Mindfulness is for mere mortals…

Take a few seconds or a minute and close your eyes. Try, really hard, to notice every sound you hear.

When I close my eyes right now, I hear the cats playing upstairs, I hear cars rushing past in the distance (we live near a busy street), I hear the the quiet hum and whine of household appliances, and snow blowers still busy after recent snow. These are things I don’t really notice when going about my day. Yet, in my home these things are still there, my mind simply filters them out as unimportant background noise. I’m focused on seeing and thinking and doing.

The truth is that we spend most of our lives missing out on most of what is going on around us. We have limited capacity and our minds prioritize our focus according to our needs and desires. Needs and desires come from a dissatisfaction with the present. The want of something else, something more, something that does not yet exist.

Yet to be fully in the present we must de-prioritize needs and desires in lieu of what is here and now. Because our capacity cannot prioritize both the future and the present. It must choose. And, it is dissatisfaction (Dukkha) that causes us to choose to focus on what’s next.

So, the true goal of mindfulness is to miss out on less of what is going on around us by prioritizing the here and now. To hear more and see more and be aware of more on a moment by moment basis.

It’s not easy. It takes sacrifice — letting go. It means closing your eyes sometimes (to focus on hearing) and plugging your ears others (to focus on seeing). It means taking time regularly to just sit, not do, and take it all in. It is the opposite of everything the little voice in our head tells us we should be doing.

But, it is entirely possible. Like any other thing, it will come easy to some and others it may take a lifetime. But, you don’t have to be a saint or a monk. Mindfulness is completely doable for mere mortals like you and I — It just takes practice. Training your brain to respond to the future with phrases like, "that’s interesting" or, "Not right now please" and trust that the idea or need or desire will return when the time is right. Because it will, if it was worth anything.