What is mindfulness?
Previously I have written a great deal on Mindfulness, its definition and main objective of mindfulness which is to observe life, and let wisdom grow in understanding truth. However, more can be said about the same subject. Which can help us in our practice or as I call it just Life. This is another such attempt to answer the question What is mindfulness?
Often we have the wrong Idea, like mindfulness is a stepwise process. Where there is certain amount of steps to achieve something.
Like a person climbing a mountain to reach the top.
Like a runner in an olympic Marathon
Like an engineer build a monumental tower from bottom to top
Like a writer write a novel starting with a sketch.
And in programming this is called waterfall development. Often, when we want to achieve something either this method or Iterative/ incremental development is used. And our minds are so used to this system we cannot understand reality of mindfulness. As our minds always want to identify meaning, or want to give a value to everything we observe sometimes watching in mindfulness doing nothing feels absurd.
In mindfulness our minds try to overcome this by delebarately detaching from things. And although mind does feel like we achieve something by this, this is also is the same process. We cannot detach from anything unless we have valued it as negative. Someone can call this trying to win by Loosing. Another way of saying the same thing is trying to become a minimalist. That also would not reach anywhere as you can never reach some place. Whatever place we try to reach from either of these processes is just temporary.
If not trying to reach a target, or not trying to reach something both are not the way, what is the true path to mindfulness?
What is natural mindfulness?
I would say true mindfulness is a natural process. It is just like flowing water. A flag in the wind. Mind moves of course, all around the clock throughout the day. Yet, by whom? If we ask the question and understand the process with wisdom, we would see it is nobodies doing. Trying to stop this thought process and trying to force it to go to places where we want it to go are both wrong.
Imagine you have been to a place, isolated from your everyday clutter. To a beach, inside a forest or a meditation retreat. Not ordinary place, yet somewhere you can just be. In such places mindfulness comes naturally. You would see your thoughts and without objectifying this. But for such mindfulness to occur naurally throughout a busy working day would not be possible, unless our mind has gained enough wisdom holistically.
So what is this wisdom which lets us to fall into a natural mindfulness like a waterfall?
I would say it starts with delebrate attepmts of someone trying to find themselves within. I can give you a great analogy here.
Meaning of life
Imagine a man starting a journey. He has a destination in his mind and start walking south. And he tire himself doing this, and meets a man who returns from that direction and have a chat to see what is there beyond the horizon. And the other guy says the destination he wish to see is not there beyond the horizon and swear on this. Hence he give up. Return to his starting point and start another journey travelling north. This time he cross the 3000 miles on foot and arives at the shore and the destination he wish to see is not there either.
He takes a rest for sometime and someone tells it is in the east his final destination is and he start the journey with hopes this time with plenty of experience. And soon he arrives somewhere in a jungle of nowhere and with great difficulty he returns home. Guess what, he doesnt stop there but tries west on top of a mountain peak. The problem doesn't end there, as if you know little bit of math you would understand that there are countless directions from his starting point, and he will tire himself his entire life following directions that others point out.
Unless of course mindfulness awakens itself during this process and critically analyse to see the truth in this sisyphean punishment that itself has given to itself. Such a mind would swim deep inside its hidden corners of past present and future, all the darkness and light to understand that it has already arrived.
Since then natural mindfulness would be inevitable.
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