Monday Mindfulness Minute: Practice More Than You Preach

“We influence others by what we are rather than by what we say or have.” Eye of the I p. 105

We know by now that what we say and do can be miles apart. We have the best intentions for ourselves and others in thought and sharing, but are we truly practicing what we're preaching?

There is a great story about Gandhi that illustrates how he practiced before he preached. One day he was approached by a mother and her son. The mother was disappointed with her son and how much sugar he consumed, so she pleaded with Gandhi to instruct him to stop eating so much. Pausing, Gandhi asked them to return in a few days.

When they returned a few days later, the mother relayed her request again. This time, Gandhi looked at the son and told him to stop eating so much sugar because it was bad for his health. Perplexed, the mother asked Gandhi what had caused his change of heart from a few days ago. "A few days ago, I had not given up sugar."

While we most certainly want what's best for our loved ones and friends, we know that any advice we give and aren't living comes off as hollow and is ultimately ineffective.

The mind is a tricky place because it easily confuses thinking/talking about something, preaching, with actually doing it. The mind can never take action so it feels that talking about it is its action. Let us pause this week and ask ourselves if we've lived the knowledge we are trying to pass on to others.

Practice more, then we can let our life be our preaching. As Gandhi lived, "My life is my message."

Monday Mindfulness Minute: It's always something

"Most people's lives are cluttered up with things: material things, things to do, things to think about. Their lives are like the history of humanity, which Winston Churchill defined as "one damn thing after another." A New Earth p. 227

"It's always something!!!" How many times have we said this? How many times this week have we said this? How many times today have we said this? How often do we hear others say it? 

We plan out our days/weeks/months/years and the inevitable disruption occurs. It's always something.  

The dog poops on the floor. It's always something.  

The car gets a flat tire on our way to the important meeting. It's always something.  

The kid gets sick right before vacation. It's always something.  

We must consider how we say, "It's always something." Do we say it in a relaxed and calm tone, or is it a desperate plea for the unexpected thing that just happened to get resolved as quickly as possible? I know for me it's usually the latter.  

But isn't that the joy of living life? It's literally always something. Every day new things are happening. Every day we get to meet new people. Every day we set out a plan and get to figure out what to do when it inevitably doesn't go to plan. Is there a way we can appreciate it always being something instead of viewing it as a pain?  

In the situation where the dog poops on the floor are we able to be grateful to even have a dog and have the opportunity to learn about unconditional love?

You get a flat tire. How many people in this world aren't able to drive cars? How far has that tire brought you already? 

How fortunate are you to have a child to begin with? 

What do we want it to be instead of always something? Always nothing? What if those somethings are where we experience learning and growth? What if our freedom is found in those somethings? How alive would it feel if that "something" brought an ecstatic feeling of love and mystery instead of dread?

Our opportunity this week is to catch when we or others say "it's always something." This doesn't mean when we hear someone else say it we preach to them that they should be grateful ("Idiot, of course it's always something. What else would it be?). Instead, we can view this as a gift that has been presented to us to remember to embrace unexpected and uncomfortable situations. It's a beautiful reminder that can pull us from our day-to-day melodramas to remind us to appreciate the miracle of being alive on this planet experiencing something at all.

Monday Mindfulness Minute: Is life driving you crazy? Try Traffic meditation

Our daily opportunity/challenge on the inner path is to see that we are not our racing thoughts. Developing this space has been called many things such as mindfulness, witness consciousness, developing the witness, etc. While different in name, they all return to the same lesson; can we remember over and over that we are not the mind?

Developing this perspective is crucial because until we realize we are not the mind, our thoughts will completely determine the quality of our lives. Meditation is one such technique we can employ to develop space between our thoughts and how we respond to hopefully have more positive responses than negative reactions.

If you are new to meditation, don't think of it as some advanced skill reserved for only Buddhists or Zen masters. Meditation is simply us sitting down and watching our thoughts without getting involved. While meditation can be a powerful tool, one potential pitfall is that we only do it "on the cushion" (i.e. in a 10-minute window in a quiet room away from the noise of the world) and thus never integrate the practice into our daily lives.

That's where traffic meditation comes in.

How much time do we spend driving? A ton, right? And if you're anything like me, driving presents me with plenty of opportunities to be automatically upset. Half the time I feel like I need Formula 1 driving experience to even survive on the precarious Atlanta highways. Driving can either be a drain that sets us on the worst footing to start our day or the perfect place to see if our practice of mindfulness stands up to true tests.

Here are some ways to practice traffic meditation and a few examples of how to reframe negative thoughts this week:

• Don't turn on any music/podcasts during your drive and see what thoughts come up (this will be rough at first). You will quickly be reminded that you have the music on to try to drown out those thoughts. Just start with a 5-minute segment.

• As the cars pass by you, instead of thinking, "I would for sure get a ticket if I was going that fast," just let this remind you how thoughts whiz past us and don't get involved.

• When a car gets a little too close, aka tailgates you, be thankful for how much comfort and support they are providing. We want people to be close to us, right? Why is it different with cars? Be thankful!

• In bumper-to-bumper traffic and you're late for work, try to notice how all the brake lights look like faces smiling back at you. It works best if you imagine that Buddha/Jesus/whoever you look up to is smiling back at you and providing you a moment to come back home (home is a still place inside each of us).

We must practice with traffic and other "ordinary" daily situations because let's be honest, if we can't handle the traffic, we'll never be able to handle the bigger things that come up. Each time we watch the thoughts without getting involved we do an inner rep that will give us the strength later to pause and respond in more vital moments.