What Is Mindfulness? A Mechanics Perspective

What is mindfulness? Not just a good feeling. It is present moment awareness. Sam talks about the the common technique of noting to be aware of our thoughts in the present moment. He does this from his espresso machine repair shop.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Canon Coffee Espresso Machines. I'm Sam Kanemacher and this is my shop here. And today I wanted to talk about what is mindfulness. And you know it's a word that's kind of thrown around a lot. Everybody wants to attach mindfulness to all sorts of things because you know it might bring a slight sense of peace or an ideal that indicates that you know I feel a good feeling but you know I don't think though I'm not sure if a lot of those ways get to what mindfulness actually is which is present moment awareness. So present moment awareness is being aware of what's happening here and now not being focused on the future or the past. And I know many people have probably heard that definition before and so and it's kind of it's pretty surface level definition it doesn't really help. It does it's a definition that doesn't really give you know people can just kind of spout it off and not even have had a much experience in knowing what present moment awareness is or mindfulness. So if we go deeper awareness present moment awareness is really being aware that you're aware. So there's all sorts of tools in mindfulness training and Buddhism that that teach present moment awareness. But one of them is noting. So you note the quality of your thoughts as they pass. So you know your thinking and then you you know let's say I have a thought about making this video right now my thought about that is neutral. So and so you could categories you could note into three categories of thought neutral pleasant unpleasant and just as you sit you can just note those thoughts pleasant unpleasant neutral. As I think about my day-to-day I think about interacting with my customers I think pleasant as I think about some of the challenges that I have including getting a dent out of a machine I haven't done it before so or very little of that sort of thing so kind of feel unpleasant about that. So these are just thoughts they just go by and as as they go by in the present moment I'm labeling them. So this is a type of present moment awareness mindfulness. You can also be aware of things like your breath but you know this takes more practice and as often for beginners it's done in meditation and I'm still you know pretty much you know I've been doing this for I don't know six seven years something like that and I still would say I have to have a beginner's mind about awareness of my breath and I really need regular meditation to help me with that. But you know as you begin your if you're thinking about beginning a meditation practice or just beginning or you're just in a place where you feel agitated know that when you sit in meditation maybe just labeling your thoughts I've said this before you it's not like pumping the brakes so don't think that just because you're sitting in meditation you're going to all sudden experience inner peace. It's more like opening the hood of your car and looking inside and it might be very chaotic in there and it probably will be and it might be very agitating and you might not like what you see and it might feel like looking in a mirror with a bright light on you and so with all of that agitation this is where we take control with intention, Intention of our practice of present moment awareness and we just label our thoughts you know I'm bored with this meditation unpleasant. I'm thinking a lot about all the things I have to do on my to-do list today at work and this is really a waste of my time unpleasant. I'm thinking about how I yelled at my son this morning unpleasant. You know but then you know as I start to label those thoughts my body starts to just calm down a little bit as I'm aware of what you know this may or may not happen to you but as you get into a routine of labeling I just notice physically my body starts to relax a little bit and so you know now maybe I'll think about my breath inhale exhale and I think pleasant inhale exhale and I like the breathing part pleasant but the controlling of my breath unpleasant it doesn't feel like I'm letting go it's hard to let go for the video unpleasant so yeah so thank you for sitting with me a little bit as we talk about how to be more mindful and what mindfulness is I'm gonna go fix some espresso machines and talk to some customers I wish you well may you be well and whatever it is you're doing today