Community of Faith: Practicing mindfulness

As we enter spring and are heartened by blue skies more often than not, I reflect on the experiences, challenges and opportunities presented during the past year. It is hard to imagine that a year ago my children were beginning spring break and during parent-teacher conferences we were given a plan in the “unlikely event that students would not return to school.” Here it is spring break again, a year later, and they still haven’t returned. Like many others, our family has been juggling school from home with piecing work together and connecting to family and friends via video conferencing. One surprising element for me throughout his time has been a deeper and subtler understanding of mindfulness practice.

For many decades my root teacher, Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh, has emphasized the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness is part of the original teachings of Buddhism, but it is not exclusive to Buddhist teachings. We have seen mindfulness take hold as a popular tool for managing stress and engaging with life more fully. Personally, for the past 20 years I have experienced and taught mindfulness in many contexts and the practice has served me in much of my work, especially as a chaplain and mediator. This time at home, though, has shown me what the possibilities of mindfulness practice are.

At the core, mindfulness practice is simply placing attention where we want it to go with an attitude of warmth, curiosity and openness. When I first started a practice of mindfulness of breathing, after about three minutes it felt like 30 minutes had passed and I realized how challenging it can be to have my attention stay put. Like any other skill, it has become easier for my attention to rest wherever I move it. Last year at the end of the summer against the backdrop of the continued pandemic, civil unrest, and personal grief and loss, I noticed that my ability to concentrate and focus was decreasing and my mind and body were restless and agitated. My inclination was to try harder and to “get it right.” However, maybe because of the relentless stressors and feelings of grief and overwhelm, I instead let go of the idea I had about mindfulness practice. I made the choice to instead welcome whatever feeling or emotion came into my awareness.

Welcoming the difficult experiences and noticing where these experiences manifested in the body allowed the feelings to move and transform. Whenever I began to analyze or interpret what the experience was, I noticed that the feelings tended to become stuck. Being too mentally exhausted to investigate the experience, I just let the feelings be. I realized that I had been avoiding these feelings because they were uncomfortable or painful. But in doing so, I was also avoiding the joy of being home with my kids, the support in connecting to community, and the quiet rhythm of moving into fall. The unpleasantness and pain didn’t go away, but it became part of my experience, rather than dominating my awareness.

Practicing mindfulness in this way didn’t leave anything out. It did not transform our social structures that cause harm, but it did give me energy to work towards change. It did not remove the anxiety and sorrow over so many Montanans and Americans who grew ill or died as a result of the pandemic, but it did allow me to experience that pain and find ways to support people in our community. It did not make me feel better all of the time, but it did open my heart to the joys in life and in my family. And for that I am grateful.

This article originally ran on missoulian.com.