What is mindfulness?
A lot of us when we think of that term think it's about attentiveness.
Awareness of what's going on in that particular moment that we're engaged in.
And I'd like to argue today that mindfulness is more than just attention.
That it includes and involves layers of awareness.
So when I ask how mindful are you,
I'm not asking how attentive you are in this moment.
I'm asking how in touch are you with the layers of awareness that exist in your life,
Whether you're paying attention to them or not.
The great Fred Rogers,
Mr.
Rogers,
When he would do a commencement speech at a university or famously one time after achieving a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Emmys,
He'd invite everyone in the audience to pause and just take one minute,
One minute to think about the people who loved them in their lives and help them get to the threshold crossing where they are.
To reflect upon them and to think how proud of them they would be and how proud of them they indeed are.
And he'd keep the time.
I love that because it shares that there's this layer of awareness that isn't even our own.
It's the people who love and care about us that whether they exist as angels or simply are intact as specters in our memory,
They're there.
The way the people that love you see you.
So that's one layer of mindfulness.
Another layer of mindfulness has to do with creativity.
Sherry Huber,
A great Buddhist teacher,
Once said,
Getting where you want to go has nothing to do with willpower and everything to do with awareness.
How do you feel about that?
Getting where you want to go has nothing to do with willpower and everything to do with awareness.
I like that because it gets me out of that place of thinking that getting where I want to go is all about how driven I am,
How focused,
How hell-bent,
And instead invites me to get really clear about where I am and where I am in relationship with where I want to go.
And when I get clear about that,
Sometimes where I want to go comes right to me.
Marshall McLuhan,
The great media guru,
Once said that nothing is inevitable as long as one is willing to be conscious of what is happening.
That's another layer of mindfulness,
Is it helps us get out of our everyday way of thinking that can sometimes pigeonhole us,
Although it can free us just as well.
It's that layer of mindfulness that says this moment that I'm in,
I may think I know what it is,
But if I can be aware in the right way,
It can reveal to me where I really am.
That if I can be conscious of what is happening,
There is a possibility of change.
That if I can be conscious of what is happening,
There is the ability to make a new choice.
That if I can be conscious of what is happening,
I can ask new questions that may not even lead to answers,
But can help guide me to a creative spirit to find a new way of being in the now.
What is mindfulness?
Is it paying attention or does it have more to do with recognizing the many layers of identity within ourselves and applying them with greater consciousness,
Greater clarity,
And greater willingness?
