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Mindfulness

Updated: Jan 28

Peace is every step: Walk as though smiling flowers bloom under your feet. Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet. Get grounded in meditation. Compassion, love, and service lead to peace. Peace leads to joy. These are the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King Jr., and Thich Nhat Hahn; as well as many more. This is the path of mindfulness in everyday life. The book ‘Peace Is Every Step’, which is all about mindfulness, is in my ‘Suggested Reading List.’ Mindfulness is really a misnomer: It involves emptying your mind of resentful, angry, repetitive, victimising, catastrophic thoughts and instead embracing peace and joy in line with Gandhian philosophy.



Dwell in the present moment. Be here now. This is how we return to our True Self. Nothing prevents us from joy right now. Be in touch with life. Surrender thinking. When you begin to see that your enemy is suffering, that is the beginning of insight. The past is gone: That’s the beauty of it. The future will never be here yet. We live in the 'Holy instant.' Your future self will thank you for nourishing awareness in each moment. Use every moment - even the previously triggering ones - are gifts of mindfulness. 


Practicing mindfulness enables us to become a real person. When we are a real person, we see real people around us, and life is present in all its richness. Souls love one another. 


You may radiate peace: Like an effulgent light. Practice meditation gently. This is how you dwell in profound communion with life. Enjoy the beauty of being alive. All is well. Use every sound, breath, and event as a bell of mindfulness. Anger, conflict, drama, and fear lead us away from peace and joy. Mindfulness is the journey from pain to peace...


Mind full or mindful?


Mindfulness and love

When it comes to love, Thich Nhat Hanh advises “We really have to understand the person we want to love. If our love is only a will to possess, it is not (unconditional) love. If we only think of ourselves, if we know only our own needs and ignore the needs of the other person, we cannot love. We must look deeply in order to see and understand the needs, aspirations, and suffering of the person we love. This is the ground of real love. You cannot resist loving another person when you really understand him or her. From time to time, sit close to the one you love, hold his or her hand, and ask, 'Darling, do I understand you enough? Or am I making you suffer? Please tell me so that I can learn to love you properly. I don't want to make you suffer, and if I do so because of my ignorance, please tell me so that I can love you better, so that you can be happy." If you say this in a voice that communicates your real openness to understand, the other person may cry. That is a good sign, because it means the door of understanding is opening and everything will be possible again. Maybe a father does not have time or is not brave enough to ask his son such a question. Then the love between them will not be as full as it could be. We need courage to ask these questions, but if we don't ask, the more we love, the more we may destroy the people we are trying to love. True love needs understanding. With understanding, the one we love will certainly flower… We will not just say, "I love him very much," but instead, "I will do something so that he will suffer less." The mind of compassion is truly present when it is effective in removing another person's suffering… When we want to understand something, we cannot just stand outside and observe it. We have to enter deeply into it and be one with it in order to really understand. If we want to understand a person, we have to feel his feelings, suffer his sufferings, and enjoy his joy. The word "comprehend" is made up of the Latin roots cum, which means "with," and prehendere, which means "to grasp it or pick it up." There is no other way to understand something.”


Peace is present right here and now, in ourselves and in everything we do and see. As Sting sang "Every breath we take, every step we take, every move we make", can be filled with peace, joy, and serenity. The question is whether or not we are in touch with it. We need only to be awake, alive in the present moment. If we are not fully ourselves, truly in the present moment, we miss everything. We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive. Only the present moment contains life. 


