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.

11 Ways to Be More Like a Zen Monk

Photo credit: thegardenofzen.com

Recently, I read a story about the state of decline of Zen Buddhism in Japan and of the rapid closure of Zen monasteries all around the country. Most of the current generation has become completely detached from that aspect of their beautiful history, and as a result, the support that these monasteries so heavily depend on has diminished.

Because of this, not only are Zen monasteries closing down by the handful, but there’s a struggle to find qualified priests to maintain those monasteries that remain open. Due to my deep appreciation of Zen, this was undoubtedly painful to hear. We in the U.S. have just begun to explore and be transformed by the vast wisdom of the Buddha’s teachings, and so many have been positively affected by the beauty and boundless wisdom of “the heart of Buddhism”, as it’s sometimes called, in Zen so it's an odd state of events.

This traveling of wisdom around the globe has happened countless times in history. It’s simply the way that the truth moves, as the late mystic Osho (the man whom the Dalai Lama considered a Buddha) once explained in detail (see Meditations on Zen).

As times change, countries change, people change, values shift, and cultures either move from waking up to falling back asleep or vice-a-versa. It’s an ever-flowing process, not necessarily built upon moving towards what’s right or away from what’s wrong, but always the natural flow of things. Each time this has happened Zen has been transmitted to a new group of people, from the Buddha's lineage of disciples down to Bodhidharma, to Bodhidharma first coming from India to China, then from China to Japan, and now Japan to the U.S. which began as a visit to the U.S. from Japanese Zen priest Soyen Shaku in 1893.

And just as it's travelled from one place to another, each time the format for practice has evolved (often multiple times). Zen, Buddhism, and spiritual practice in a general sense in the U.S., while blossoming is still finding it's place in many ways.

In Japan, Zen practice started out as a traditional monastic system where you became a monk or nun and lived in the monastery for either most of or the rest of your life. Then later, the monastery took a sort of university format where they were more students living temporarily as monks or nuns working towards graduation, wherein most would go on to lead normal lives, than life-long monastics.

In the U.S., we have more meditation centers than we do monasteries (although they also do exist in good number as well) and practitioners are more lay (which essentially means they're not monks or nuns and lead normal lives with jobs, relationships, etc.) than full-time monastics, and yet the intent to practice seriously is still very much there. It's a very different format, one which better reflects the U.S. as a whole.

In thinking about all this, I contemplated on what the essential points of Zen practice, and of an effective spiritual practice, were. Forget monastic, lay, monk or nun or not monk or nun, etc. Ultimately, that's not what's important. That's never been what was important, or else Zen practice never would have been able to shift and change like it has while still retaining its essence.

What are the essential keys to Zen practice, the keys which make up the very spirit of Zen practice? How can we live more like a Zen monk or nun without becoming a monastic? In other words, how can we be more like a Zen monk or nun in our everyday life, amid the various responsibilities and challenges we have? And in what way do we need to design our lives to effectively pursue a healthy spiritual practice?

The reality is, at least in the 21st century, most of us aren't interested in becoming monks or nuns, or even necessarily in calling ourselves Buddhist, spiritual, or any other label (not that they mean anything anyway). But we are very much interested in the practice.

The practice is where we truly begin changing our lives. The practice is where we find greater peace, happiness, and the ability to better navigate our daily challenges. The practice is what really matters, not the labels. And most importantly, it's in that practice that we learn to express our authentic selves. ______________________________________

Zen for Everyday Life Online Course...Coming Soon

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If you'd like to be notified when more information is available, as well as get some cool exclusive bonuses from here until release, fill in your name and email below:

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11 Ways to Be More Like a Zen Monk

The below 11 points are some of the most important points I've distilled from that contemplation. Keep in mind, I'm not a Zen monk and am not speaking with regards to experience as one. Rather, I'm speaking from the place of my own practice, making my way living a typical daily life while trying to live true to my practice, and what I've witnessed to be the real essence of Zen practice itself.

You'll likely notice pretty quickly how universal these points are. That's because, as opposed to being some religion or philosophy which holds to a set of ideas, Zen is empty of a defining set of ideas or beliefs. Zen is a practice, it's also the very expression, or living, of the realization of that great wisdom which we all intuitively know exists within and around us. Zen is expressed in many spiritual and religious traditions all around the world, just under a different name. This is because the truth has no name, it's universal. It is it and can never be anything else.

I hope you find these 11 ways to be more like a Zen monk useful in your own life in pursuit of greater wisdom, deeper joy, and more boundless peace.

1. Do one thing

This is the simplest and most straightforward point on this list, and in a lot of ways it symbolizes a key aspect of the spirit of Zen, so I thought it would be a good point to start with.

"Do one thing" is exactly what it sounds like: it's single tasking. Zen monks live in a way that they're totally and completely focused on the task at hand, and a key aspect of that is to simply do one thing- whatever it is that you're doing in that moment. Whatever demands your presence, you're there for it fully.

