MINDFULNESS is another word for awareness. It may be called "bare attention" or "wise attention." It is also known as insight meditation. We can all cultivate the ability to be mindful by paying attention to our moment-to-moment experiences. The application of mindfulness can take us beyond our analytical mind, to direct experience. With mindfulness, one has the opportunity to investigate one's experience in new ways. And, therefore, to use one's brain in new ways!

Mindfulness is the cornerstone of my work with individuals, groups, and organizations; it applies in the diverse realms of leadership/management, education, counselling, coaching, organizational development, and social change. Mindfulness-based strategies are timely remedies for busy lives that are increasingly fragmented by the demands of work, family, social responsibilities, and self. Mindfulness opens new ways of being in, and with, the world.
 

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Mindfulness training is a powerful way to liberate our brains and cultivate insight. It facilitates our escape from the constraints of what we "Know" and makes room for pure exploration.

The limitations of Knowing

We tend to treat our thoughts as if they were real; we think a "car" is a "car." In fact, it is a system consisting of wheels, chassis, drive train, fuel system, upholstery, cup-holders, and so on. "Car" is an idea. "Car" is merely a word that signifies a wheeled conveyance with the above features.

We regularly take ideas and reify them; we cast them in concrete until we know that they're real. For example, everyone knows that a '57 Chevy is a car. There is neither clear observation nor fresh thinking. Yet consider the first fishmonger to see a horseless carriage in London in the early 1900's: he didn't simply dismiss it as a "car," but marvelled at its appearance, its sound, its speed, and its belching smoke. That fishmonger was seeing with fresh eyes!

A familiar example of the reification of an idea is, "sunset." We all think we know what a sunset is. We probably watch them occasionally. In fact, there's no such thing! The sun doesn't actually set; the world rotates around the sun on an axis, with some areas intermittently entering shadow. "Sunset" is only an idea, yet we treat it as if it were real. We don't exclaim, "Look at those brilliant colours manifesting from the earth turning on its axis each 24-hour period!" We assume that the sun sinks below the horizon.

We have reified an idea until it has become consensus reality! As such, it functions as a shortcut that, seemingly, eases communication. (Everyone understands what you mean when you say, "sunset.") However, these shortcuts and shorthand keep us anchored in the realm of ideas without our realization. Living solely in the realm of ideas disenfranchises us from our own real experience. Mindfulness unlocks the potential of our own genuine experience.

Why mindfulness?

Mindfulness cultivates the investigation of reality, and challenges us about what we really Know. If we already Know, we cannot be mindful. We are imprisoned by our notions of conceptual reality, because knowing makes us secure! And we'd rather be secure than have direct experience of not knowing! Mindfulness makes room for new ways of knowing, different ways of knowing, and the Unknown. Mindfulness takes us beyond the limitations of cognition and the analytical mind.

Practically, this means expanded possibilities in life and in work. It means discerning between "pain" and "suffering", recognizing that suffering is largely self-imposed, and alleviating it. It means fresh thinking about limitations of all varieties, which are also largely self-imposed. Mindfulness provides a way to be more comfortable with "not knowing." And lets there be ways out of the habitual thinking which characterizes a "rut." Mindfulness teaches that there can be a fresh perspective only when we can let the old perspective go. Mindfulness cultivates seeing things how they actually are, rather than seeing them through our own distorted lens.

More about mindfulness

The notion of mindfulness is present in both Eastern and Western cultures. In the West, Harvard psychology professor Ellen Langer has been studying mindfulness since the mid-70's (Langer, 1989). The East has a much longer history; mindfulness was taught by the Buddha over 2500 years ago. Mindfulness in southeast Asian Buddhism is taught as vipassana, or insight meditation. Classical Buddhism teaches mindfulness in four domains:

• mindfulness of body sensations. For example - heat, cold, prickliness, pressure, tension.
• mindfulness of feeling tone; the primal perceptions are pleasant, unpleasant and neutral. When something is pleasant, we want more. When something is unpleasant, we get aversive. And when it is neutral, we frequently get bored or spacey, because there's nothing to "grab" our attention.
• mindfulness of mind states. For example - fear, anxiety, nostalgia, attraction, anger, and other emotional/mental states.
• mindfulness of the contents of mind; thoughts and thinking.

The final component of mindfulness is non-identification, where we have the ability to cease identifying with what's happening. (Non-identification is a pivotal component of Classical Buddhist teaching. For more see Classical Buddhist Psychology.) It isn't really about you. Every eyeball moves; movement happens. Everyone gets bored; boredom happens. Aversion strikes all of us; aversion happens. We can stop taking it personally, and let it simply be "movement," or "boredom" or "aversion." Living and working becomes smoother and richer when we stop taking everything so personally! Mindfulness can help.

Mindfulness, creativity, and play

The capacity of mindfulness to liberate the mind from its own constrictions generates creativity. Do not confuse "creative" and "artistic." According to Webster's, in its broadest sense, creativity means:

• to make out of nothing for the first time
• to produce along new or unconventional lines
• to make or bring into existence something new
• invent

Creative work looks like play, whether in a boardroom or a kitchen. It is energetic, spontaneous, engaged, and imaginative. It has the same quality that children bring to a game, even when they are playing it for the hundredth time!

If we can look at ourselves truthfully ... and stop being so serious about getting things "right"--as if there were still an objective reality out there--we can engage in life with a different quality, a different level of playfulness. Lewis Thomas explains that he could tell something important was going on in an experimental laboratory by the laughter. Surprised by what nature has revealed, we find that things at first always look startlingly funny. "Whenever you can hear laughter," Thomas says, "and somebody saying, 'But that's preposterous'--you can tell that things are going well and that something probably worth looking at has begun to happen in the lab" (Wheatley p. 142)

Playful tinkering requires consciousness. If we are not mindful, our attention slips, then we can't notice what's available or discover what's possible. Staying present is the discipline of play. Great focus and concentration are required.... Playful enterprises are alert. They are open to information, always seeking more, yearning for surprises (Wheatley and Kellner-Rogers, 1996; p. 25).

Langer, Ellen J. (1989). Mindfulness. New York: Addison-Wesley