Many of us come to mindfulness seeking relief from the confusing jumble of thoughts that dominate our lives much of the time. So the first gift that mindfulness gives us—after we get accustomed to the shocking simplicity of sitting and doing nothing—is a little bit of peace. We’re no longer as tormented by our thoughts, since as we observe them come and go, no single thought seems to be a big deal anymore. It’s like being at a laundromat watching the clothes tumble in a big dryer. We don’t have to tumble along with the clothes; we can just watch them fall through space.
As we gain some spaciousness and peace, we also begin to sharpen our concentration. We can hold our attention on an object longer, whether it’s a difficult problem at work or simply the lines on the roadway ahead.
Tranquility and concentration are great benefits, worthy of celebration. But the mindfulness journey doesn’t end there, because as we develop calm and focus, a broader kind of awareness starts to come along naturally.
Take mindful eating, for example. In this practice of moment-by-moment mindfulness, we pay attention with a light touch to what we’re putting into our mouths—its taste, texture, aroma, and the act of chewing and swallowing. When we extend that to the environment surrounding the meal and everything that food means to us—emotionally, physically, economically, socially, and so on—we’re in the realm of awareness. That’s where the stable lens of a settled mind allows us to see how the world operates and how we interact with it.
Awareness takes our contentment in the present moment and extends it into an ongoing sense of well-being and a deep caring for others. It yields insights that will affect the future, because being mindful of the moment does not mean we’re unreflective and accepting of the status quo. Awareness simultaneously creates acceptance and the motivation to make changes.
Awareness is not something we manufacture by doing meditation. Like mindfulness, it’s already there, part of our human inheritance. It is precise and vivid, rich and multifaceted, and it can be described in many ways. Here are just a few of the ways we can come to know ourselves and our world better when the peace of mindfulness blossoms into the open inquisitiveness of awareness.
You may begin and end the exercises following each section with a simple mindfulness practice. Sit or stand upright and take 5 or 10 minutes to pay attention to your breathing. Gently return your attention to your breathing when your mind inevitably wanders.
The Space Inside
A fine example of the power of our inner reality is watching a movie. Light is projecting onto a flat white surface in a dark room, and from these flickering images our mind creates characters. We feel empathy, irritation, anger, attraction, and love—for people who don’t even exist.
Just as our bodies and minds are built to perceive the outer world with accuracy, they’re also built for feeling. Smelling a certain kind of pie can remind you of your grandmother’s kitchen and rouse feelings of warmth and goodness. Fingernails scratching along a smooth surface may irritate you.
We tend to think our emotions register in the same place all the time, but in fact we feel them throughout our body. We get goosebumps in the midst of fear or excitement, our jaw tightens in anger, a wave of relaxation spreads through our body when someone embraces us.
Inner awareness is about apprehending our feelings and thoughts as they’re occurring. We’re also aware of how we color the world to conform to our emotions— we might paint a yellow glow around what we love and, alternatively, focus on the worst features of what repulses us.
Our inner emotional life is rich, but it is fraught with peril. It gets us into trouble, and it also makes life worth living. Refining our “inner eye”—our capacity to see the workings of our emotions clearly—allows us to ride them, rather than be swept up by them. As we become less concerned that our emotions will rule us, or ruin us, we come to know them better, like a violinist knows her instrument. We can play them with both careful attention and free-flowing enjoyment.
Explore: Let your mind settle on something you like—a food, a favorite shirt, whatever. Spend a few minutes noticing the feelings it arouses. Now choose a person you like. Let your emotions rise and fall. Turn to something negative for a while. Don’t try to reach any conclusion. Just note the quality of the emotion, with simple curiosity.
Our emotional life, our inner life, is rich, and also fraught with peril. It gets us into trouble, and it also makes life worth living.
The Space Outside
You’re at a party. There’s a break in the conversation, and a thought pops into your head: “Can we afford to replace the washing machine?” The thought grabs you and a chain of thinking is unleashed. Before long, you’re lost in thought and wrapped up in your own concerns. If someone starts talking to you, you’re startled. You apologize for being “preoccupied.”
When swirling thoughts take us into a world of our own, our surroundings are still there reliably waiting for us. When we come out of our little dream, we take off our proverbial headphones and the outer world rushes in with full force.
We may still need to reach a decision about the washing machine. What we don’t need is to take ourselves out of our surroundings and gnaw on our concerns like a dog with a bone. We can attend to the washing machine in due course, and in the meantime we can appreciate the simple vividness of what we are encountering with our senses. Wherever we are, a full array of color and texture and flavor and smell is ours for the taking. People’s faces and gestures and voices are communicating with us in big and sm