Of course, there's times in our life where things aren't so black-and-white, but the point is to make the commitment to do so in every moment.

Multi-tasking has not only been proven to be ineffective, it's actually damaging. Making the commitment to live your life in a way that you do the one thing that's most important in each moment means to live with greater clarity and perform more effectively at everything you do.

It also promotes greater concentration and mindfulness, two key aspects of active Zen training itself closely connected with this point.

Photo credit: Paul Davis

2. Do each thing with all of your being

“When you do something, you should burn yourself up completely, like a good bonfire, leaving no trace of yourself.”

– Shunryu Suzuki

To do something with every ounce of your being means to live with mindfulness and concentration in every moment. It means to be totally and completely focused on that one thing with every inch of yourself.

This doesn't just mean to do one thing as I just mentioned, it also means to be totally concentrated on that thing. But really it's being totally concentrated and mindful of this moment.

You don't open a door while forcefully pushing away any thoughts or outside sounds that arise, you open the door with all of your being, while still being openly mindful of whatever arises within that moment.

This isn't a hard, vein-popping, concentration. This is a soft but persistent concentration on the present moment. You're being here, awake to your life, in every moment. And that's really what this is all about.

This point is closely tied with Zen's emphasis on sitting meditation, which I'll mention later, but it's the greater effort of bringing that same single-pointed awareness and mindfulness from the meditation cushion into your everyday life.

Nothing special is necessary to begin living your life in this way though. To live in each moment, doing each thing, with all of your being and to the best of your ability, makes a significant and concrete difference in the quality of your day-to-day experience.

The benefits of living in this way are too long to mention, but suffice it to say that it's the most important effort of all. Mostly important to remember is it's the key effort in each moment, the heart of daily practice as a Zen monk or nun, while most of the other points while significant are either things to keep in mind from time to time, establish once, or keep tabs on regularly.

My second book, Zen for Everyday Life, helps you make most notably the mindfulness aspect of this a reality. You can check it out here: Zen for Everyday Life: How to Find Peace and Happiness in the Chaos of Everyday Life.

3. Work diligently to let go of hang ups and nurture true well-being

This point has two parts really: work diligently and let go of hang ups/nurture your well-being.

First, Zen monk's work diligently to realize satori, or awakening. This is considered the supreme effort, achievement, or realization in all of life. And being so keenly aware of one's own impermanence, the precious nature of this one life that we're given, they work day and night to realize this complete awakening for themselves so that they can go beyond hang ups (or attachments), let go, and realize true peace.

Being diligent in one's efforts is very important because all we have is this life. Whether you believe there's something after this or not, all we know for sure is that we have this life. And this life is here and gone in an instant. Time flies, and before we know it, we're gone. For that reason, you should work diligently to realize true peace and happiness.

That ideal life will look different depending on the person, but the idea is the same: we only have a short time to enjoy this life, so we shouldn't waste a minute.

The second aspect to this point is the major effort of this life, and that's to let go of those things which are keeping us from peace and happiness so that we can realize a clear path to living peacefully and joyfully.

Throughout our lives, we resist the natural way of things. It's our job to find that resistance (whether it's an attachment to something we like or aversion to something we don't like) so that we can remove the friction in our lives and life with greater ease and freedom. In this way, we open up a clear path to living peacefully.

This is easier said than done, and is a pretty large topic in itself, but you can start here for more information:

1. The Beginner's Guide to Letting Go
2. Zen and the Art of Adapting to Life's Curveballs

4. Simplify your life down to the essentials

By the time we're adults, we've generally amassed quite a lot of things in our lives which are either useless or relatively unimportant (both material possessions and non-material things). The monastic way of life (for any spiritual tradition really) is designed so that only the essentials remain: physical nourishment, a place to rest, a community, and the practice.

Now, this might be a little extreme and even unnecessary to most, but the idea is what's most important. The idea is to remove everything in your life that isn't essential. Essential to what? Essential to your well-being and the well-being of others.

But where do you begin? How do you decide what's essential and non-essential? The best place to start is to ask yourself if the item or thing is ever used or ever holds any purpose. If it's never used, or holds no purpose, those are the first and most obvious things to go.

From there it gets more difficult, but the question to ask is simple: does this thing help contribute to the well-being of myself and those around me? If the answer is no, or even maybe (suggesting it's really not essential), then the likelihood is it not only doesn't serve a purpose but often gets in the way of allowing those things that really matter to shine in your life.

You can also go in the opposite direction by asking yourself:

If I had to live with only a handful of things, what would they be?

Again not just material possessions but non-material things in activities, responsibilities, etc. This question can help distill your life down to it's essence. As an example, when I asked myself that question, I got this:

• My family
• My practice
• Buddhaimonia / my work
• Laptop computer (strictly for Buddhaimonia / my work)
• Smartphone (strictly for family communication)
• My home
• Physical nourishment
• Basic set of clothes (few pairs of pants, shirts, one pair of shoes, socks, a jacket)

It might be beneficial to ask yourself that question a few times too, because sometimes you'll put down things you think are essential, but upon closer examination you realize they really aren't. That doesn't necessarily mean you'll want to give it up, but in any case it will give you clarity.

