In the here and now

Mindfulness is one of those wellness buzzwords that is frequently tossed around, and with good reason. Numerous studies have shown it can lead to profound changes in both the mind and body.

To the uninitiated, however, the concept can sound vague, even intimidating. Sure, it's all about cultivating focused awareness in the here and now... but how?

While there are many benefits from formal meditation, you can easily reap the rewards of mindfulness by simply adding short periods of practice to your daily life.

We often go through the day on autopilot, checking things off our to-do list while the mind is off somewhere daydreaming, worrying or wallowing in a string of stressful thoughts. Practicing mindfulness during the day will allow you to wake up and pay attention to your experience. It will pull you out of autopilot and put you back in your life.

Here are four extremely simple ways to get started.

1. Breathe.

In three seconds, anyone can get back into the body

How? Take a breath. 

The breath is something that is with us all the time, we breathe something like 21,000 times a day but we pay zero attention to it. Pausing to focus on what it feels like to breathe in and then breathe out can instantly snap your mind back to attention.

If you want to go deeper, give yourself five minutes ... or 10. A good way to get started with a mindfulness practice is to do a short, five-minute guided meditation on a daily basis. It is helpful to learn how to focus our concentration on something like your breath before you begin to focus your concentration on daily activities.

2. Establish your own "lip balm" technique.

It is helpful to attach mindfulness to something you do regularly. This will help you remember to practice. For example, putting on lip balm, which could happen more than five times per day. When reaching for the balm,  takes a few deep breaths, tuning into its smell and texture, as well as what it feels like when it goes on your lips. Or maybe a "mascara meditation", "toothpaste meditation" or "shaving meditation" tuning into the movements and the feeling.

It doesn’t have to be cosmetic, of course. Just pick an activity you do regularly and attach mindfulness to it. Then be consistent, so it becomes a true practice, however small.

3. Use daily drudgery to your advantage.

No one likes to be stuck in traffic or in line at the supermarket, but it happens to each of us, in some form, daily. Use those otherwise frustrating, mindless moments to your advantage. If you're stuck in traffic and you're freaking out, breathe in for five, exhale for five. How about a breath-focused standing-in-line-at-Starbucks meditation. Or, if you prefer, simply tap into the sights, smells and sounds around you.

Try and take something that is normally a waste of time and be aware of it,. That's it. That's the whole gig. And don't judge it. Don't think, 'This is stupid.' Just focus your attention and when you notice your mind wandering, bring it back.

4. Really relish anything sensory.

Look at the food closely, see the shapes and colours. You can smell the food before you put it in your mouth. For just one slow bite, pay attention to the texture of the food, the different flavours and how it feels in different parts of your mouth before you swallow.

The key is to recognize those small, daily moments that inherently grab and engage your senses and that generally make you feel a sense of pleasure, such as listening to music or washing your hands in warm running water. Then pay extremely close attention to them.

Tune in... Turn off...

Tuning in to your body is good for your health - Self-aware people have better heart health.

People who are mindful score higher on healthy heart indicators, according to recent findings published in the International Journal of Behavioural Medicine from Brown University researchers. The team looked at whether having something called “dispositional mindfulness”—which means you’re the type of person who’s very aware and attentive to what you’re feeling and thinking at any given moment—was a factor for heart health. They found a pretty significant connection: people with high mindfulness scores had an 83% greater prevalence of good cardiovascular health.

Having dispositional mindfulness doesn’t necessarily mean you’re regularly practicing mindfulness processes, like meditation. For some people, being more present is a natural part of their personality. For the rest of us, some say, it can be learned.

In the study, the researchers asked 382 people to evaluate statements that measure their level of mindfulness. Participants responded to statements like “I find it difficult to stay focused on what’s happening in the present”on a six point scale ranging from “almost always” to “almost never.” The participants who scored highest with the best mindfulness scores also had very healthy scores when it came to the seven American Heart Association indicators for cardiovascular health. Those include avoiding smoking, being physically active, having a healthy body mass index, consuming decent amounts of fruits and vegetables, and maintaining good cholesterol, blood pressure and fasting blood glucose levels.

