Constant mindfulness

I've been trying lately to keep being mindful all day, during my everyday occupations and finding it extremely difficult! I'm not sure if it's a general buddhist practice or zen only?
Anyway, has anyone else tried this/anyone else do this?

18AD

Yeah, I try to do this as much as possible. Just being aware of every situation. But I find it difficult as there are so many conditioned personal habits that I often find myself falling into. The extent and amount of reflexes I find quite shocking.
I find that doing novel things and "acting" out of character are good ways to avoid a lot of these mindless habits.
One reason I think many people fall into this static mindlessness is that people are thought to have a static ego, "be yourself". Whereas in reality the ego should be ever changing, growing, adapting, through the act of mindfullness.

...I think.

maitri

bluewolf wrote:

I've been trying lately to keep being mindful all day, during my everyday occupations and finding it extremely difficult! I'm not sure if it's a general buddhist practice or zen only?
Anyway, has anyone else tried this/anyone else do this?

Thanks for reminding about the important things, Bluewolf!:)

I do more and more try to be mindful in my daily life, but without letting the idea of "mindfulness" be a "compulsion", if you see what I mean...
And I try not to blame myself, even when I find that I've been unmindful for a large amunt of time. (so that "mindfulness" doesn't become an excuse for aggression towards myself.)
As many teachers (Buddhists and others) say: When we find out that we've been unmindful or unaware, it's actually a very good thing - it's an achievement in itself that we do notice it, because generally people don't even notice that they are unmindful or unaware. The moment we notice, we're aware/mindful again. And when we accept that - and accept "ourself" and our world as it is - we live in the now again.

I'm not at all an expert on this, but I think it's a very important topic.

Asiaprod

This is a very interesting question. And a very important trait for anyone following a Buddhist path to cultivate. The following is my attempt to extract and present a guide to Cultivating Mindfulness from a number of Buddhist lectures. I hope this will encourage any who read it to develop this very important trait in their lives. Sorry for the length, there appears to be no simple or short answers in Buddhism;).

How is one to practice Dharma at work?
First, try to remember the kind heart and the motivation you cultivated during morning meditation (assuming one did indeed do some, if not, its never to late to start). Throughout the day, continually remind yourself that you don't want to harm anybody, that you want to be of service to them, and that you seek to do all actions for the ultimate enlightenment of yourself and others. To remind yourself of this, you can use a frequent event as a trigger to call you back to your motivation. For example, every time you stop at a red light, instead of being irritated and thinking, "Why is this red light so long? I'm late for work!" think, "Today, I want to have a kind heart towards others." Thus the red light becomes an opportunity to remember the kind heart. When the telephone rings, instead of rushing to pick it up, first think, "May I be of service to whomever is on the line." Then answer the phone. Every time your pager goes off, calmly come back to the kind heart, then respond to the call. As an example, for a married couple, a trigger could be one's children calling, "Mommy! Daddy!" Since this happened frequently throughout the day, one becomes familiar with the kind heart and also was much more patient with her children.

Cultivating Mindfulness
Throughout the day, try to be aware of what you are thinking, feeling, saying, and doing, instead of living on "automatic." When we live on automatic, we go through life reacting to things but never really experiencing what life is about. This is why we feel out of touch with ourselves, like strangers to ourselves. For example, you get in the car and drive to work. When you get to work, if somebody asked you, "What did you think about during the half hour you were driving?" you probably wouldn't know. We are unaware of what is going on inside us. Yet a lot is going on and this influences how we feel about ourselves and how we relate to other people.
The antidote to living on automatic is to cultivate mindfulness. Mindfulness means being aware of what we are thinking, feeling, saying, and doing each moment. It also means being mindful of our ethical values and of the kind heart, so that we can live according to them in our daily lives. By cultivating this awareness, we will no longer be spaced out, just reacting to things, and then wondering why we are so confused and exhausted at the end of the day. If we are mindful, we will notice that we have a kind heart and will enrich it and let our actions flow from it. Or, we might become aware that we are upset, irritated, angry, or are on the verge of scolding somebody. If we realize that, we can come back to our breath, come back to our kind heart, instead of throwing our negative energy out in the world.

