Mindfulness: Start Now

Wednesday, 9th January 2013

As the dust settles from the holiday celebrations, we’re a week into the new year and it might already be time to start again.

This lesson rang loud for me in a very ordinary way. I’ll tell you what happened. I was on my way out the door, zipped up and ready to go. I grabbed my backpack and unpacked the books I didn’t need. Along with these books was one of my favorites, Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior, by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. I placed it on the table and took a fraction of second to return the stare down Rinpoche was giving me. I grabbed a handful of dried fruit and starting thinking about my relationship with this book. I’ve read it several times but each time I pick it up it’s always fresh, relevant, and profound in an obvious way. It’s one of those kinds of books that won’t let you read it and be done. It’s living material. If you haven’t read this, seriously consider getting a copy. But I digress. As I tore off another bite of dried pear, I quickly turned to a page mid-book before carrying on my way. This is what I landed on:

To invoke internal drala you have to pay attention to how you use your mouth. Maybe you don’t need to use it as much as you think. Appreciating your world doesn’t mean that you must consume everything you see all the time. When you eat, you can eat slowly. When you talk, it isn’t necessary to continually blurt out everything that is on your mind. You can say what you have to say, gently, and then you can stop. You can let someone else talk, or you can appreciate the silence.

The basic idea of invoking internal drala is that you can synchronize, or harmonize, your body and your connection to the phenomenal world. This synchronization, or connectedness, is something that you can actually see. You can see people’s connection to internal drala by the way they behave: the way they pick up their teacups, the way they smoke their cigarettes, or the way they run their hands through their hair. Whatever you do always manifests how you are feeling about yourself and your environment—whether you feel kindness toward yourself or resentment and anger towards yourself; whether you feel good about your environment or you feel bad about your environment. That can always be detected by your gait and your gestures—always. It is as if you were married to your phenomenal world. All the little details—the way you turn on the tap before you take a shower, the way you brush your teeth—reflect your connection or disconnection with the world. When that connection is completely synchronized, then you are experiencing internal drala.

(He’s always right. And timely.)

My posture sinks, my chewing slows down. I feel embarrassed. But I notice my judgment to my newfound awareness. Yes, I was mindless—for a moment—but now I have become mindful. I connect to my disconnection.

What does it look like for you when you aren’t being present? When you’re thinking one thing and doing another, how do you make the connection once again? How do you become aware when you’re not aware?

Carl Jung, the famous German psychologist, scientist, and mystic said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate.” I guess this is the art of waking up. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

{fcomment}