The associations appeared to be strongest with factors including smoking, BMI, fasting glucose and physical activity. “The society we live in right now is very promoting of cardiovascular disease…cigarettes are still pretty inexpensive, and jobs are sedentary,” says study author Eric Loucks, an assistant professor in epidemiology at Brown University. “People who are more mindful tend to have more awareness of where their mind and bodies are at. By increasing our awareness, we might become more aware of the impact of what we are doing on ourselves.” If a mindful person is less physically active, Loucks suggests, they might notice that they have less energy.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction has been taught in some medical settings for years, and Loucks points out that mindfulness scores tend to go up with the practice. “It does seem like mindfulness can be taught,” he says. “I think it’s good for it to be available for people who are interested in it…we shouldn’t force people to go mindfulness [training] if they don’t want to go. But it has the potential to be a resource.”

The findings are still preliminary, and the reasons for the connection are still inconclusive. But if corroborated, mindfulness interventions may be non-invasive ways to help people adopt healthier behaviors.

Mindfulness for mental wellbeing

Something that I am trying to develop and practice more is "Mindfulness". Just one more step on the spiritual pathway.

It can be easy to rush through life without stopping to notice much. Paying more attention to the present moment – to your own thoughts and feelings, and to the world around you – can improve your mental wellbeing.

Some people call this awareness 'mindfulness', and you can take steps to develop it in your own life.

Good mental wellbeing means feeling good about life and yourself, and being able to get on with life in the way you want.

You may think about wellbeing in terms of what you have: your income, home or car, or your job. But evidence shows that what we do and the way we think have the biggest impact on wellbeing.

Becoming more aware of the present moment means noticing the sights, smells, sounds and tastes that you experience, as well as the thoughts and feelings that occur from one moment to the next.

Mindfulness, sometimes also called "present-centredness", can help us enjoy the world more and understand ourselves better.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness means knowing directly what is going on inside and outside ourselves, moment by moment.

Mindfulness can be an antidote to the "tunnel vision" that can develop in our daily lives, especially when we are busy, stressed or tired.

It's easy to stop noticing the world around us. It's also easy to lose touch with the way our bodies are feeling and to end up living 'in our heads' – caught up in our thoughts without stopping to notice how those thoughts are driving our emotions and behaviour.

An important part of mindfulness is reconnecting with our bodies and the sensations they experience. This means waking up to the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of the present moment. That might be something as simple as the feel of a banister as we walk upstairs.

Another important part of mindfulness is an awareness of our thoughts and feelings as they happen moment to moment.

Awareness of this kind doesn't start by trying to change or fix anything. It's about allowing ourselves to see the present moment clearly. When we do that, it can positively change the way we see ourselves and our lives.

How mindfulness can help

Becoming more aware of the present moment can help us enjoy the world around us more and understand ourselves better.

When we become more aware of the present moment, we begin to experience afresh many things in the world around us that we have been taking for granted.

Mindfulness also allows us to become more aware of the stream of thoughts and feelings that we experience and to see how we can become entangled in that stream in ways that are not helpful.

This lets us stand back from our thoughts and start to see their patterns. Gradually, we can train ourselves to notice when our thoughts are taking over and realise that thoughts are simply 'mental events' that do not have to control us.

Most of us have issues that we find hard to let go and mindfulness can help us deal with them more productively. We can ask: 'Is trying to solve this by brooding about it helpful, or am I just getting caught up in my thoughts?'

Awareness of this kind also helps us notice signs of stress or anxiety earlier and helps us deal with them better.

How you can be mindful

Reminding yourself to take notice of your thoughts, feelings, body sensations and the world around you is the first step to mindfulness.

Even as we go about our daily lives, we can find new ways of waking up to the world around us. We can notice the sensations of things, the food we eat, the air moving past the body as we walk. All this may sound very small, but it has huge power to interrupt the 'autopilot' mode we often engage day to day, and to give us new perspectives on life.