From here, you can work backwards and look at your life. What exists in it now which wasn't included in this list? Why didn't you include it? Can you give it up? Should you? Would you have more time to focus on what's important if you gave it up?

Zen practice as a whole, as we talked about earlier, is very concentrated and intentional. In living the life of a Zen monk, all fluff is removed and only the essentials remain. This can truly help improve our life in meaningful ways, helping to remove that which is useless and potentially distracting and giving us more time for what matters most.

Photo credit: Paul Davis

5. Monitor mental nutriment

If simplifying your life down to the essentials is about removing those unnecessary things from our lives so that we can focus on what matters, limiting and monitoring mental nutriment is about specifically identifying those things which are bad for us and actively working to remove them.

By mental nutriment, I'm referring to those various types of "food" which we ingest on an everyday basis. But I'm not just referring to food for our physical body, I'm also referring to mental food: T.V., social media, the rest of the internet, reading, personal associations, etc. Really anything which we ingest through one of the sense organs is included here because it affects our well-being in a very real way.

Most importantly, this is about identifying any sources of poison, or unwholesome seeds, which are affecting us on a regular basis and working to either remove or minimize them and replace them with wholesome seeds.

If it's T.V., either removing T.V. or reducing your T.V. time down to your favorite 2-3 shows. If it's social media, reducing the amount of hours you check Facebook, or whatever it is, in a given day and making it more difficult for you to check it in the first place (deleting the app on your phone so that you have to walk over to your computer, for instance). And if it's the people you're around, considering changing your associations if possible.

You'll know what these things are for you, so it really just depends on your life. But one thing is for certain: each and every one of these things affects our state of mind in a very real way. We should work consistently to keep these things in check so that we can better nourish our mind for peace and joy as opposed to fear and anger.

6. Establish order

This is about living with a sense of order or structure, something that’s very important for training as a Zen monk.

What’s the purpose? In a very real way, it’s order which gives us true freedom. Many of us are afraid of order, of structure, but this is generally due to a misunderstanding.

Think about it this way: what if you could free up an entire hour each day for yourself if you just took the time to establish a daily schedule and stuck to it with discipline? What if this was a real possibility? Isn't this more freedom as opposed to working all day long on work + home responsibilities?

Also, it's by setting up this sense of order that we can occasionally break away, and this can be very liberating. Without a sense of order, we not only wander aimlessly and waste our precious time, but can can't create the right environment for freedom to arise.

To live half-asleep, unconscious to so much of what we do (even though our bodies are doing it), is the opposite of true freedom. Living in this way, we're being pushed and pulled by our habitual patterns and being directed by the winds of life.

To live our lives in a way that we structure our days and live with a sense of order is to live with freedom because we're living intentionally. To live intentionally is to live mindfully, knowing that you're placing one foot forward. If you live like this, you're taking that step. To take that step mindfully, to know you're taking that step and to do it consciously, is true freedom. And it's order which helps us live in this way.

7. Live as if you’re going to die

Photo credit: Paul Davis

"Throughout this life, you can never be certain of living long enough to take another breath.”

- Zen master Huang Po

To live as if you're going to die is to live in a way that you're aware of your own impermanence and the impermanence of all things.

Most of us live in a way that we ignore and even push away any thought of our own end, and the end of our loved ones, going to great lengths to either bottle it down or avoid it.

But this is a great mistake, because to live completely aware of our own impermanence can be a great source of joy. By living in this way, we appreciate life so much more and are constantly reminded of the precious nature of this life that we're living.

It can be difficult to face the fact of our own impermanence, and often much more difficult to face the fact of the impermanence of every one and every thing around us. But it's a fact which we must learn to face if we ever hope to live our life fully without regret.

By pushing through those difficult feelings we can in fact realize a deeper and more vibrant life. A life richer than anything we ever imagined.

Check out episode #2 of the Zen for Everyday Life podcast for a simple practice you can do each day to begin working on this very point: How to Live As if You're Going to Die.

8. Express yourself artistically

Zen is very closely connected with the arts. It's very common for a Zen monk to take up some form of artistic expression such as calligraphy, poetry (haiku), or even chanoyu, the Japanese "way of tea" which originated from the Zen tradition and which is a very artistic ritual in itself.

As I mention in my "simple tea meditation" guide:

The Japanese tea ceremony can be summed up by the Zen phrase “ichi-go ichi-e”, which means “one time, one meeting”. The phrase is meant to remind us of the beauty and uniqueness of the present moment and that life is transient or ever-changing and impermanent.

Why is art such an important part of Zen practice? It's not so much that it's important than it is prevalent due to its effectiveness at showing us ourselves and allowing us to express ourselves fully and honestly.