Being Mindful of Living in an Interdependent World
We also become more mindful of how we interact with our environment. We realize that we live in an interdependent world, and if we pollute our environment, we are affecting ourselves, our children, and other living beings. Because we are mindful of being kind, we will curtail the ways in which we pollute the environment. We will carpool when going to work or school, instead of using up gasoline in a car by ourselves. We will recycle the things we use: paper, cans, plastic containers, bottles, glass jars, and newspapers. We know that if we throw these away in the garbage, we are destroying our planet and are affecting other beings in a negative way. Thus, we will re-use our plastic bags and paper bags when we go to the supermarket. In addition, we will not leave our air-conditioners or heaters on when we are not home, and will not use products, such as styrofoam whose production releases many pollutants into the air. [I believe that if the Buddha were alive today, he would establish vows that said we have to recycle and stop wasting resources. ]

Being Mindful of Our Actions
Mindfulness also enables us to be aware if we are about to act destructively as we go through the day. Mindfulness says, "Uh oh! I'm getting angry," or "I'm being greedy," or "I'm feeling jealous." Then we can apply the various antidotes the Buddha taught to help us calm our minds. For example, if we discover we are annoyed and anger is arising, we can stop and look at the situation from the other person's point of view. When we do this, we recognize they want to be happy, and because they aren't happy, they are doing that action we find objectionable. Then instead of harming them out of anger, we will be more compassionate and understanding, and will work with them to negotiate an agreement. But how do we do this when a quarrel is just about to start or we're already in the middle of one? We have to practice beforehand, in our meditation practice. In the heat of the situation, it is difficult to remember what the Buddha taught if we haven't practiced it already when we were calm and peaceful. In the same way that a football team practices on a regular basis, we need to meditate on patience to get well-trained. Then when we encounter a situation in daily life, we will be able to use the teachings.

Offering Our Food
Another practice to increase our mindfulness and help us remember our motivation is offering our food before we eat. We imagine the food to be blissful wisdom nectar -- something very delicious that increases our bliss and wisdom, not our attachment, when we eat. Then we imagine a small Buddha made of light at our heart. When we eat, we offer this nectar to the Buddha at our heart. The Buddha radiates light that fills us up. To do this, you don't need to sit in perfect meditation position in the middle of a restaurant! You can visualize and contemplate in this way while waiting for the food. While your companions or business associates continue to chat, you can do this visualization and offer your food to the Buddha without anyone knowing. Sometimes, for example, when you're at home with your family, you can pause and focus on offering your food.
When you do eat, eat mindfully. Be aware of the effort other people put into growing, transporting, and preparing the food. Realize your interdependence with other living beings and how much benefit you have received from them, such as the food we eat. If we reflect in this way before we eat, we will feel very happy and grateful when we eat, and we will eat more mindfully too. And if we eat mindfully, we won't overeat. [ Then we won't have to spend so much money on special diets to lose weight]. It is important to eat in a dignified manner. Sometimes we see people in a cafeteria line who haven't even paid for the food yet and are already shoveling it in. This is eating on automatic. It resembles a dog who runs to the bowl and slurps up the food. When we do this reflection and offer our food to the Buddha at our heart, we eat slower and are more relaxed. This is how human beings eat.

Reviewing the Day
In this way, we maintain mindfulness and enrich our kind heart as we go through the day. When we come home in the evening, instead of collapsing in front of the TV or dropping on the bed and falling asleep, we can take a few minutes to sit quietly by ourselves. We reflect about and come to terms with what happened during the day. We look back over our day and think, "What went well today? Did I act with a kind heart?" We notice the instances when we acted kindly and rejoice. We dedicate that merit, that positive potential, for the enlightenment of ourselves and others. In reviewing the day, we may discover that we were angry, jealous, or greedy. We didn't realize it at the time when it was happening. But looking back over the day, we don't feel so good about what happened. It may have been our attitude, or what we said to somebody, or how we acted. To remedy this, we develop regret and do some purification practice so we can forgive ourselves and let that negative energy go. In this way, we "clean up" emotionally and resolve any uncomfortable feelings or misdirected actions that may have arisen during the day. Having done this, our sleep will be peaceful. When you lie down, imagine the Buddha sitting on your pillow and put your head in the Buddha's lap when you go to sleep. This is very comforting and helps you to remember the Buddha's good qualities and to have better dreams.

Our Life Becomes Meaningful
Practicing Dharma is not difficult or time consuming. We always have time; there are always 24 hours in a day. If we direct our mind in a positive direction, we can transform whatever action we do into the path to enlightenment. In this way, the Dharma becomes part of our life in an organic way. Getting up in the morning is Dharma, eating and going to work is Dharma, sleeping is Dharma. By transforming our attitude in the midst of daily activities, our life becomes very meaningful.