It can be helpful to pick a time – the morning journey to work or a walk at lunchtime – during which you decide to be aware of the sensations created by the world around you. Trying new things, such as sitting in a different seat in meetings or going somewhere new for lunch, can also help you notice the world in a new way.

Similarly, notice the busyness of your mind. Just observe your own thoughts. Stand back and watch them floating past, like leaves on a stream. There is no need to try to change the thoughts, or argue with them, or judge them: just observe. This takes practice. It's about putting the mind in a different mode, in which we see each thought as simply another mental event and not an objective reality that has control over us.

You can practise this anywhere, but it can be especially helpful to take a mindful approach if you realise that, for several minutes, you have been "trapped" in reliving past problems or "pre-living" future worries. To develop an awareness of thoughts and feelings, some people find it helpful to silently name them: "Here is the thought that I might fail that exam". Or, "Here is anxiety".

Formal mindfulness practices

As well as practising mindfulness in daily life, it can be helpful to set aside time for a more formal mindfulness practice. Several practices can help create a new awareness of body sensations, thoughts and feelings. 

They include:

meditation – participants sit silently and pay attention to the sensations of breathing or other regions of the body, bringing the attention back whenever the mind wanders

yoga – participants often move through a series of postures that stretch and flex the body, with emphasis on awareness of the breath

tai-chi – participants perform a series of slow movements, with emphasis on awareness of breathing

How to Practice Compassion Meditation

This popular meditation, often called "Karuṇā" in Buddhist circles is all about opening up the heart and mind to be more compassionate to ourselves and others. Compassion is also one of the four "divine homes", which are the 4 main emotions worth encouraging - goodwill or loving kindness, appreciation, equanimity and compassion. In variation to goodwill meditation which can be directed openly anywhere, compassion is slightly different as more a specific type where it needs an object of focus, rather than a general feeling, which if being general can make the compassion seem shallow.

It is a harder skill to develop than goodwill meditation as some emotions seem like compassion but will cause us more harm than good. Its benefits are very worthwhile in a wide scope of uses in day to day life, including the ability to connect with others and ourselves, but most importantly trains us to consider if our normal ideas and actions are all that wise. As when we can observe that our actions have implications to ourselves and others, compassion drives us towards being wiser.

The 8 Steps

Step 1

Build some groundwork before you start in order to get the best results. Unlike other meditations such as loving kindness or appreciative joy, you neither start with yourself, nor direct it to your nearest and dearest in ordinary circumstances. Those who are neutral or disliked also don't get much of a mention, because this meditation doesn't really change your view of them. You have to change it first using goodwill, then turn your mind to these groups.

Ideally practice Loving kindness before practicing compassion as it can help develop the mind to this meditation, like good rich soil develops beautiful flowers and better crops.

As compassion can take time to develop, think about this analogy. Its like trying to light a fire while outside in a storm, you need to protect the match-flame from being blown out and when it has grown enough to burn twigs and leaves, you still need to protect it until the fire can support itself. In this the flame is compassion and for beginners it is very weak until it is strong enough to naturally support itself. The light is so easily lost and blown out if there is not enough fuel to build it up with.

Most important in this meditation is sincerity. The problem is if the practitioner is not sincere in their compassion it becomes shallow and harder to express, but also that it very easily becomes false compassion. For beginner practitioners it is recommended to focus only on those that you can be sincere about in the beginning, then as experience grows expand it more and more broadly until it is limitless. The level of true compassion you have to yourself is proportionate to the true compassion you can direct to another person.

True compassion is most often spontaneous, but more frequently independent as it can exist without any background or support emotion or idea apart from itself and empathy. Ultimately compassion means caring enough to do the difficult tasks that we'd normally like to avoid and the most difficult compassion is to accept the facts of life and our own limitations and to let go.

Step 2

Select a comfortable posture in a quiet and peaceful place to meditate. Compassion can be practiced in any posture such as reclining, sitting, standing and walking, although sitting is the default choice. Its best to do what works for you be it sitting on a chair or a cushion.

