how to develop mindfulness? please suggest.

misecmisc1

hi all,

how to develop mindfulness? specially in daily activities. please suggest. thanks in advance.

BhanteLucky

Formal meditation, sitting down and being aware, and doing mindfulness meditation.

Eventually it starts percolating over into your normal life. You carry the mindfulness of the formal sitting into daily life.
Sorry for that boring answer (there's no substitute for a good sitting practise!)

Other than that, I set my iphone to ding a nice quiet bell once every ten minutes. (I work outside by myself, so it doesn't annoy anyone.) At the bell I stop whatever I am doing, become aware of my body, and take three deep mindful breaths.

I change the bell/reminder to something different every day, because I found I tend to tune it out. My favourite reminder is a flock of sheep baaaaing madly, it makes me laugh as well as become mindful for a moment.

Sabre

As James said, meditation. But also sense restraint and virtuous conduct.

lobster

Doing everyday activities at a slower more mindful pace. Internal chanting. Focus on the breath during the day. Contemplating a koan such as, 'what is this?' to each experience. Seeing our life experience as manifestation of the Tathāgatagarbha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tathagatagarbha_Sutras
. . . or a particular deity practice such as Kuan Yin . . .
"Rocks, willows, lotus pools or running water are often indications of her presence. In the chime of bronze or jade, the sigh of wind in the pines, the prattle and tinkle of streams, her voice is heard."
http://www.earlywomenmasters.net/masters/kuanyin/

Being mindful can not be avoided.
Being mindless . . . ah . . . that is a different story . . .
:wave:

Invincible_summer

For daily activities, you could even try focusing on the movements you are making and the mind-states you are experiencing while doing gardening, taking out the garbage, cooking, answering phones, etc.

fivebells

With regard to mindfulness in daily activity, I've found it useful to stop the activity completely when I notice tension and meditate until the tension is released. Then establish the intention to continue the activity, release any tension which arises in response, re-establish the intention, repeat until no tension arises with it (apart from the tension necessary to maintaining the thought), then continuing the activity.

Obviously, you can only do this with solitary activities where you can afford to spend a lot of time.

With regard to mindfulness on the cushion, establishing clear, urgent intent to practice is very helpful.

kashi

1:As others have suggested, mediation. The more you focus on your breathing you will naturally be able to bring awareness to other activities.

2: Another way is...is there something you really enjoy doing? notice how your attention on that thing you do is very concentrated, bring that same concentrated mind to other activities you do. Walking, work, talking, shopping, cleaning etc...

eventually, these things will become more natural

karasti

Practice it in everything you do. Meditation will help make it easier to do so. But as with anything else, you only learn it by practicing it. When you are doing dishes, slow down. Don't think about paying bills, how much you hate the dishes, what you'd rather be doing, and so on. Look carefully at the plate, feel the warm soapy water, watch carefully while you wash and rinse (and dry if you do so) instead of thinking that you hate it, think that you are doing something good for you and/or your family by keeping the dishes and the house clean. Just one example. We have a dishwasher, but I wash dishes by hand mos of the time for this reason. Any time you catch yourself on automatic pilot, stop and bring yourself back to the present moment.

lamaramadingdong

No trick. You develop mindfulness by being mindful.

Jeffrey

By recognizing my experience. By celebrating mindfulness when I notice it.

karmablues

Sabre said:

As James said, meditation. But also sense restraint and virtuous conduct.

Yes, developing virtue is very important. This morning I just came across a text from Thanissaro Bhikkhu's Wings to Awakening which I think explains the reason for this very well, it reads as follows:

"They also explain why virtue is a necessary foundation for the practice of concentration: A moral life brings about absence of remorse [AN 10:1]; people who, in all honesty, have no reason for remorse over their actions or for anxiety over the consequences of those actions, feel a natural sense of inner joy. This joy is intensified when they reflect on the positive acts of kindness and generosity that they have performed for others. Thus intensified, this joy then provides the basis for the inner pleasure that allows for concentration. In this way, a healthy sense of self-worth is a necessary precondition for a stable mind [§238]." [my comment: I think we can assume that a stable mind is a prerequisite for maintaining mindfulness over longer periods of time.]

"In addition, the practice of virtue forces one to develop a number of the "concentration" factors in the sets themselves, on a preliminary level of skill, thus making them strong and fit for formal concentration practice. To maintain a precept, one must keep it constantly in mind: this strengthens mindfulness. One must stick to one's determination to abide by one's principles: this strengthens persistence. One must pay attention to the present moment, for that is where the decision to keep or break a precept is made; and one must remain firm in one's cultivation of the sublime attitudes: these factors strengthen concentration. One must be clear about one's motives for acting, and at the same time be sensitive in knowing how to apply a particular precept to one's present situation: e.g., being quick to see how to avoid an issue in which telling the truth might be harmful, yet without telling a lie. This strengthens one's ability to analyze the mind in the present moment, intensifying one's powers of discernment in general. These four factors — mindfulness, effort, concentration, and discernment — are the central elements in all of the seven sets. Thus, the practice of virtue exercises, on a rudimentary level, the qualities of mind needed for concentration practice."

