Developing Mindfulness is a Personal Experience

The path of developing mindfulness starts with sitting comfortably in a quiet place (indoors or outdoors) and starting to breathe normally. Forced or labored breathing or holding the breath at any time during the practice are un-physiological and only increase stress. Thus, although such maneuvers are taught in some sectors, they should be avoided because they are counterproductive.

Mindfulness is originated from The Buddhist and Hindu religious systems.  It can be considered a universal human ability embodied to foster clear thinking and open heartedness.  As such, mindfulness requires no particular affiliation to religious or cultural belief system.   The current understanding of a mindful path is that it is a psychological quality that that can be developed, which involves bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis. Despite media advertisements, it does not require any material, equipment, or purchasing anything.

The process of carrying out mindful meditation practices:

Mindfulness development is an effective way to cultivating awareness and acceptance of our inner and outer experiences, which enables balancing our lives. This process can begin with the breath.  Breath can be felt or visualized in three areas in our body: the tip of the nose, the upper chest, and the abdomen. 

Breath is utilized as a tool in developing the mindfulness. This Samatha meditation method was derived from the ancient Buddhist-teachings, which can be practiced observing the feeling of movement using any of these mentioned three areas. Certain traditions within Buddhism prefer one over the other. It is matter of choice for the practitioner; you should choose what feels best and is easily engaged.

In breath meditation-based developing mindfulness, it is important to be aware of what is happening in your body as the breath comes in and goes out. Breath is always with you, so you do not need any artificial or material, mantra, sound, or light to practice this simple meditation process to develop mindfulness. In the longer term, the use of such become distractions.   

During meditation, it is common to feel thoughts, discomforts, or other distractions coming into your mind. Simply acknowledge them, recognize their nature, and let them go. Avoid the desire or urge to analyze these distractions as we generally use to do with our unfocused mind; just let them come and go. When the mind drifts away, recognize it, and bring the mind back to the breath, to the present moment. Gently bringing the focus back to your breath is the right thing to do.

Two modes of developing mindfulness:

To progress with mindfulness, one can accomplish in two ways: (A) keep the focus on the breath throughout the practice or (B) move attention gently to the body, starting from the bottom to the top (or vice versa), noticing sensations as they really are. Feelings in various parts of the body can include, pain (or pleasure), discomfort (or comfort), heaviness (or lightness), cold (or heat), etc. One should merely notice these feelings and sensations, without judging them. However, we should not try to understand the sensations, attempt to alter them or get rid of them. Just feel these sensations and let them go.

Treat emotions in a similar manner; recognize them and let them go. Note that emotions and feelings that arising from various sections of the body can intermingle. Recognize them and let them go; this is a practice vital for advancing one’s meditation training. With practice, the frequency and depth of these thoughts, sensations, and emotions, lessen. One gradually creates a rational space in the mind (that is empty of defilements), where there is little mental disturbance.:

Mindful body awareness:

In the meditation using “body sensation,” (also called, body scanning) one could vary attention to external parts of the body that one can sense and feel. Similarly, if one feels, hears, tastes, or smells something, simply acknowledge these sensations without judgment and let them go, as described above.

In this method of body awareness-related mindfulness development, one pays attention to one’s posture and areas of the body that touch a cushion or a chair, allowing oneself to keep one’s mind on noticing these without wandering. Not being judgmental increases openness and allows one to let go easily, of one’s feelings and sensations. 

Examples of how we can maintain mindfulness:

Outside the sitting and walking meditation practices, there are many daily activities that we can easily carry out mindfully. These include but are not limited to eating, speaking, walking, washing clothes or dishes. The simplicity and frequency of the occurrence of these tasks make it easy to use focusing the mind through the senses in the moment. Doing these tasks consciously while paying attention is an easy and a practical way of maintaining mindfulness.

For example, when washing clothes or dishes, smell and feel the soapiness of the water, the coldness or warmth of the water, the sight and the feeling of the dishes or clothes, and the sounds made during the chore. In fact, washing dishes or clothes mindfully has been shown to increase calmness and reduce stress, and begin to enjoy the task. 

These thoughtful practices, when used properly can promote the mindfulness, increased attention.  In fact, the mindfulness as well as positive affect could be cultivated through intentionally engaging in a broad range of activities. To achieve such, one should not be forced to do these chores.

Other activities that can be done mindfully include taking a walk, gardening, enjoying flowers, engage in listening to music or playing an instrument, and taking a shower. As an example of the latter, the temperature of the water and the feel of it against the skin, the smell and feel of the lather of soap, and the sound of water flowing can calm the mind and relax the body.  

Zen masters have taught their followers to “walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet,” paying full attention to walking as the feet touch and lift from the ground. Daily mindful walking is a practical and an inspiring way to experience and gain mindfulness, and get additional physical activity help the mind and the body. Walking is natural, and we do it frequently but automatically (autopilot mode). Generally, we do not think about our walking, posture, lifting each leg from the ground and placing it in the front, or the sensations arising from the joints and the feet. In mindful walking we engage in these. 

Only rarely do we bring our attention to walking, such as when we walk across a narrow bridge or over raised stones. Walking meditation preferably should be done in bare feet. That allows us to feel the ground, sand, mat, or concrete beneath our feet, which enhances our attention to the present moment.  Bringing our awareness to our day-to-day activities focuses our attention, breaks the cycle to automation and helps us begin to experience what we are doing. 

Eating is another activity that should be done mindfully. More often than not, we eat while listening to the radio or television, talking to others, thinking, reading, or using our ever-present social media platforms but pay no attention to eating. When thoughts, concerns, or feelings come while mindfully eating, just notice them and let go of them, as you would during sitting meditation practice.  

Eating mindfully allows us to experience the taste and texture of the food with minimal distractions from within or from others. In the longer term, together with increased physical activity, mindful eating could help to reduce the societal problem of overweight and obesity and reduce negative metabolic effects, such as insulin resistance syndrome and type 2 diabetes. 

The next article examines the "experiences" associated with maintaining mindfulness.   

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Professor Sunil J. Wimalawansa, MD, PhD, MBA, DSc, is a physician-scientist, educator, social entrepreneur, and process consultant. He is a philanthropist with experience in long-term strategic planning, cost-effective investment and interventions globally for preventing non-communicable diseases. [recent charitable work]. The author has no conflicts of interest; he has received no funding for this work.