Mindfulness

Francis C. Dane

As someone who does research on mindfulness, I’m often asked what exactly is mindfulness. There are multiple definitions.

One definition comes from the eastern, meditative tradition and characterizes mindfulness as a way of life that involves becoming aware of yourself fully. You take in your thoughts, actions, and very presence as they exist and appreciate the essence of being in that moment.

Another definition comes from the stress-reduction tradition and focuses on mindfulness as a technique to bring about acceptance of your present experience, inclusive of even distractions. You use meditation to assist in emotional regulation, worry avoidance, and pain management to bring about relaxation.

Still another definition involves not putting things into categories automatically. Rather, you use the context of a situation to avoid routine behavior and solve problems adaptively and creatively.

There are other definitions of mindfulness, but they all, I think, come down to a simple essence: pay attention to what you are doing. This, of course, is much easier said than done—much, much easier. How can we be mindful? How do we say “no” to everything else and pay attention to just this one thing we are doing?

First, it’s not “just this one thing”; it’s this and its context. Before analyzing research data, for example, I inspect them to look for obvious errors, such as a 9 on a scale that has values ranging from 1 to 5. I also look for combinations of variables that don’t make sense, such as someone who is 20 years old with 15 years of job experience. Individually, age 20 is not unusual, nor is 15 years of job experience, but together it’s time to call OSHA or there’s an error. Checking for errors enables me to understand the context of the data. Before running an analysis, I inspect the data visually and estimate what the results should be. If the computer and I disagree, I make sure I set up the analysis correctly, and then I look at my visualization to make sure I interpreted it correctly. Either way, I make sure I understand why the discrepancy occurred—context makes me better prepared for next time.

Second, we don’t have to say no to everything else; we just say “not now” as gently as possible. While inspecting my data thoughts about another article I’m writing may come to mind, so I say “not now” to the article and return my focus to the data. While looking for errant combinations of variables I may remember that we need pasta, so I mark where I stopped and write down “need angel hair” and then return my focus to combinations of variables. (Sometimes the distraction is more important than what you are doing.) Whether I say “not now” to myself or I focus temporarily on the intruding thought, I do it without becoming frustrated, because I know that intruding thoughts are inevitable, part of an active mind. The more we practice dealing gently with intruding thoughts, the more mindful we become.

This is a compassion mindfulness practice, one that I use in schools to support social and emotional learning. It is one of the ways that we build a caring community from the inside out; a place where we see each other, hear each other, and learn how to take care of ourselves as well as take care of others.

May I be happy.
May I be healthy.
May I be safe.
May I be strong.

May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be safe.
May you be strong.

May we be happy.
May we be healthy.
May we be safe.
May we be strong.

How to generate feelings of care

With intention in a daily kind mind practice, we are generating feelings of care and compassion for others. Saying these phrases silently, we begin with ourselves, or “I” phrases, offering caring for our bodies and minds, building awareness of what our body needs. When we treat our bodies with kindness, we are likely to make healthy choices. Then we move on to “you” phrases, the wishes being extended out to another (this can be to a friend, to a teacher, to a new classmate, or even to another student with whom we disagree). And the third step is to send these wishes out to the entire school community, the “we” phrases, with no one left out, to build a circle of compassion.

Developing a loving-kindness practice

The adult compassion mindfulness practice is called loving-kindness practice. One generates feelings of kindness toward oneself, then to a loved one, then to a neutral person (like the postal worker who delivers your mail, or the grocery store employee), and then to a challenging person. Often, this practice can then expand the circle of compassion to include everyone in our workplace, neighborhood, community, and to all beings. And of course, it’s called “practice” for a reason, the more you practice, then stronger your compassion becomes, and the wider your circle of compassion becomes.

A practice takes…practice

Compassion is cultivated, it isn’t a product that can be manufactured. I like to think of it as a garden. As a gardener, I cannot make the plants grow or the flowers bloom. I can support the conditions of the garden by providing ample water, cultivating the soil, and adding any nutrients the plants may need. For compassion to emerge, the right set of conditions must be present. This is what we are cultivating when we practice kind mind in our schools (and in our homes and communities).

As Albert Einstein wrote in February 1950, “A human being is a part of the whole called by us ‘the universe’, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

Compassion has three components:

Noticing another’s suffering
Resonating with their suffering in some way
Then acting on behalf of another person to alleviate that suffering

12 Steps to a Compassionate Life

Karen Armstrong, founder of the Charter of Compassion, encapsulates a lifetime of studying and championing compassion in her book Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life. The Charter for Compassion, which was launched in November of 2009, offers a guiding light.

“The principle of compassion lies at the heart of all religious, ethical and spiritual traditions, calling us always to treat all others as we wish to be treated ourselves. Compassion impels us to work tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of our fellow creatures, to dethrone ourselves from the centre of our world and put another there, and to honor the inviolable sanctity of every single human being, treating everybody, without exception, with absolute justice, equity and respect.”

Putting your practice to work

What conditions can we create in our community in which compassion is most likely to arise? We can’t expect it to look a certain way...we must create the conditions for it to manifest on its own! This is where the Charter for Compassion becomes relevant for our times, these times.

Here we are, standing in our garden...what conditions do we need to address?
Do we see the suffering that is present in our garden in some areas?
Are we willing to be uncomfortable and lean in to those very areas?

This will be the next step in our journey. The Mindfulness Institute of the Roanoke Valley looks forward to taking these next steps alongside our community partners!