When we express ourselves artistically, freely and spontaneously, we're allowing all that we are to come forth. Our hesitations, resistance, doubt, anger, fear, and everything else comes pouring out from us fully. To express yourself in this way, knowing this, makes this type of open expression a very purifying process.

In this way, expressing yourself becomes a very effective and very enjoyable form of meditation.

And when those things don't 'get in the way'? When we act in that instant with our complete being? With a single brush stroke we can express our true boundless nature.

It doesn't matter how you express yourself, just that you give yourself a regular avenue with which to do so, so find something that fits you and your life and make it a regular (weekly, or more) practice and see how when you practice expressing yourself that fear, anger, and judgment ("that was horrible", "I'm a horrible artist", "I'm not good enough", "I can't do this") often get in the way of us expressing our authentic selves.

Continue practicing and work to get to a point where you can act in any given moment in a way that you don't get in your own way, that you express yourself without holding back. This is what it means to express yourself fully and authentically through art.

I've yet to write a guide to this topic on the blog (a good idea for the future though!), so here's a few resources for delving into this more:

1. Alok, Zen Calligraphy
2. John Daido Loori - The Zen of Creativity

9. Live the Buddha’s middle way

The Buddha's 'middle way' is a principle which essentially refers to the fact that in all things in life we shouldn't remain in the extreme either way. We should live in the 'middle way' of things.

It's difficult to fully express the importance of this principle because it's so prevalent. It literally has to do with our entire lives. Let's take a typical everyday example.

Work and family are typically considered the two major parts of our life. They're distinctly different and encompass essentially all of our combined time on any given day, or at least the vast majority of it outside of sleep.

So, when talking about the balance between work and family life, what's best?

1. Working all the time
2. Not working at all
3. A balance between work and spending time with family

Assuming, like most of us, that you're not in a position to quit your day job/source of income, #3 is the right answer. If you work all the time, your well-being and the well-being of your loved ones will suffer without your presence. But if you don't work, you won't be able to support yourself.

It's that same sort of idea with many things in life. When referring to the Buddha's 8-Fold Path, Right Speech and Right Action are great examples as well.

Should we speak negatively to someone? Of course not. But on the flip side, should we completely refrain from saying something that can help someone just so as to not potentially insult or hurt them? The most important thing is to be helpful and approach the situation with a sense of compassion and love, and sometimes this requires being straight with someone.

With Right Action, there's many things we enjoy doing which could become a problem if we do them too often. We may enjoy playing video games, but if we play them day and night our health and relationships will suffer.

We shouldn't be quiet about important issues, we should speak up and express our opinion. But we also shouldn't try to force others to go along with what we believe either, that's not right. In all cases, the Buddha's principle of the middle way is the right practice. The Buddha's middle way leads to a balanced life free from excess and conflict.

Photo credit: Paul Davis

10. Practice Zazen diligently

“Zazen is an activity that is an extension of the universe. Zazen is not the life of an individual, it’s the universe that’s breathing.”

- Zen master Dogen Zenji

This is arguably the single most important point on this entire list. Most would go as far as to say that without this it’s impossible to practice Zen, as this is in fact the heart of Zen practice.

Zazen is just the Japanese working for “sitting/seated meditation” and it was carried over to English when Zen travelled from Japan to the West. But Zazen is its own specific style of meditation, so don’t think it just refers to any form of sitting meditation.

Also, it's not to be (although can very easily be) confused with the very similar Vipassana meditation practice, which is also based primarily on mindfulness but which involves actively naming and identifying that which is noticed with one’s awareness, as opposed to Zazen where these things are simply acknowledged and allowed to float by as if a passing cloud in the sky.

For those of you who have followed me for some time, zazen is the basic meditation instruction I typically give in my various posts, guides, and books (New to meditation or mindfulness? Start here).

Most points on this list are general guidelines which will look differently for different people. This is the only point on this list that's essentially a direct suggestion, although keep in mind that I have no intention of comparing forms of meditation or pronouncing one better than another, here I'm simply referring to the importance of daily meditation in general.

The most important point here is just to establish a daily meditation practice, whatever form works out best for you.

11. Serve others

"Only keep the question, 'What is the best way of helping other people?'"

- Zen master Seung Sahn

It's an integral part of everyday Zen monastic practice to serve either the monastic or surrounding community in some way.

This could include cooking or cleaning inside the monastery, cleaning and keeping up the outside depending on the location, or some other form of service for the local community outside the monastery or for the global community at large.

Any true and effective spiritual practice will gradually cultivate in you great compassion for all beings, and it's through this compassion which the desire to serve is born.

It's sometimes misunderstood that Zen monasteries, and the Zen monks and nuns that live and have lived there, close themselves off from society and just practice zazen all day long. A core part of many Zen monasteries daily life is daily service in the spirit of mindfulness, love, and great compassion.

This is something you can express in your own life quite easily through countless different ways. The most important way to serve? To carry yourself within the things you already do in your everyday life in a way that expresses these qualities of mindfulness, love, and compassion.

