Category Archives: Mindfulness

The bare reddish branches of our Japanese maple tree crackled and dripped with ice while the snow changed to sleet and freezing rain. A pretty sight, it was also disheartening, coming as it does at the point where we have already, in mind, heart, and calendar days, moved into spring. Not wholly unexpected or undeserved, our mild winters tend to make up for their lack of early zeal with an extended and drawn-out few weeks of wintry nonsense. 

There is no rushing what nature is going to do. Keeping this in mind, and accepting it sooner rather than later, is a key component of one’s daily peace, and a helpful lesson for life in general; there will aways be things and events and people who are beyond our control or influence. These things don’t know or care whether you may be affected or bothered by their actions, and they never will be. Giving oneself over to this bit of powerlessness is part of growing up. It’s also a part of being at peace as a grown-up. 

Some music then, for rumination and contemplation. Sit with me for a moment while it plays. It’s called ‘Spring Snow’ because being literal is usually the easiest course to take.

Even the sturdiest branches, as bare and light of leaf as they are right now, bend and droop beneath the weight of the ice. Looking as forlorn as some slow-moving funeral procession, the branches of dogwoods and grasses gently sway in their mournful stance, waiting for the hug of spring to offer comfort – though none is to be had on this frigid day. The temperature is moving in the wrong direction, and so they shudder, still unable to shirk off the ice on their backs. 

Whenever I want to rush ahead, especially in the first days of spring, the universe has ways of forcing a pause, and rather than finding frustration or antibusiness here, I find a welcome pocket of time in which to slow down, to let the day crawl for a bit. Rushing through life is no way to live; you simply miss too much.

Apparently taking three days off from work means hundreds of e-mails and a catch-up period of a full week, as I’m still in the midst of digging out from the avalanche of last week, but it was all worth it for this. Now that most of us are returning to work and school, and the endless doldrums of winter spread out expansively before us, it’s a good time to reconnect with things that bring us calm and clarity. For me, that’s meditation. 

The great Betty Buckley introduced me to the writings and teachings of Thich Nhat Hanh several years ago, and since then I’ve been an avid disciple, devouring his books and doing my best to incorporate his meditative methods into my own life. It has helped immensely, and on dour Tuesday mornings in the middle of January, I lean gratefully into being more mindful, less consumed by what may or may not happen, and wholly intent on being as present as possible. 

Another way of looking at this is in the words of one of my favorite former retail managers, who often said this to me whenever I started spinning out of control: “Calm the fuck down, shit will get done.”

If ever there was a month ripe and receptive to meditation, it is this one. January arrives and the best way of dealing with the post-holiday blues is to clean house and dive deeply into a meditation practice. Personally, I find it much easier to sit in still and quiet while the outside window reveals the gray and brown dreary landscape of winter as opposed to the vibrant verdant expanse of spring and summer. And so I sit, lotus-style, once a day, for about twenty minutes, slowing my breathing and entering a state of mindfulness. 

My meditations most often occur after work, when I’m home, and the day begins to cross into the night. I like being in a meditative state when such darkness descends – it makes it easier to bear. There’s also something calming about it, the way the sky slowly and then quickly drains of its light and any color it might have conjured during the day. As the room dims, the candle becomes the central focus point, flickering its light and enveloping the surroundings with a gentle sense of warmth. It all conspires to further the meditative mode. 

All such atmospheric conditions aside, it is not the setting or the scene that matters, as my eyes remain gently closed for most of my meditation. It is, first and foremost, the breathing that counts. Then it is the state of releasing my thoughts and making contact with the mindfulness that clues me into the present moment in heightened form. At the same time, I feel as though I have been taken out of the trappings of the daily grind, transported to a plane of peace and stillness, blessedly relieved of the worldly concerns of a day. It is here where the magic of meditation happens for me. 

Accessing this space of blankness, where the mind has allowed all its worrisome thoughts – good and bad and everything in-between – to be recognized and then released, is the key to how meditation helps me beyond that particular moment. Inhabiting that mindful and yet beautifully empty place allows my mind and body to feel a sense of peace that it never gets to feel. It’s like the most exquisite, and healthy, drug trip, without any of the negative effects. Once I began to feel such release, I understood it was possible to access it at almost any time through being mindful. And so my practice extends beyond the twenty minutes, into the days and nights of a January where everything else feels dismal and depressing. 

It’s a method of making it through the winter.

When the calendar turns to the most dour days of November, when the leaves have just been ripped from the trees, and that first gray barren visage reveals itself, stark and brutal and bare, the only place I’ve found to properly work as an escape is not some far-away tropical land, but the dim living room where I sit down for a daily meditation. 

Lit by a candle, which in turn illuminates the curling smoke from a Palo Santo stick, the darkness of November, and all of its absent, fallen leaves, pulls back from this little circle of respite. At the dourest hours of the year, when the sudden onslaught of the winter to come is standing just ahead of us – immovable, majestic, daunting, and mad – I breathe slowly in, and even more slowly out, and the breathing that has sustained me through the day now works to calm and still me. It is the magical movement of meditation, when the worries of the mind shift, with practice and patience into a realm of blank peace. Thoughts that once raced now walk slowly by, pausing to genuflect with acknowledgement, then going on their way, until the line of thoughts has dwindled to barely a trickle, and at last, to none at all – simple, sublime, and entirely full emptiness. 

Yesterday was a day in which the only thing to which I looked forward was my daily meditation. Maybe it was the barrage of non-stop office antics and interruptions, and the fact that I didn’t get out for lunch. (Whenever I fail to take a break at lunch, the day feels especially weighty.) Maybe it was seeing my Uncle for the first time in decades, and the way he so incredibly brought my Dad back to life in physical form, with the very same gestures and inflections and laughter. Maybe it was my Dad’s name being read at the mass for All Souls Day. Maybe it was just the heaviness of fall, and the chill that lingered in the air despite the sun. 

