Mindfulness ActivitiesMeditations on the Life You're Already LivingMindfulness activities are meditation practices that anyone can do. And as familiar and accessible as these activities are, simple things like watching the breath, and scanning the body with your mind's eye lie at the heart of the ancient traditions of yoga and meditation. An even more immediate experience with consciousness can be found in the practice of mindful attentiveness to the life you're already living. Really. Whatever it is.
Try it now. It only takes a minute. Look around you. Let your eyes be soft, not looking for something, or at somewhere because you need to go there. Just look to see what is. Let your thoughts slow down as you name to yourself what you see. Start with the big picture - Computer, desk, walls, bookshelf, curtain. Then begin to take in smaller details - your own hands, their fingers, what they're touching. Differing shades of color and light. Maybe one wall of the room you're in right now is in shadow, and another is in full light. Use your other senses, too - do the lights make a buzzing sound, are there cars to be heard passing by? People walking? Maybe a bird... Sometimes the stress of life is such that our thoughts won't slow down NO MATTER WHAT. That's ok. That's part of the life you're living, too. So notice that. Observe it with your senses, your eyes and ears and nerve endings. Know it with your mind. Now, soften around it , around whatever it is you've noticed. Let your skin drape and rest around the experience of mindfulness. Let the moment be filled up with it. Then go on with your day.
Though simple, mindfulness activities like these wield a powerful effect. If you do this practice often, whenever you think of it throughout the day, especially if you are also meditating, or doing yoga, the sensation of softness and fullness becomes more accessible. Another way to describe it is expansion. I love the word expansion because it doesn't imply that there was anything wrong to begin with. You expand your business, or your house, because you're thriving, not because you're broken. Likewise, a practice of mindfulness lets you see the full scope of what is already present in your life. The result of this is that we undo our grip, our identification with a limited aspect of our experience, such as racing thoughts, or the computer screen we stare at all day and the work it represents, or maybe a relationship problem were having, or the lack of a relationship. What's key is that you're not just thinking it, you're doing it. It's a practice. There is a feeling of broadening that comes with noticing more of what the moment is. We spread out to occupy it. We become more of what we are. We get a glimpse of our own inherent poornatva. Poornatva, in Sanskrit, means fullness, completeness, or perfection.
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