Although Thanissaro Bhikkhu here frames the practice of virtue in terms of its benefit for concentration, nonetheless, when the mind becomes more focused, this also allows for sharper mindfulness as well as the ability to maintain it over longer periods of time. So I think we can also see the above excerpt in its entirety as basically providing reasons why developing virtue is critical for developing better mindfulness.

karmablues

I just want to add to my comment above that the Buddha also said that virtue should be established before one begins to practice the four foundations of mindfulness: "Then, when your virtue is well-purified and your views made straight, in dependence on virtue, established in virtue, you should develop the four foundations of mindfulness... Then, when in dependence on virtue, relying on virtue, you develop the four foundations of mindfulness, you will go beyond the realm of Death." (SN 47.16 as referred to in Wings to Awakening, Thanissaro Bhikku)

jll

try counting from 1 to 20.
and backwards from 20 to 1.

while you are washing your car or driving.
try it.

sounds simple but it works for me.

misecmisc1 said:

hi all,

how to develop mindfulness? specially in daily activities. please suggest. thanks in advance.

misecmisc1

hi all,

thanks for your insightful replies.

one question - though may be a silly question, but still asking - if after doing an act, i cannot exactly remember a sub-activity in that act, then does that show that i was lacking mindfulness in that sub-activity - or - i may be mindful during that sub-activity and then due to my forgetfulness, i forgot if i was mindful during that sub-activity? for example, if doing an exercise with left leg then right leg then left leg and so on, if after sometime, i cannot remember i ended with left leg or right leg - then does that mean i was not mindful in the last activity of that exercise - or - i may have been mindful, but i forgot with which leg the last activity was done. please suggest. thanks in advance.

lobster

- if after doing an act, i cannot exactly remember a sub-activity in that act, then does that show that i was lacking mindfulness in that sub-activity

It may mean you are focussed elsewhere. 'Concentrated' mindfulness does encompass more. Not too tight, not too loose, just right. Balance, Middle Way. Gentle effort. :wave:

pegembara

Pay more attention to what you are doing and less to the dialogue/narrative that one has to oneself. Simply by being present here and now, not somewhere else. Some activities require more mindfulness than others eg. martial arts. Note that mindfulness is mindfulness but not necessary right mindfulness.

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/ptf/dhamma/sacca/sacca4/samma-sati/index.html

Mindfulness is a whole-body-and-mind awareness of the present moment. To be mindful is to be fully present, not lost in daydreams, anticipation, indulgences, or worry.
http://buddhism.about.com/od/theeightfoldpath/a/right-mindfulness.htm

[one question - though may be a silly question, but still asking - if after doing an act, i cannot exactly remember a sub-activity in that act, then does that show that i was lacking mindfulness in that sub-activity ]

Usually it does mean that you were not mindful enough unless your memory is really terrible.

fivebells

misecmisc1 said:

...does that show that i was lacking mindfulness in that sub-activity - or - i may be mindful during that sub-activity and then due to my forgetfulness, i forgot if i was mindful during that sub-activity?

It really depends on the objectives of the mindfulness at that time. Mindfulness is the capacity to keep something in mind. It is a form of memory, but not episodic memory (not "first this happened, then this happened, etc.")

For instance, if your intention is to practice as I described above (noting tension and stopping to release it) then the mindfulness needed there is to remember to note the tension as it arises. If your intention is to understand the triggers of a given pattern of tension, then mindfulness means that after you note the tension, you try to recall what you were experiencing, internally and externally, just before the tension arose.

Mindfulness is a critical faculty because the disturbances which arise in the mind sweep away the intentions underlying practice. Attempting to store away episodic memories of what happens in practice can be a good way to develop mindfulness, but long-term or even medium-term episodic memories are not the point.

Thanissaro said:

"Mindful" means being able to remember or recollect. ...the ardency involved in satipatthana definitely has an agenda, a task to be done, while the role of mindfulness is to keep your task in mind.

The Agendas of Mindfulness

(The entire essay is short, and well worth reading.)

Jeffrey

My teacher teaches that the mind diffuses and then refocuses. If it didn't a new view and thought would never bubble up.

She has a story of going to a friends house and the lady dropped a tea cup. The husband scolded her and said 'MINDFULNESS'. My lama wanted to say something like "mindfulness of cup breaking, ching!"

So mindfulness is synonymous with 'awareness' and awareness can never focus indefinitely. You can even have distortions of you consciousness if you make too much effort to concentrate indefinitely.

On the other hand we don't want to spend all of our time watching tv so you do have signals from all of your mandalas which these mandalas can be a social group or an activity. Your practice mandala you try to pay attention to and the ego mandala is bad news and is always cutting in with craving and grasping and trying to protect itself from change. A mandala has a principle similar to emptiness in that it is impermanent but also strongly emphasized would be the emotions you have in the manifestations of a mandala. It's more dynamic and alive (seems to me) than impermanence which I find to be more soothing when you are having a bad time. Mandalas are kind of freaky because you can beat up on yourself for being in 'negativity' like watching tv when in reality you want to have self love and kindness as part of your personal and practice mandalas.