The Gift of Kind Attention

One of the most healing powers of mindfulness is learning how to be aware without judging, fixing, resisting, and grasping. Developing the skill of mindfulness is not about making yourself a new self-improvement project, but rather about becoming the loving witness of this human life. This changes everything, because usually we’re just trying to fix it. As the author Florida Scott Maxwell writes, “No matter how old a mother is, she looks to her middle-aged children for signs of improvement.” We’ve internalized this mindset even in meditation: “Okay, now I’m going to meditate and get better,” whatever your idea of “better” is. The game with mindfulness and loving awareness is to be spacious and gracious with what’s actually true in your human life. The people we learned from didn’t usually tell us to do this; the message was more often about fixing yourself, getting more, doing more, and having more. That’s our culture; whereas, mindfulness is about being here and now with wisdom and ease. As you practice, you can use the images of sitting as a steady mountain noticing all the weather changes, or resting as a butterfly on a flower, not changing the flower but just being there. “Begin to sense your breath, your life-breath, as it comes in and out, connecting the body and mind. In doing so, the breath becomes a mirror.” – Jack Kornfield Mulla Nasruddin, a Sufi holy man and sage from the Middle East, went into the bank to cash a check one day. They asked, “Could you please identify yourself?” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a small mirror, and said, “Yep, that’s me all right.” Mindfulness begins with this, noticing just what is here as we start to train our loving attention to be present. Often, mindfulness begins with the universal and simple practice of being aware that your body is breathing. The breath then becomes a kind of mirror. As you feel the breath and quiet yourself, you then notice the longing, the anxiety, the peacefulness, the frustration, all the different states of the heart-mind that arise. You will notice the tension in the body and the stream of stories in the mind. You begin to notice what’s actually going on inside yourself in a caring and understanding way. “Without being aware, it’s not possible to really live in a free way. Otherwise we are just in habitual reaction to whatever is arising.” – Jack Kornfield Don’t worry if you meditation isn’t always calm. As you sit, you’ll inevitably feel body pains and tensions—they naturally show themselves. We all carry some trauma in our physical body. You’ll also notice difficult mood states, memories, thoughts. It’s all here, the beautiful states and the unfinished business of the heart. As states and experiences arise, you can gently acknowledge them as if with a bow and gently name them, “sadness,” “excitement,” “longing,” “worry,” “love.” As the passing experiences subsides, you can feel the breath and say to yourself, “calm,” “centered,” or “ease,” as an invitation to quiet the mind. With this spacious and gracious ease you will learn to hold in kind attention that which previously closed you down. This is the transformative power of mindful loving awareness. It is through this continued practice that you can begin to transform your unskillful reactions into mindful loving responses. And from your steady loving presence you can act and bring benefit to yourself and all around. With metta, Jack