Practice kindness with strangers and compassion with everyone you interact with. And every action you take, be aware of the global community and the way in which we're intrinsically interconnected.

In a more outward way, we can take time to serve others through our life's work and in our "off-time". This is a big subject that involves big decisions, but just in the way that it's a big decision that shouldn't be taken lightly, your life is a matter of great importance and what you do for 8+ hours a day, or for the hours of off-time you get each week, over the course of your entire life, shouldn't be taken lightly either.

Living in a way that you're aware of the impermanence of all things as well as of the way that everything is interconnected naturally cultivates the desire to serve. And conveniently enough, it's that service which contributes most heavily to our happiness in life.

However you choose to serve, know that it's a two-way street. You're not serving others, you're simply serving. By serving others, you're serving yourself. And by serving yourself in an honest and authentic spiritual sense, you're serving others as well.

Whatever your life looks like, know that to live a little bit more like a Zen monk or nun and to realize the greater peace, joy, and improved ability to navigate the crests and troughs of life isn't outside your reach. Express the essence of living like a Zen monk or nun by following these 11 points in your everyday life.

Note: Thanks to Paul Davis for the beautiful photos from Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village, Blue Cliff, and Magnolia Grove monasteries.

The 2016 Mindful Holiday Gift Guide + 10 Great Holiday Gift Ideas

I grew up loving the holidays. Not just because I was born on December 27th (which has its positives and negatives), but also because Christmas was pretty big with my family (it's still "big" to us, but physically, it's smaller...if that makes sense.).

Growing up, we had Christmas Eve at my Grandma's house. Gifts would be stacked under and around the tree, the smell of good food and hot chocolate would fill the air, and what little family I had would all be together under one roof.

On Christmas morning, my brother and I would wake up in our beds at home and immediately run out to see all the presents under the tree. Now at the point of freaking out, we'd run into my Mom's room full-blitz:

"Mommy, WAKE UP!! (beady eyes)"

After a few minutes, she'd get up, and we'd go running out to open presents (all labelled "From: Santa", of course).

Every year, all the way up until I was somewhere around 12ish, Christmas was like this. I'd make a "wish list" for Santa, give it to my Mom, to give to Santa of course, and hope I got everything on my list. Some years I would, some years I wouldn't, but my brother and I always got a lot of cool stuff.

Then, as I got into my teens, something happened- Christmas started to "slow down". By that I mean two things: money became tighter and my brother and I stopped wanting a truckload of stuff.

I still remember the first year I had a hard time thinking of things that I wanted. For whatever reason, Christmas was losing its luster and I no longer desired mounds of new physical possessions anymore either. It took a few years before Christmas would begin to gain back the luster it once had in my mind as a child.

I remember the feeling down to a specific moment. I remember being outside- smelling the pine trees, feeling the freshness of the cold air, and sensing the happy moods of the people around me- and just feeling really good.

Looking back, I don't remember when exactly that was, but it was the year that Christmas took on a different meaning for me. It was the year I realized that happiness didn't exist in physical possessions.

I'm not saying I'm opposed to buying things for people by any means, I simply believe there's a happy medium. We just have to be more conscious.

It might take a little more work, but getting creative for the holidays can make for a much more positive and nourishing holiday season than one in which you just go out and buy the latest toys and gadgets for everyone.

The Mindful Holiday Gift Guide

Below is a list of 10 great holiday gift ideas. But these aren't just any gift ideas, the mindful holiday gift guide is about gift ideas that are more mindful than the traditional holiday gifts, the types of gifts that can contribute positively in some way to the giftee's life.

From the gift of meditation to reminding them during a season filled with buying, buying, buying, and me, me, me that they don't need anything to be happy, these great gift ideas go beyond the commercial aspect of the holidays to a deeper and more meaningful holiday season.

You can use one of the gift ideas I've listed below, or you can come up with your own. The only thing that matters is that it's a mindful gift.

That is, mindful of other people and things (it benefits the giftee but doesn't harm the rest of the world), it contributes positively to the giftee's life by conveying or teaching some important point, reminding them of something, or seeking to empower them, and it's a gift that is given being mindful of the fact that adding more physical possessions doesn't necessarily positively affect our life.

A few tips for an overall better gift giving experience this season:

1. Think creative, not $$$. When thinking about what to get someone, think more creatively than monetarily. Most gifts will cost something, but you don't have to spend $100+ to get someone a great gift. Most of the gift ideas on the list below are either free or just a few dollars and, to me, they're some of the greatest gifts a person can give for the holidays.
2. Think of what the person could really use. I don't mean get them that George Foreman Grill they've been wanting. What I mean is, think about the struggles they might be having or any obstacles they might be facing. Is there something you can do or something you can give to help alleviate their suffering? Maybe they're just getting out of a rough stage in their life and they need something to start sending their life in the other direction (up). Whatever it is, think about and consider gifts that will nourish that friend or family members mind and body instead of just adding more clutter.