Give some time being aware of the mind and body, relaxing any muscle or mental tension that arises. This not only builds mindfulness and focus, but compassion works both ways. Being kind to yourself is equally important as to another because if you limit one, you limit the other.

Step 3

Turn your mind towards those you have seen or known to have experienced a misfortune. Who they are is not really the focus at this stage. There isn't really a hierarchy, but the ones you feel the most empathy for will likely appear first in the mind. It can be any case such as they might have had a difficult day at work or school, had an accident and was injured, they may have lost a loved one very recently, became ill themselves or whatever the case might be, they all can be the subject of true compassion.

At this stage focus only on those you can be sincere about. It may be difficult to be sincere about strangers and harder still to those who you do not like, or have done harmful things.

Step 4

Wish them freedom of their sorrow or stress and recovery to a happier, healthier and more successful present & future.

You can use words if you wish, such as "May their health improve soon" or "May they have success and happiness at school" if it helps to develop compassion. The larger goal is to practice entirely without words, simply directing compassion towards the subject/s.

If you feel resentment or sorrow, or if compassion does not arise let go of these feelings and judgments. You haven't failed at this meditation at all by feeling these, you can actually use these feelings as a basis to develop compassion and forgiveness to yourself, as well as for insight purposes as how the mind functions.

Step 5

Practice gentle mindfulness and awareness of just compassion. This is so that your mind does not wander, or start to become attached or too involved in any issues. Continue directing compassion to any cases you may be aware of.

You may focus on just one case for the entire time you give to the meditation, or many depending on your level of practice. The goal however is give them the time to let the heart and mind become peaceful, forgiving and develop equanimity towards the subject of compassion.

Expand your compassion once you are more steady. With care you may start to direct compassion towards someone who has done harmful things.

Step 6

Regularly let go of any other barriers that occur in your mind. Such examples are any sorrow, frustrations, desires, resentments, hostility and coldness you may feel. These emotions may have been towards yourself, those who are close to you, those who you are acquainted with and finally people you feel hostile to or know are hostile to you. This breaking down of the barriers while developing peace, forgiveness and understanding is just one of the many benefits of practicing compassion meditation.

To develop this meditation further, measure against your own experiences. Consider the necessity of virtue to be able to be sincere, the wisdom to be compassionate without becoming trapped and the strength of character and skill to act when needed even when it is hard, while accepting the realities of what comes to us and others of what we cannot cure.

Step 7

Explore with the ways true compassion can become false or harmful. The traps are numerous in this meditation because on one level it seems like compassion but has no benefit and could even cause harm. On the flipside, if you experience these types you have an instant opportunity to examine and investigate them to understand them. 

The most frequent traps are -

Often called the "bleeding heart" type. This can lead practitioners to sorrow and despair because of a range of complications such as the limits of our powers, that there is never enough love or virtue in the world and so on.

The idea that we are obliged, or that we must do something to help all people, because there really is so much unhappiness in the world. Happiness and unhappiness are all common denominators. This is the most cruel kind, as it is solely based in craving and desire to change the way the world is. It does seem noble, but the practitioner must ask how does this lead to freedom or wisdom.

The compassion where we indulge in pity. Practitioners of this type often imagine they are a saint or saviour sacrificing themselves for others. Likewise is the idea we should convert others to our way of thinking for their benefit, as it is still linked to a self indulgent feeling. This one can be very subtle and often the most dangerous kind.

Sometimes the practitioner downgrades the person experiencing troubles as a lessor person or not as wise or as good as the practitioner is, or even that the subject-person deserves what they got. This is often a clear sign of insincerity starting to take hold.

Wishing someone compassion in order to gain merit for ourselves.

That the compassion becomes tainted with the far enemy which is ill-will or anger

Step 8

Consider ways that you can be more compassionate in your day to day life.Some suggestions are to compare the advantages of true compassion and the difference it makes in your life. By practicing compassion, we reshape our mental habits and our brain to be more tolerant and forgiving, but we also can see the ways that it can do more harm than good so we become wise and more prudent in our actions. The lesson of the lotus is that it grows in mud and dirty water, but transcends it all to stand free. Beautiful to all who see it.