mindfulness. Mindfulness gives us the ability to stop our monkey minds. Once we learn how to do this, the process of calming the mind, obtaining complete rest, and healing comes naturally. This is because, in reality, there’s no separating the four components of inner peace (samatha) as you’ll see in the next sections.

Calming

By living in the present moment with mindfulness we’re able to bring our mind into a state of deep calm. A natural byproduct of learning how to stop the mind and body and simply be fully present, such as for the act of following one’s breath, is a calm mind. Indeed, the opposite of our monkey mind is a calm mind.

Calming the mind is a process, though. It doesn’t happen all at once. We build up a lot of stress and tension in our everyday lives and it takes some time to fully calm the mind, especially assuming your current life doesn’t just stop when you begin practicing mindfulness (which it doesn’t!). You’ll still have the same headaches and stressors as before and so you’ll need to calm the mind despite these things constantly getting in the way. Of course, this is a two-sided problem. You might need to reevaluate why you do certain things which are causing you stress. But your focus should always be on your practice of mindfulness. By making the act of stopping a priority and seeking to live your life fully in the present moment, cherishing every moment of life, you’ll naturally begin to calm the mind.

Resting

Nowadays, we’re so productivity focused we even map out our vacations. A checklist for a vacation? Yeah, we’ve lost our way. We live off of checklists and to-do lists at work and at home. We think the more things we check off of our list the better we’ll feel. We don’t even notice it but what we’re chasing is inner peace. We’re hoping for just a little slice of it here and there. Even if it’s temporary. But we don’t have to settle for these temporary states of peace. We can have the whole pie. Indeed, if we could only learn how to truly come in touch with it, we’d see that this pie is limitless.

We need to learn how to attain complete rest. By complete rest, I’m referring to a fully rested mind and body. A state which most of us rarely if ever feel. And a full night’s sleep doesn’t provide this for us either. We’re tossing, turning, and bending our bodies in uncomfortable positions which lead to aches and pains. To add to that we’re dreaming constantly. And the more your mind is racing when you go to bed, the more it will be racing in your dreams when you go to sleep. Worst of all, though, our sleep can be interrupted (especially if you have kids!). That really sets us off. Then there’s the fact that sleep primarily rests the body and does very little for our monkey mind. The second we wake up, we’re right back in the jungle.

Mindfulness, particularly sitting meditation, allows us to attain this state of complete rest. It gives our minds the rest it needs. My favorite example is the image of a pebble slowly falling to the ocean floor. Imagine your mind is the pebble. The longer you meditate, the deeper the pebble sinks. And the deeper the pebble sinks, the more calm and peaceful your mind becomes. Meditate until you feel your mind reach the ocean floor. Imagine your body slowly sinking just like the pebble. Then simply sit there for however long you’d like. Be fully present for this state of absolute calm. This is what inner peace feels like. This is true rest.

If we can learn how to rest in this way we give ourselves the ability to overcome so much. Without a doubt, the major reason we experience so much stress and anxiety in modern life is because we don’t know how to attain complete rest.

Healing

This last section is about learning how to utilize the body’s natural healing ability. In order to attain inner peace, it’s not enough to stop, calm, and completely rest the body. These are key aspects of achieving a tranquil mind. But if we don’t know how to heal our mind and body then we’ll have no chance of attaining inner peace.

Our mind and body come equipped with a natural healing ability. We’ve all but forgotten about it, living in an age of advanced medicine, thousands of both over-the-counter and subscription medicines, and a whole roster of mental and physical professionals all ready to help us heal our mental and physical wounds. It’s because of this that we now grossly underestimate our own ability to heal.

We’ve forgotten that the only thing necessary in order to heal is to be with that which needs to be healed. My favorite example of this is from Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh. He often speaks of how, when injured, an animal’s natural instinct is to find somewhere safe and quiet to lie and rest. This is what it means to be with an illness, whether mental or physical. By stopping all activity the animal conserves every ounce of energy. This puts all of their being into the process of healing. You can do this yourself to heal both mental and physical illness.

