Wholistic practice

Learning to practice mindfulness requires both an effort to cultivate periods of quiet meditation, and also a growing awareness of our words and actions and what effect they have on ourselves and others. This is not a difficult discipline, but a sustainable training; we bring our attention back to our bodies, our breath and what we are doing, over and over again, each time we remember our intention to be mindful. The benefit of becoming aware of our words and actions as they happen is that we are more and more likely to steer them in wholesome directions, avoiding causing harm and inclining towards creating harmony and peace.

Developing a wholistic path of practice (from Jill Shepherd’s newsletter https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGxSHdSrKjLLTKVdnWrWccmPJGc)

…I started to re-appreciate just how comprehensive the Buddha’s path to freedom is. It includes every aspect of our lives, but perhaps because of how the Dhamma has come to the West, so far there has been a much bigger emphasis on just the meditative aspects of this path.

As a result, it can take quite a while before people understand that meditation doesn’t happen in a vacuum, and that how we live our everyday lives has a big effect on what we experience in formal practice. As mindfulness has become more mainstream though, it’s sometimes presented as being something you just sprinkle over your life, like a bit of fairy dust, and hey presto, everything will be OK …

If only it was that simple and easy! By contrast, the Buddha, in laying out the Noble Eightfold Path, was very clear that we need to take care with the whole of our lives, because that’s the context that meditation emerges from. So we need to pay equal attention to all eight factors of this path, not just the meditative ones.

For more exploration of this theme, you can listen to a recent dhamma talk here

It is important to include ourselves in our good intentions. We are all hard on ourselves in various ways. We can be mindful of that process and skillfully examine it. Do we use a harsher tone of voice when we narrate our actions internally than we would ever use with another human being? Being kind, forgiving, and encouraging to ourselves is the basis for being kind, forgiving, and encouraging to others.

We can cultivate this attitude either from the outside or from the inside. We can practice being gentle with ourselves, which will (eventually) result in our being gentler with others. We can also practice being kind to others, which will (eventually) lead us to act more kindly towards ourselves. When we let go of our ego-needs, even for a short time, the Brahmavihāras (divine abodes), appear. The four forms of limitless love are always present in us, but are often obscured by our fear or inattention.

As Jill Shepherd says above, mindfulness is an “all the time” practice. We notice what’s happening and make adjustments as we go, bringing more care and awareness to each moment. In this way, we guide ourselves towards freedom.