Skip to main content

Mindfulness

By indulging in thinking either about past incidents or about future intentions, our thoughts take us away from being here now. In this state, if we are doing something like driving a car, there is a chance that you could miss something like observing an important traffic sign. For that matter, if we are overtaken by our thoughts, we loose all our awareness about happenings in the current moment. When I take a moment to observe myself having thoughts, I am no longer the thoughts. I get to be and observe at the same time. The one thing that always happens now is our breathing, if we concentrate on our breathing, it draws me into the present. This paying attention to the here and now, to the breath, to the observing one's thoughts without being critical or judgmental is called Mindfulness.

Mindfulness is being aware of and paying attention to the current moment. Our past is gone, our future is not yet here. So what exist between them is the present moment. If I can observe and not get caught up in my thoughts, it is all that I have. The here and now, the present is the link which holds what was and what will be. My past was a series of present moments which brought me to this present moment. My future should it happen will be a series of present moments effected by only present moment in which I am now living, being, doing, observing, being aware or unaware, and attentive or inattentive. Mindfulness occurs only in the individual. That individual makes a choice to be in the moment and be aware of what is happening in the present moment. In that choice is a realization.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Importance of Breathing

Breathing is the primary function of human body which keeps him alive. This signifies the importance of breathing, we are alive till we are breathing and we are dead once we stop breathing. But we hardly ever notice that we are breathing, breathing normally happens mechanically.You may ask me why should I know about breathing when it is automatically taken care off. Yes, it is automatically happening, but that is the problem, when breathing happens without our consciousness, it gets affected by our emotions and most of the time we will be doing shallow breathing. Our emotions vary across the day, getting angry, always in a hurry, sad etc. In turn during these emotions our mind works more on emotions and forgets breathing, when breathing is neglected it often becomes shallow and abnormal.At any point if we just observe our breathing we will know what state of mind we are in, we are at peace or going through a problem or trouble. If we are at peace or joyous our breathing will be normal,...
2 comments
Read more

Mind and Intellect

According to Indian philosophy, our mind is flow of thoughts. Whenever we have thoughts, mind has to be there. On the contrary, if there are no thoughts then there is no mind. When we are sleeping, there are no thoughts, hence there is no mind during sleep. The state of our mind depends on emotions of our thoughts. When our thoughts are calm and hopeful our mind is calm and hopeful. When our thoughts are agitated, the mind is agitated. Thoughts are not static they are always flowing, it is like a river, sometime goes through turbulence, sometime flows in calm. Intellect is our decision making capability. Intellect directs the flow of thoughts, that is mind. If our intellect is noble, the thought flowing must also be noble. Through our sense organs, the mind receives external stimuli . The intellect, being the discriminating faculty, examines and judges the stimuli received by the mind, and decides what needs to be done. This decision is sent to the organs of action. Intellect depends o...
Post a Comment
Read more

The root of suffering is attachment

“The root of suffering is attachment”  - Buddha An important teaching that we all need to work on. Non-attachment doesn’t mean to disconnect from your loved ones and lead a life of a hermit, but to be able to live amidst all this and accept the impermanence of all things. It means to go with the natural flow of life and not be attached to any of these things that the thought of losing it makes you angry or annoyed. Its only when you become attached, that all the problems and negative emotions arise. But when you don’t cling to things, it becomes easier to simply let go of the excess or things that don’t serve you any more.
Post a Comment
Read more