10 Great Holiday Gift Ideas

1. The holidays

This might sound funny, but one of the greatest gifts you can give someone during the holiday season, is the holidays itself.

The smell of pine trees in the air, snow in the mountains, happier moods all around, and lots of fun activities. Making sure that others enjoy the holiday season, and really just being together, is a great gift especially for someone who hasn't ever experienced that before.

Not everyone grew up with good holiday memories, so showing them the joy of the holidays this year can change their outlook and raise their spirits every holiday on for the rest of their lives.

But I don't mean showing them the commercial side of it, although you're bound to be around it to some degree no matter how hard you try to get away, I mean enjoying things like ice skating, the snow, decorating a Christmas tree, listening to Christmas music, and enjoying the presence of other friends and family.

Show them what the holidays can be: a time for people to come together in peace, harmony, and celebration.

2. The Nothing

The site description for "The Nothing" reads:

NOTHING reminds you to enjoy everything you already have.

And when you proceed to add it to your cart it says:

Where would you like to receive NOTHING?

I love this as a holiday gift. Heck, as a gift for any time of year. The point of the nothing is, as their site description says, is to remind you that you don't need anything.

Buying things or receiving gifts isn't going to make you happy, fulfilled, at peace, or "whole". You already have everything you need within you. A gift that reminds others of this fact is the perfect gift to give during the holiday season.

You can get "The Nothing" here.

3. A personal introduction to meditation

If you meditate regularly, even if you just started meditating this year, then a great gift idea is a simple and personal introduction to meditation.

You can schedule a time to have a friend over, maybe print out The Ultimate Guide to Meditation or send them The Little Book of Mindfulness via email (when the PDF opens up in your browser, just hit "save" and feel free to send away or share it via the share buttons on the book page you're redirected to), go over the major points with them in person and have a short group meditation session one or more times.

This is one of my favorite gifts on this list, I think it's a great gift idea with a very personal touch.

4. A meditation retreat

This is a little more than "something small", and by no means necessary to introduce someone to the benefits of meditation. But, it can be a great gift both for someone new to meditation and someone with prior experience. If you're looking to really go all the way for someone this year, this could be a great gift.

I don't have any specific recommendations for retreats or groups because it really all depends on where you live. But, retreats are held in hundreds of locations all around the world for various forms of (mostly Buddhist) meditation, so a quick Google search "meditation retreats [location]" is typically your best bet.

5. Personalized scrapbook / calendar / etc.

My wife and I did a personalized calendar with family pictures one year for a few family members and they turned out great. To this day they still have them up on their walls. There's a lot of websites out there that do services like that now such as Shutterfly and VistaPrint, so you've got your pick (I believe we used Shutterfly for the calendars and we loved the service).

6. Custom Art

A drawing, painting, poem, or a collection of photos can be a great gift. You can do a lot of cool things with personal art, most notably mixing more than one art form. You can take photos, load those photos onto your computer, and then add text and countless effects to them from a design program like Canva, which is a completely free service (my absolute favorite for all my images/designing for Buddhaimonia).

You can draw a picture with a poem inside the drawing itself or alongside it that describes the deeper meaning of it (doesn't have to be anything complicated). You could also just write a short story for a friend about an old memory you have with them, describing the various positive emotions, feelings, and classic moments of the memory while telling the story.

I did a few custom calligraphy drawings for gifts last year that turned out great. Each is a different Zen calligraphy drawing of a Zen "enso" (like the one pictured above, which I drew and use as the site's background image), essentially a circle drawn in a single brush stroke with single-pointedness of mind which symbolizes enlightenment, emptiness, fullness, or the interbeing of life itself.

Each drawing had a unique saying within the enso like, "Write with your whole life.", or, "Shine the light of mindfulness." The fact that you can put a custom message on a custom art piece like this is the main reason I like the idea of giving one as a gift. It's not just something nice to look at aesthetically, it can actually transfer a powerful message (whether through words, symbols, or memories).

I drew the pieces on real canvas, some 20" tall by 12" wide. I don't know if you have a Michael's near you, or a store like it, but it's the perfect store to go to get supplies for a custom art gift.

7. Plan a small trip into nature

This doesn't have to be anything crazy. If you're a hiker, you can take the person hiking on a beautiful trail. If you want to take them to see nature in a less intensive situation you could take them to a garden or a national park.

This is a great way to spend some quality time with the person, and a trip into an expansive natural area such as this can be very nourishing, highly enjoyable, and a great opportunity for bonding and strengthening a relationship.

8. Donate your skills or services

Have a skill or expertise that someone you know can use? Donating your services to them is a great "free" gift idea. It might not actually be free because it takes your time and potentially resources, but it's a whole lot easier to do than buying something outright.

I'd only go with this one if the person can genuinely use your services, which might be rare depending on what you do for a living, but it's a creative option that can work as a nice gift idea in certain cases.