Thich Nhat Hanh wrote “No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change… When you understand, you cannot help but love. You cannot get angry… Anger is rooted in our lack of understanding of ourselves and of the causes, deep-seated as well as immediate, that brought about this unpleasant state of affairs. Anger is also rooted in desire, pride, agitation, and suspicion. The primary roots of our anger are in ourselves. Our environment and other people are only secondary… When we are angry, we are not usually inclined to return to ourselves. We want to think about the person who is making us angry, to think about his hateful aspects - his rudeness, dishonesty, cruelty, maliciousness, and so on. The more we think about him, listen to him, or look at him, the more our anger flares. His dishonesty and hatefulness may be real, imaginary, or exaggerated, but, in fact, the root of the problem is the anger itself, and we have to come back and look first of all inside ourselves… We can also meditate on the suffering of those who cause us to suffer. Anyone who has made us suffer is undoubtedly suffering too. We only need to follow our breathing and look deeply, and naturally we will see his suffering. A part of his difficulties and sorrows may have been brought about by his parents’ lack of skill when he was still young. But his parents themselves may have been victims of their parents; the suffering has been transmitted from generation to generation and been reborn in him. If we see that, we will no longer blame him for making us suffer, because we know that he is also a victim. To look deeply is to understand. Once we understand the reasons he has acted badly, our bitterness towards him will vanish, and we will long for him to suffer less. We will feel cool and light… Anger is an unpleasant feeling. It is like a blazing flame that burns up our self-control and causes us to say and do things that we regret later. When someone is angry, we can see clearly that he or she is abiding in 'Hell'. Anger and hatred are the materials from which 'Hell' is made.”


Mindful observation is based on the principle of “non-duality”: Our feeling is not separate from us or caused merely by something outside us; our feeling is us, and for the moment we are that feeling. We are neither drowned in nor terrorised by the feeling, nor do we reject it. Our attitude of not clinging to or rejecting our feelings is the attitude of letting go. 


Aimlessness

In the West, we are very goal oriented. We know where we want to go, and we are very directed in getting there. This may be useful, but often we forget to enjoy ourselves along the route. There is a word in Buddhism that means “wishlessness” or “aimlessness.” The idea is that you do not put something in front of you and run after it, because everything is already here, in your Self.


Mindfulness and your shadow

Mindfulness can help you uncover unseen depths within yourself in order to meet and understand your ‘shadow self’ in the following ways:

1. Awareness and acknowledgment:

Mindfulness involves being consciously aware of one’s thoughts, emotions, and behaviours without judgement.


Similarly, Jungian shadow work requires acknowledging and becoming conscious of the hidden or repressed aspects of one's Self.


Practicing mindfulness allows individuals to observe these aspects without immediate judgement, creating an environment where the shadow elements can surface and be recognised.


2. Integration and acceptance:

Mindfulness encourages acceptance of present experiences, including difficult emotions or thoughts.


Similarly, integrating the shadow involves accepting these repressed elements as part of one’s whole personality.


Through mindfulness practices, individuals can gradually integrate and accept their shadow aspects, leading to a more balanced and authentic Self-understanding.


3. Self-exploration and reflection:

Mindfulness involves self-reflection and introspection, observing one’s thoughts and emotions.


Shadow work, which aims at uncovering the unconscious elements, requires a similar introspective approach.


Engaging in mindfulness practices can open doors for self-exploration, facilitating the recognition and understanding of the shadow aspects of one's Self.


4. Embracing wholeness:

Mindfulness encourages individuals to embrace the entirety of their experiences, including the positive and negative aspects.


Jung’s concept of integrating the shadow aims for wholeness by acknowledging and integrating these hidden elements, leading to a more complete and authentic sense of Self.


Freedom

Freedom is not given to us by anyone; we have to cultivate it ourselves. It is a daily practice... No one can prevent you from being aware of each step you take or each breath in and breath out.


Although attempting to bring about world peace through the internal transformation of individuals is difficult, it is the only way. The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.


Speak in such a way that others love to listen to you: Listen in such a way that others love to speak to you.


George Bernard Shaw wrote that “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” Are you ready to change your mind?


Namaste.


Sending you love, light, and blessings brothers.


Olly



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Hello,

I am delighted and enchanted to meet you. I coach men with 'Deep Coaching', 'Supercoaching', and Transformative Life Coaching (TLC). Thank you for reading this far. I very much look forward to connecting with the highest version of you, to seeing your highest possibility, and to our conversations. Please do contact me via my email for a free connection call and a free experience of coaching on Zoom or in person. 


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