One of the simple meditation types I have been working on is mindfulness. Daily mindfulness is about turning yourself off of Auto-pilot and being part of the moment. I shared some detail on this in my other post from a few days ago but wanted to talk about it a bit more today.
We experience the world through our physical senses: Sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. Yet, being the very conscious beings we are, we typically do not focus on the senses unless we think they’re impaired. In cases where one is losing their hearing, or ability to taste, we give those senses full attention to find cures. Typically we use our senses without focusing on them, alternatively caught up in our minds contemplating the inputs we receive. We may think, “What does that sound mean?”, or, “I don’t like that taste because…”, or,”this blanket is so soft and I want to buy it but it’s 40 dollars which makes me sad”. I’m not denying it’s a good thing that we have instinctual quick-thinking. Humans choose to take action when they smell the odor of something burning. It’s good that we don’t just sit back and choose to let something burn just so we can smell it. No sane people anyway…….
Thanks to our instincts, we get up and take action when we need to. But it is too often that we go about our days without taking a moment to be aware of our environment. We receive sensory inputs from the environment constantly so it’s understandable that in order for us to think straight, we are able to ignore most of them.
However, a great way to meditate is to take a moment to turn yourself off of autopilot, while you are doing a simple daily chore for example, or if you are just sitting and relaxing, to help clear the mind of worries and emotions. Choose two or three senses to focus on that are appropriate for the task at hand. When you do this, food tastes so much better, warm water is so much more soothing, textures feel 3 times more… “feely”. It’s like you turn the volume up on this small moment and get rid of all the background noise that is your usual thoughts and worries.
I did this today while doing the dishes. Even though I was hungry–as I had just made dinner but had not yet eaten–I told myself I would do the dishes and not worry about being hungry or wanting to rush through them. Slowing down, I saw the colors that were in the sink, I saw the shapes of the pans and utensils. I felt the warmth of the water flowing from the faucet, the weight of a dish, the suds from the sponge. Even in this small moment I was able to think about the physical objects in my hands and nothing else. It was very calming. I forgot that I was hungry and just focused on how pleasant doing the dishes could be with focus.
The Grounding Place 