9. A great book

Most of us have a book, many of us more than one, that had a significant impact on our lives. I think this is a really great gift idea, definitely one of my favorites on this list. What better gift to give than the gift of a book that's had a positive impact on your life?

Personally, being an avid reader, I have a lot of books like that. Two of those books for me have been Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind and The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation.

I can think of few gifts as powerful as the gift of mindfulness. That is, introducing others to the practice of mindfulness.

10. Your love and presence

Giving someone your love and undivided attention this holiday season is the greatest gift you could ever give them. This holiday season, practice being fully present for your loved ones.

When out with family or friends, give your full presence to them. Put your phone down, clear your mind, and remove distractions this season. Show your loved ones how much you love and appreciate them.

They're more than enough to be grateful for this holiday season.

Why Compassionate Acceptance Is Key to a Healthy Mindfulness Practice (and How to Do It)

In Buddhist mythology, it’s said that the night the Buddha attained enlightenment he was assaulted repeatedly by Mara, a demon who represents unhealthy impulses and the “death” of spiritual life.

As the Buddha sat in a state of deep meditation, mara tempted the Buddha in every way imaginable. It was precisely when the Buddha had defeated Mara and had overcome those unhealthy impulses such as greed, fear, and lust, that he attained enlightenment.

Some time after the Buddha attained enlightenment and became a revered teacher all across ancient India, Mara decided to visit the Buddha once again. Only this time, Mara wanted to speak with the Buddha.

It was the Buddha’s attendant and cousin, Ananda, who first identified that it was Mara approaching the Buddha’s dwelling. Ananda was fearful of allowing Mara to see the Buddha because he knew of his mischievous deeds and of how he treated the Buddha the night he attained enlightenment.

But when the Buddha noticed he had a guest, he welcomed him with open arms. “Mara, my friend! Come have tea with me!”, he said. He did not send Mara off, hurl insults, ignore him, or attempt to push him away. The Buddha accepted him with open arms, much to Ananda’s dismay, and invited him to have tea.

In Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha, meditation teacher and Vipassana practitioner Tara Brach speaks of this second and very important aspect of mindfulness practice. To see Mara, to notice that he has come and to recognize him, is the first step of the Buddha’s mindfulness practice. But to accept him openly and compassionately is a second and also very critical step that allows us to overcome many difficult challenges.

I've talked a lot on the blog about specific daily mindfulness practices. Those definitely are the core of any mindfulness practice and much beyond that often unfolds naturally. But mindfulness practice as a whole is about more than just waking up- it’s about opening up, too. Opening up to your demons, and inviting them to tea with an open and compassionate acceptance. And that needs to be learned.

This is a fundamental shift compared to the surface-level way we’re used to dealing with our problems, which either involves avoiding them, pushing them away, or assuming we know the answer (without any form of introspection to confirm our assumption) and acting blindly, never getting anywhere because the source of the suffering we’re experiencing runs much deeper than we think.

To accept your demons openly and compassionately- whether that be some form of fear, anger, a limiting belief you have about yourself or life in general, or something else altogether- may seem to be a bit of a simplistic solution for dealing with our problems. But the reality is, in most cases this complete and unrestrained acceptance is all that’s needed for us to transform our relationship with said challenge. Don’t be mistaken, though, it’s simplicity doesn’t correspond with ease of implementation. To openly accept your demons can be a very difficult task, one that takes time and patience.

To accept something openly, without running from it, pushing it away, or trying to change its fundamental nature (impossible, but a common effort by us trying to avoid further suffering), is to come face-to-face with it and say, “I see you. I know that you’re there. I know what you are, but I am not afraid. I accept you with open arms and an open heart which sees you for what you are (understanding).”

At the heart of this open acceptance is compassion, and at the heart of compassion is understanding. To understand something deeply is to love it deeply and have great compassion for it. To notice and identify your demons with your awareness is itself an act of compassion made possible by the clarity we gain through our mindfulness practice, so it’s mindfulness which makes this open acceptance possible.

Without the clarity gained through our practice, we would not understand our demons and see them as the naturally occurring phenomena that they are. We'd continue to treat them as “flaws” or “defects” and turn to one of a number of unhealthy behaviors to push them away. Our daily mindfulness practice breaks this cycle because the clarity we gain through our practice helps us cultivate deep understanding. And so it’s this deep understanding, gained through mindfulness practice, which allows us to cultivate this great open acceptance for our challenges.

L.O.V.E. meditation

The Buddha laid out a set of instructions for helping deal with that which arises within our practice in a simple set of steps:

- Recognition - Acceptance - Embracing - Looking deeply - Insight (with insight we know what to do, and what not to do to change a situation)

These are less so steps than they are stages, especially considering the last, insight. At the end of the process it's then that insight which allows us to live more skillfully with our challenges, more peacefully, and more joyfully in our lives moving forward. I put together a simple exercise called L.O.V.E., based partly on these set of steps, which is also about ultimately utilizing the power that exists in realizing that we’re all together in our challenges.

