What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is focused on awareness or being able to realize an object or event. The practice is to help calm and make ourselves happy. Practicing mindfulness is listening quietly to the birds chirping, listening to the wind blowing, and picturing finding yourself flying with the bird. Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk that prolongs his focus on Buddhism. He reflects on his personal experience and philosophy from meditating with the practice of mindfulness and concentrating to perceive his own awareness. He goes into details on how we can achieve awareness and gives many examples of everyday activities that we do and how we can be aware. Everyday activities can be as simple as bathing the dog and finding joy in the task.
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It can happen when we are dressing to make a meal. It is not only us, that can practice being mindful but all the things around us can practice mindfulness too. Similar to the green leaves example in the book, the leaves are practicing mindfulness by being aware of the sun and the moon. The leaves will reflect its shape and color depending on the sun or the moon that shines on the leaves. For instance, the leaves will be green when the sun shines on the leaves (9). Mindfulness can be putting yourself in someone else's shoes or in an object to be able to understand and feel the connection between them. Not only that, if we practice and focus on our activities, then we can also feel and enjoy what we are doing. One of the activities of this chapter was drinking tea. Drinking tea is not only to socialize or be fulfilled by a caffeine drink but to taste and smell the tea. Drinking tea is practicing mindfulness because we focus on the drink, and enjoy the pleasure that the tea is giving us (16). Hanh illustrates that, “Your mindful breath and your smile will bring happiness to you and those around you (20).” Therefore, if we learn to enjoy the things that we do or understand others like we want them to understand us then we will be …show more content…
Mindfulness can help our mind to relax and experience reality if we let go of our principles and opinions. To demonstrate; if I am willing to let go of my perception of those who hurts me then practicing meditating will help my mind to be mindful and free. We cannot isolate how we feel or think from our mind. As we can see everything is connected; the speck of dust is connected to us one way or another and if it does not exist then we do not exist too (61). We should be aware that everything is connected as one and all things are essential for us to survive. For instance, from the book, if we are aware of the functions in our body, then we can feel the movements inside. Not only that the functions in our body is important but the things outside is also important as well (60). Hanh’s example of an important need outside of our body that we should be aware and take advantage of is “If it stops shining, the flow of our life will also stop and so the sun is our second heart, our heart outside of our body (62).” We need the sun to be showered upon us for nutrients and because of that reason, mindfulness is practice to see the value of each thing even though sometimes we do not see the importance of
It can happen when we are dressing to make a meal. It is not only us, that can practice being mindful but all the things around us can practice mindfulness too. Similar to the green leaves example in the book, the leaves are practicing mindfulness by being aware of the sun and the moon. The leaves will reflect its shape and color depending on the sun or the moon that shines on the leaves. For instance, the leaves will be green when the sun shines on the leaves (9). Mindfulness can be putting yourself in someone else's shoes or in an object to be able to understand and feel the connection between them. Not only that, if we practice and focus on our activities, then we can also feel and enjoy what we are doing. One of the activities of this chapter was drinking tea. Drinking tea is not only to socialize or be fulfilled by a caffeine drink but to taste and smell the tea. Drinking tea is practicing mindfulness because we focus on the drink, and enjoy the pleasure that the tea is giving us (16). Hanh illustrates that, “Your mindful breath and your smile will bring happiness to you and those around you (20).” Therefore, if we learn to enjoy the things that we do or understand others like we want them to understand us then we will be …show more content…
Mindfulness can help our mind to relax and experience reality if we let go of our principles and opinions. To demonstrate; if I am willing to let go of my perception of those who hurts me then practicing meditating will help my mind to be mindful and free. We cannot isolate how we feel or think from our mind. As we can see everything is connected; the speck of dust is connected to us one way or another and if it does not exist then we do not exist too (61). We should be aware that everything is connected as one and all things are essential for us to survive. For instance, from the book, if we are aware of the functions in our body, then we can feel the movements inside. Not only that the functions in our body is important but the things outside is also important as well (60). Hanh’s example of an important need outside of our body that we should be aware and take advantage of is “If it stops shining, the flow of our life will also stop and so the sun is our second heart, our heart outside of our body (62).” We need the sun to be showered upon us for nutrients and because of that reason, mindfulness is practice to see the value of each thing even though sometimes we do not see the importance of