The embodiment of mindfulness is to live awake and aware.
To be self-aware is to recognize the moments when you are not fully engaged in whatever is that is the present.
Your mind thinking thoughts separate from what is right before you,
For whatever is part of this moment right here,
Right now.
The moments pass.
Your mind may be active with many thoughts,
All seeking your attention.
You may be aiming to do several things,
All in the tangential nature of being productive.
Yet in reality,
You miss out on the full experience of what each moment unto itself gives you.
To be self-aware is to be observant of the thoughts that you hold in this moment and the next.
The words you formulate as you are in the process of thinking thoughts and before you speak them aloud.
And you notice how these thoughts impact how you feel and the actions you choose.
The experience you feel of your physical body gives you insights of self-discovery,
Self-knowledge,
Self-wisdom.
To know yourself is to live life with great conviction and confidence and in the comfort and love of pursuing all that you desire.
Mindfulness and self-awareness are tools that give you important information so that you can align with and exist in the present moment.
In the present,
You can seek and discover what is here and in a space of pure being and to trust that you are not missing out on anything by being attentive to the moments that you live in the full expression of now.
In each moment,
We hold important choices,
Choices that compel us to take action,
Choices that allow you to witness stillness in contemplation and the self-reassurance of all that you are.
You make important decisions out of every moment and you do this best with a clear and calm mind.
Taking action is best supported as you first contemplate your thoughts,
Thoughts that are aligned with what is best and ideal and as you remain still for a time,
As you allow your intuition to guide you towards all that is most desired.
Mindfulness feels a lot like being in flow,
One moment into the next of which you take conscious,
Deliberate actions that are of your choosing and of the deliberate actions you seek,
It is very much like having an overarching vision for your life.
Your daily actions are the ingrained habits to which you enjoy and to which allow you to realize your highest level goals as well as the daily moments of satisfaction that you experience.
The idea is to align your entire being in the pure perfection of the present moment,
To focus on one task,
To immerse yourself in that activity,
Whether it is the actions of steeping a cup of tea,
Of listening to music,
Of playing violin or watering your garden.
The research has since corrected itself.
We know that we have the purest and most beautiful experiences when we give our attention to one thing in each moment.
You can water the garden as you listen to music,
However,
Your attention can truly be on one activity at a time.
In between noticing the spring flowers growing that you planted last fall,
In those moments,
You are just noticing the flowers.
When you turn your attention back to the garden hose and the water,
You are doing just that.
The brain so precisely has the ability to move efficiently between chosen areas of attention rapidly.
While it may seem like you are attending to everything simultaneously,
It is actually an infinite number of experiences in flow as one place of deliberate focus of attention and then onto something else.
One thought and the next,
Each of which is occurring in nanoseconds of time.
As the brain is super engaged to overlap tasks and to process information in what feels like a never ending stream of the mind,
Thinking and the awareness onto many points of focus,
What is happening is a constant shifting of attention from one object or thought to another.
We learn through mindfulness how to focus on a single instance and to hold our focus here for a time.
This is how we slow the perception of clock time and of course,
Of life.
Focused awareness in the present,
One moment and the next.
Previously,
The literature was replete with the suggestion that multitasking was a method of being more efficient and productive.
In actuality,
Humans have a hard time multitasking because of the ways that are building blocks of attention and executive control make it inherently challenging.
To this end,
When we attempt to multitask,
We are actually switching between one task and another.
Neurological science has demonstrated that the human brain has evolved to single tasks.
The human brain is incapable of focusing on two things at once.
One of the most precious benefits of the practice of meditation is in the experience of oneness,
Of giving your attention to this moment and immersing yourself in the existence of the present.
Meditation is a practice in developing focus and mastery of this skill so that you become better at placing and holding focus where you choose and for as long as you choose this.
Another of the many benefits of meditation is to feel and know the experience of quieting the mind by the practice of slowing thoughts as you choose to focus attention on a single point or object.
When you practice meditation daily,
Even if it is for short periods of time,
Say five to 10 minutes,
And this is what I call being in stillness,
And as you hold presence in now,
You begin to cultivate and observe the slowing and quieting of the mind and the focus that is of the present.
This is how you witness inner peace and a state of calm arising from within.
If you want to become better at experiencing mindful awareness of the present moment,
Begin with the willingness to train your mind to focus even a short time on one particular object or action.
The present moment could be the experience of being still as you breathe.
It could be taking in what you notice in your environment.
The present moment could be an image or series of moving pictures that you see in your mind that you are choosing to focus on.
The practice,
Of course,
Is to be attentive to the experiences of presence,
Of one-mindedness.
Practice mindfulness and focusing your attention on one thought,
One idea,
One activity at a time,
And notice what happens.
See if you can cultivate many mindful moments,
Each one lived fully,
To help you recognize and appreciate the peace that exists for you here and of this moment in the present.
This is the practice of steadfast mindfulness.
It is also the awareness of self,
Of others,
Of a situation,
And without the dance of adding the narratives that move you out of the present moment,
Even if the narratives happen to be true.
Mindfulness and presence are the moments of pure awareness.
That is the observing of now,
This moment.
Each moment is a moment of pure witnessing.
Pure witnessing is both a discovery of now and of each moment ever lived.
Thank you so much for joining me here.
This is Dorothy Sanori Juneau.
Namaste.