L.O.V.E. is an acronym which stands for:

1. Loving recognition
2. Open up
3. Value the experience
4. Embrace (or expanded embrace)

All words in the LOVE meditation exercise connote warmth and perpetuate that feeling of warmth and friendliness throughout the entire practice. This is great for stress, anxiety, even depression, chronic pain, and any difficult bad habits that are taking a toll on you. This is also a great practice for strong emotions as well and can also be used to recall a difficult experience.

Loving recognition

The first step, loving recognition, is a modified take on the act of simple recognition. Because this technique is centered more around developing a sense of self-love and loving-kindness, we begin by recognizing the challenge or suffering in a loving, compassionate, and caring way. By doing so, we set up the rest of the exercise to be much more effective.

To practice loving recognition, instead of simply recognizing something with your awareness, imagine sending feelings of love and caring to your object of concentration. If this is a kind of fear, after becoming clearly aware of the fear imagine yourself looking upon it the next time it arises in just the same way as a parent would look upon their child.

See the fear as a naturally occurring phenomenon due to a combination of conditions as opposed to some integral part of your identity. This is really what gets us. That is, when we think that “we” are the fear, that we have an anger problem, or that we’re not good enough.

Open up

Now that we’ve recognized the fear as a friend and not an enemy out to get us, we can move on to opening up and welcoming it. This is the acceptance stage of the L.O.V.E. exercise, and I felt that opening up best described it given the difference in direction for this specific exercise.

In this second stage, you’re welcome the feeling not in the spirit of the limited “I”, the state of mind which is fearful (“I fear” "I accept this fear"), but rather with the state of mind that is your true expansive self. The fear is simply something which is naturally arising based on a set of conditions, and is not attached to nor makes up any particular identity. You don’t need to have realized this yourself yet either, you’re just accepting the fear from this imagined state of mind. In this way, you shift perspectives and change the way that you relate with the fear. It’s not longer “my fear”- it’s simply “fear".

Also, because you’re welcoming this fear into the moment- this space- which “you” currently inhabit, both fully and unconditionally, it takes courage. Shifting from “my fear” to “fear” helps, but that doesn’t magically allow you to transcend your ego. Because of this, you’ll still feel some pushback, some level of discomfort when facing the fear (or whatever challenge you’re working with). If that sounds a little scary, sometimes it is (and sometimes it isn’t).

But the cool thing is, courage doesn’t require the removal of fear- it only requires that you stand up and face it. Even a single moment of courage is worth its weight in gold, so don’t think you need some monumental effort. Each effort proceeding a moment of courage is progressively easier, so just make your best effort in each moment and you’ll make your way.

Value the experience

This step is very much like the investigation step in the last exercise, but it's less investigation and more being home with it (in this case, the fear) and weathering it. It’s about appreciating the parts of it so that you continue to send feelings of love and compassion as opposed to dealing with it from a sort of cold detached place.

Take time to be mindful of everything that arises with it. What is the essential quality of the fear? Its source? Its various characteristics? What are its triggers? Don’t so much actively delve into the feeling as you do simply pay attention to it as it arises. Make friends with your challenge and continue to imagine it inhabiting this space with you in much the same way as a friend would sit next to you, you appreciating each other’s company in quiet conversation.

Expanded Embrace

Next is what I believe to be the most powerful aspect of this particular meditation exercise. Now, you’ll expand your perspective from this moment, this challenge, and your relationship with it outward to include all others.

Imagine the faces of others experiencing the same or similar challenge as you and realize that you’re not alone in this. Others are experiencing challenges just like you. And many the exact same challenge as you, no matter what you’re facing. Feel their suffering and the compassion that arises as a result.

Now, in much the same way as you would do during the last stages of loving-kindness meditation, imagine those feelings of love and compassion you’ve cultivated throughout the meditation expanding out to others who are going through the same thing as you.

Living Skillfully

It’s a mistake to think that accepting our challenges, or suffering, openly is the end of the line. The intention of living mindfully, with both an open awareness and an open acceptance, is to put ourselves in a place where we can act more skillfully throughout our everyday lives. This is the point of our practice.

By fully accepting our demons, by inviting them to tea with us, we can see very deeply into them and not only deepen our understanding of them but also discover ways to overcome them. So it’s from this place of open acceptance that we can live our everyday lives with greater skillfulness, and this leads to greater peace and happiness consistently.

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Get 2 Free Chapters of My Book, Zen for Everyday Life

This post was a chapter preview of my book, Zen for Everyday Life. Zen for Everyday Life is a moment-to-moment mindfulness guide made to help you discover peace and happiness in your everyday life using more than 40 meditations and exercises. It’s a universal path to peace and joy made to complement your life as it is through the use of mindfulness.

If you'd like to get 2 additional free chapters, plus my free email course, enter your name and email below, click the yellow button, and you’ll get the download link sent straight to your inbox: