There’s an old Buddhist story that likens mindfulness to throwing a stone at a wet mud wall. You need the energy to throw the stone and the capacity to take aim for the mind to stick. Just like the stone on the wet mud wall, you are firmly fixed on an object of meditation, perhaps the breath, a flower, or the sound of music.
Mindfulness lives in the present moment. This gives it time to collect the bits and pieces that make up the moment; a taste, a smell, an image, a feeling, a thought. The experience is as rich as a multifaceted jewel.
Mindfulness is accepting. It doesn’t label good or bad, right or wrong, beautiful or ugly. The moment is simply the moment. A behavior is simply a behavior. No judgment.
Mindfulness realizes that the mind is affected by how it is used. Whatever you think, say or do affects the quality of your consciousness, and as you relate, it affects the consciousness of others.
Mindfulness is an exceptionally important skill, a life-changing, relationship-changing, and culture-changing skill. As Joseph Campbell once said,
"It is not so much the meaning of life that we seek. It is the experience of being alive."
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