What is a mental illness? In the case of the mind, this could be a deep-seated negative emotion or limiting belief. Maybe you hold a deep sense of resentment, and maybe even anger, towards your spouse. Years ago, when you first started dating, things were great. You were both young and you had the entire world at your fingertips. You had fun and generally lived life with wild abandon. But years later you become married, have children, and gain multiple responsibilities. Now you feel as if the entire world has closed in around you. You feel like all the opportunity and possibilities that were once at your fingertips are all but gone. Never to return. Because of this, you now resent your spouse. This is an example of a very deep-seated emotion which needs to be overcome before you can achieve inner peace.

To heal this and any other form of deep-seated emotion you need to sit in meditation and simply be with the emotion. When mindful, you awaken and see through all illusions. Your limiting beliefs rise to the surface. This allows your body and mind’s natural healing process to take effect. You simply need to care for the emotion. Tend to it. Accept it fully with compassion. Much of our suffering comes from our tendency to bottle up emotions and ignore them, thinking that if we do they’ll go away. But this never happens. Neglect won’t heal your wounds. You need to face these emotions with your mindfulness and full of self-compassion. Know that you’re human and everyone has emotions such as these. Accept it fully with your mindfulness and it will subside. This is our natural healing ability and anyone can utilize this with practice.

As you can see, there’s really no separating these four areas from each other. Stopping and calming essentially always happen simultaneously to some extent, resting involves stopping, calming, healing can really be considered a form of resting (or vice versa), and all four can be a part of one single mindfulness practice.

Finding Peace in the Age of Distraction

Distraction is a force which takes our already dispersed attention and splits it into a million different strings. It brings our monkey mind to a whole new level. This was already touched on in the section on “Stopping”, but our modern world warrants extra focus on this particular point. If it wasn’t enough that our minds are already naturally inclined to this semi-conscious and stress inducing state, the modern era has brought us many of the worst sources of distraction all within a matter of decades.

These distractions, which are the substance of our monkey mind, are always within arm’s reach in our modern world. Smartphones are in our pockets, desktops are at our place of work, and TVs are in our homes. It’s so easy to distract ourselves from reality. But if we can bring our attention back to the present moment with mindfulness we have the ability to attain both a tranquil mind and clear vision.

This is the reason mindfulness is so attractive to us. Our modern world is plugged in 24/7 and it’s difficult to get away from these distractions even if you make an effort. More than ever it’s so easy to live in a mindless, disconnected, state of being. Most of us are rarely fully present. We live in a state of perpetual distraction. We live the majority of our lives in one place while thinking of another. We’re at work but we’re thinking about what to make for dinner at home. We’re at home thinking about that project we have to finish at work. We’re enjoying eating out with our family but we’re really inside of our heads, stressing about the bills we have to pay next month.  We all think this is normal. That it’s OK. But it’s not. This mind dispersion is the cause of much of our suffering and discontent.

After a tough day, one where you’ve been rushing around constantly and inevitably forgotten to take time for yourself. Your mind will naturally be more active. If you sit down to meditate during this time you’ll see that your mind is literally like a firecracker. It will be very difficult to keep the mind in one place for more than a few seconds. In this situation, the mind will often be distracted over nothing special. It’s still racing because it’s conditioned to you racing around, not because there’s anything particular going on in your consciousness. Mindfulness of these distractions won’t lead to any great liberation. This is simply a sign that you need to slow things down. If your life continues as is it will be very difficult to attain complete rest and fully quiet the mind. And if you can’t calm the mind you certainly won’t be able to get to the point where you can start gaining clarity of mind. Of course, that’s part of the point of mindfulness. At the beginning, in order to practice mindfulness of anything you’ll have to do it very slowly. If you’re constantly rushing around your mindfulness practice won’t be authentic. You’ll be telling yourself that you’re practicing mindfulness but you won’t actually be mindful.

Computers, smartphones, and TVs aren’t the enemy. But you do need to be careful not to go overboard. For this reason (among many others), it’s important to establish mindfulness as a way of life as opposed to simply “something you do sometimes”. By making mindfulness a way of life you’ll begin to notice how these things distract you and pull you away from the real beauty of life. You’ll naturally begin to distance yourself from these devices a bit. A busy mind is only natural and the modern age has made our minds more chaotic than ever. But by developing the practice of mindfulness in your daily life you have the ability to stop, calm, fully rest, and heal the mind and body which will provide a renewable sense of peace and joy in your everyday life. In Part 3 I’ll cover all the tips and tricks I’ve personally used to establish mindfulness as a way of life.

UPDATE: Get My eBook, The Little Book of Mindfulness, free: