How I Discovered Mindfulness

photo credit: mindfulness via photopin cc

I live a frantic life at work, working for huge multinational corporation. Every day I wake up at 6 am, get ready for work, spend some time with my wife, wake up the kids for school. Then, get some breakfast and go to work. After work, I come home, watch some TV, eat dinner while watching TV, and then go to bed.

My whole family executes this pattern day in, day out, every working day. This routine is something we do on auto-pilot, without much attention. When I brush my teeth I think about my task list for the day. When I eat breakfast, I read the news articles or contemplate about upcoming project at work.

"This is how it should be," I was thinking for years. Everyone I know, my friends, relatives and colleagues live similar lives, doing the same routine, day in, day out - indefinitely.

First, what is mindfulness? The best definition was given by Jon Kabat-Zinn:

"Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and non judgmentally."

I will get back to this. Sentence is complex and consists of several key areas, which I will cover in later posts.

This depiction describes the exact opposite of my life. Ever since I discovered mindfulness, my life changed and in a positive way.

My first contact with mindfulness and meditation was last summer, when I saw a TED talk by Andy Puddicombe ("All it takes is 10 mindful minutes"). What Andy asked me, and all of his audience, is to do nothing for ten minutes. At the beginning of his talk Andy asked the question:

"I'd like you just to take a moment to think, when did you last take any time to do nothing? Just 10 minutes, undisturbed? And when I say nothing, I do mean nothing. So that's no emailing, texting, no Internet, no TV, no chatting, no eating, no reading, not even sitting there reminiscing about the past or planning for the future. Simply doing nothing. I see a lot of very blank faces." 

You can watch Andy's performance, and see for yourself.

This is the moment something just clicked in my mind, as I fearfully realized that I do not have an answer. This is where I have discovered mindfulness.
Next, I went to Andy's website Headspace, and browsed around, looking at his excellent short videos.

At this point, I downloaded Headspace Android application Headspace (on-the-go), and decided to try out his ten-day free meditation program. I whipped out my headphones and started with Day one video and audio recording. The experience was eye-opening, not to mention very satisfying. After first ten minutes of meditation I felt like a giant boulder just dropped from my hands. Experience passed after several minutes, but I made up my mind to continue the next day, with lesson number two.

Since Andy's program is not cheap (75 EUR for a yearly subscription), I embarked on a quest to find more affordable (meaning "free") material about mindfulness meditation, before coughing up money. Andy's material is so great that I eventually purchased membership.

Next stop was YouTube. As a repository of humongous number of videos, many of them of cats, it houses countless lectures about mindfulness, meditation and awareness. Here is a first video that I saw (Jon Kabat-Zinn - "The Healing Power of Mindfulness"):

If you want to learn more about Jon read about him on Wikipedia. In short, he is professor of medicine and founder of the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine. He has a doctorate in molecular biology from MIT.

Video "The Healing Power of Mindfulness" was an eye opener for me. Here I found out that meditation is not some eastern religious ritual, but a scientifically studied practice. Jon's lecture is clear, and he has a lot to say about the matter.

Next video was Jon's talk in Google. Here I have established a feeling of credibility about Jon Kabat-Zinn, because if you pass Google's screening and get to talk to their employees, you sure have something important to say. As if previous talk in New Hampshire based Ivy League College was not credible enough.

In first video, Jon mentions some guy named Eckhart Tolle. He said we should read his books, so as a member of hyper-connected generation, I have first looked him up on Wikipedia (Eckhart Tolle on Wikipedia) and, afterwards, on YouTube. And lo and behold, I found the video called "Eckhart Tolle in Conversation with Bradley Horowitz | Talks at Google". Here it is:

Now I had another Google hosted talk about the same topic, this time much less scientific and more on emotional side.

Why I insisted on Google lectures? It is for personal reason - I am IT professional, and I am probably quite similar to people working at other IT companies, and have similar concerns, interests and skepticism as they have.

Third video I stumbled on was "Mark Williams on Mindfulness", by professor Mark Williams (professor of clinical psychology at the University of Oxford). For me, this was the best  of four video lectures featured in this post, as it is the most "scientific" of them all. It is more down-to-earth type of lecture, to the point and without excessive ramblings.

After watching the videos, it was high time time to get more serious! I needed to read some books, and since I was new to the field of mindfulness meditation, I struggled to find right book to start with. 

After browsing the web, and amazing website Goodreads (goodreads.com), I found the book "The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment" by Eckhart Tolle. Persuaded by Jon Kabat-Zinn lecture, I have read this book and I was dumbfounded. Eckhart talks about present moment, and proves very easily that present moment is the only moment that ever existed! What a paradigm shift. He explains that every moment in the past was present moment then. Exactly the same logic applies to future moments. He proved that past and future is illusion and that they do not exist. You can not experience or touch past or future, just what is now in this moment. I believe that this perspective change was the single moment that made me choose to continue my study of awareness, mindfulness and the present moment.

It was very important for me to understand the present moment, and to start noticing it in my life. Since I have continued Headspace meditation practice, I could finally understand the reason Andy was telling me to follow my breath and let my thoughts and emotions pass without getting angry with myself that I can not do such a simple thing. "Just gently bring back your attention to the breath", said Andy.

Next book I have read is "Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life" by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Jon's history and experience on subject convinced me to read his book. Inside the book, there are chapters about mindfulness meditation, laid out in straightforward way. His style is easier to read than Tolle's. He teaches us how to meditate. The main point for me was his explanation of the difference between "being" and "doing". He even explained to my corporate-driven, productive mind that I am "human being", not "human doing".

This is the end of my list and good starting point for everyone who wishes to learn about mindfulness and meditation. I have read more books, seen more lectures and tried other meditation techniques, and I intend to cover them in later posts.

Do you have any interesting book or video to share? Please write in the comments section below!