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As a percentage
SE25Wall
London Explorer
how much of your thinking is "mindful", i.e. "actively" (of course actively is inactively - no striving!) practicing mindfulness?
Is it just when you feel disturbed?
Is it just when you are moving from point A to point B with no distraction?
Is it when you are involved in activity?
So, as a rough percentage?
I'd be intrigued to know. Does someone like Joseph Goldstein etc spent their whole day mindfully?
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I would say that I'm present when I really need to be, which is most of the time.... and this being force of habit developed over the years....
The mind often gets carried away/charmed by its own thoughts...With the practice of mindfulness the mind becomes more and more aware of Thought's charming nature...
Awareness is fundamentally non-conceptual until thinking splits experience into subject and object. It is empty and so can contain everything including thought. It is boundless. And amazingly it is intrinsically Knowing!
If you pay Mindfulness no mind (stop thinking about being mindful)...in that moment you will receive the present...
Well something like that...
I'm 100% Mindful, all day.
I just happen to occasionally forget that I am....
Maybe as a result of all those years of practice finally kicking in, or maybe because I'm getting older -and hopefully wiser- it is easier for me to live more grounded in the present moment.
My senses are more heightened to take in the moment as it unfolds.
In a spiritual but also in a hedonist sense.
I don't like to ruminate over the past and I am also unable to make long term plans.
I sit here cross-legged, a cup of tea in one hand, and a mala in the other.
Caressing the beads and smelling the wind.
There is a sense of joy and energy that seems to arise out of real mindfulness, and there is also a kind of pro-forma mindfulness that the fundamentally non-mindful self can impose under stress, something that can restore a modicum of functionality to a self that would otherwise be climbing the walls in a panic - there is a certain calmness there, but no joy - it's not difficult to appreciate the difference.
So I don't know - I personally seem to be moving more and more into the "real" mindfulness thing, but couldn't begin to venture a percentage. The joy and energy phenomenon easily becomes muddled up as some form of excitement, which leads back into non-mindfulness, so the boundary is a little hazy.
i am always mindful. Just not always with a full mind.
I'm honest enough to admit i'm not as mindful as I'd like to be. I am however, a work in progress. I'd guess i'm about 50-60% mindful in day to day life. Having recently taken up boxing though, being mindful is a necessity when boxing so i'm hoping to see it flow through to work and my personal life.
I think I can say more easily than how much of my time I am in a state of mindfulness, I can say that I more quickly notice when I get carried away by some rumination and can cut that thread.
None.
Good question.
No disturbance. No mind.
Mind or physical travel?
I am more actively mindful as others mention ...
I blame dharma
Rougly between negative percent, that is unconscious and a degree of awareness/mindfulness/attention that I estimate to be about right.
I am not intrigued. However I find most people can be more mindful ...
Wait a minute ... that is not quite what was asked or said ...
100% fail
Honestly, I don't have a clue how much of my day is mindful. I know I try to be mindful of the feelings of others, but I don't try to be mindful in the traditional sense nearly enough. I've been working on compassion for a really long time, and have frankly neglected mindfulness/wisdom. I do have to admit that I find compassion to be more fulfilling than pure awareness.
I don’t ruminate very much, except when I’m ruminating
or at least I don’t notice it very much. But I find maintaining a peak of mindfulness a little boring or irritating, I’m not quite sure of the feeling, so I don’t concentrate on it except when meditating. I’m usually just focussed on what I’m doing.
Like @lobster says... 100% fail.
Mine is usually dependent on whether I am alone or with others.
Alone or around strangers I feel no obligation to I am mindful more than 50% of the time I'd say.
When with friends and family and work mates well under 50% I'd say.
Which is why I like to be alone quite often ???
I think it's probably much easier to be Mindful, if that's actually your job (Buddhist Monk by trade, welcome to Emptiness. Have a not-cuppa!)
Even some Monks find the ask a tall order though. I'm sure we can all point to stories we've read or tales we've been told, of a certain nameless Monk somewhere, who has not been all his robe dictated he should be...
So if it's a hard task for someone supposedly dedicated single-Mindedly (pun intended) to Walking the Path, it hardly comes as a surprise that we, with every domestic and social situation we have to face, day in and day out, are not allegedly as Mindful as one would think (Or 'not-think' as @Shoshin might venture!
)
It's a more difficult demand upon us, so the very fact that any of us can be any-percentage Mindful, during our normal working, walking days, is commendable.
I think it fairer to say that while occasionally we can become forgetful or less skilful, we are always aware that the Buddha is lightly resting his hand on our shoulder....
I find that one good way to "drag" a monkey mind back to the present moment, is by grounding ourselves in a synesthetic sensory enjoyment of our present surroundings.
Focusing on a particular odour, a view that calls our attention, a food we are sampling, may be good reminders to bring us back to the moment that we almost let slip through our distraction.
The drawback about being too mindful is that it does not always render repetitive monotonous chores easier to endure.
We are too present to them.
But well, one more proof that there is always something left to learn.
Quite the reverse for me.
Remember friends, despite the current fashion for commercial mindfulness (better focussed work drones) it is an advanced stage of meditation continuum ...
Sounds good. Compassion is the Buddha tap/choice awareness that @federica mentions.
Peak mindfulness (right concentration) can be too tight. This is where relaxed attention in formal practice develops the Buddha golden-lock sweet spot.
Bonus joke:
It's a sunny morning in a big forest and the Bear family is just waking up. Baby Bear goes downstairs and sits in his small chair at the table. He looks into his small bowl. It is empty! "Who's been eating my porridge?" he squeaks.
Daddy Bear arrives at the table and sits in his big chair. He looks into his big bowl. It is also empty! "Who's been eating my porridge?" he roars.
Mommy Bear puts her head through the serving hatch and screams, "For gosh sakes, how many times do we have to go through this crap? I haven't made the porridge yet!"
I have a mindful monitor attached to my belt everyday ( similar in size and shape to a pedometer for measuring steps).
Yesterday the monitor exploded. I was lucky to avoid injury but the question remains...did it explode from mindfulness or mindlessness?
Om Mani Padme BOOM!
one of mahayana approach is to use brain as an ally,food for thought to expand enlightenment...sort of the way of the bodhisatva.
Right concentration. ?♀️
If we have a percentage of mind that wanders ... We need focus and attention on our more helpful tendencies that @paulyso mentions.
My mind? I just don't have a mind of my very own ...
However I have a plan. Focus, attention, meditation, mindfulness ... you know - all the usual things ...
And now back to the % ?