Whatever the reason or reasons, I eagerly anticipated my twenty-minute meditation. Gently striking the edge of a Tibetan singing bowl, and lighting a candle in this beautiful candle-holder made by our dear friend Eileen, I sat down on the floor and felt grounded in a way that only meditation provides these days. As the outside world burned, and oak leaves spun in gentle spirals down to the earth, I began the long and deep inhalations and exhalations that constituted the physical aspect of my meditation. My eyes closed, and in that darkness I felt the gradual clearing of thoughts. They traveled across my mind at first like they always do, but soon they dissipated. Practice helps that happen faster and faster, and within a few minutes I can usually find the plane of peace that is the basic goal of any meditation. 

On this day it was linked with a general feeling of sadness that’s been plaguing me as the days turn darker. I’ve been trying to embrace that sadness, to feel it as a proper and ultimately healthy way of grieving. I miss my Dad still. And always. I understand it won’t go away, and for the most part I don’t want it to; I am learning to be ok with that. 

Meditation has proven to be a saving grace in my life, and I somehow manage to do it every day, but it’s not always easy. Lately I’ve had my own struggles in keeping focused, and not allowing troublesome thoughts and worries to surface during my twenty-minute sessions. It’s been a couple of months of agitation and annoyance with the world, and that has seeped into my meditation – a combination of grief and healing and the rushed passing of time that has resulted in general prickliness, and a vague, troubling sense that I’m no longer the best company. My heart hurts a bit too much to really care, which is another sort of sadness altogether, and so I turn back inward, back to the simplicity of the practice. 

As evening descends, sooner and earlier than it ever did in the summer, I find myself sitting lotus-style in the dim living room, the glow of a solitary candle the only light as the sky deepens from blue to a darker shade of the deepest ocean. I go through my usual focal points of meditation, mostly about family, and then, where I would usually start letting my mind wander a bit, I returned to the way I began meditating about four years ago, with a basic counting of numbers that went along with the breathing.

Inhaling slowly, I would focus on the breath, thinking to myself ‘Breathing in one,’ then on a slower exhalation thinking ‘Breathing out one’. On the next inhalation, I would think ‘Breathing in two’, then ‘Breathing out two’. At this point in my practice, my inhalations are about twelve seconds long, and the exhalations are about twenty seconds. That’s about two full breathes per minute, which is why a twenty-minute meditation seems to move along pretty quickly, and I don’t have to count that high before it’s done. That’s a good length to completely calm the brain, and on this day it works. The worries about my niece and nephew not returning my texts, the concern about getting my Mom to schedule her next doctor’s exam, the stress and sadness of finding my own way through grief – they all somehow fall away as the minutes tick by, and the breathing steadies.

The mind is clear by the time I’m on the tenth inhalation or so, a reminder that it’s still possible to achieve that calm and stillness. A reminder that I can still find that quiet. 

“If we let the suffering come up and take over our mind, we can quickly be overwhelmed by it. So, we invite another energy to come up at the same time, the energy of mindfulness. 

With the energy of mindfulness, we can recognize our pain and embrace it tenderly like e another whose baby is crying. When a baby cries, the mother stops everything she is doing and holds the baby tenderly in her arms. The energy of the mother will penetrate into the baby and the baby will feel relief. 

The function of mindfulness is, first, to recognize the suffering that is there and then to take care of the suffering by identifying and embracing it. It is important that we are able to name what we are feeling, to identify what is making us suffer so that transformation, peace, and joy can be possible. 

We can embrace our sorrow and pain, our anger and fear, with the energy of mindfulness, we’ll be able to recognize the roots of our suffering. And we’ll be able to recognize the suffering in the people we love as well.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

My meditation has, well, had, as one of its main components, a list of my family members and their various health issues and aspects on which I would focus for each session. When Dad died, I no longer had a need to go through his health, his vital organs, his mental fortitude, and all the other topics on which I spent one lengthy inhale and its lengthier exhale for each. And so I shifted. ‘Breathing in, I feel that I am alive. Breathing out, I feel that my Dad is alive within me.‘ About ten of these breaths took the place of all his health issues I used to focus on, and my meditation continued daily, providing a space and refuge in which I still felt the presence of my Dad near me. 

These daily meditations helped ground my grief, forming a continuation of something I did when Dad was alive, proof that his transition out of his physical shell was merely that – a transition rather than an end. He stays with me through my meditations now, a comforting presence that eases the sadness of not having him be here in person. It’s ok to feel that sadness – it’s all still rather raw – and I notice it when I lash out at silly insignificant problems and set-backs. At those times, I have to remind myself to breathe again, to slow down and accept the sadness and loss, and then to keep breathing. 

It doesn’t always work, but the periods of frustration and anger grow smaller, the flashes of rage more subdued and manageable, and slowly a longer arc of healing reveals itself. 

“Mindfulness can heal us and transform our grief and sorrow. It is the energy that helps us know what is happening in the present moment, within us and around us. It is possible to change our life with the practice of mindful breathing, sitting, and walking. If we can mange to be mindful while doing these basic things, then we’ll more easily be able to handle our painful feelings and emotions when they arise.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

“In times of stress and grief, walking meditation is a wonderful way to reestablish peace and calm in the body and mind. Spending time walking in nature every day helps reconnect us with our body, the earth, and the wonders of life. Nature has the capacity to embrace our pain and transform it.

We do not walk with the aim of getting anywhere, we just walk for the our joy of walking. We enjoy every step we make, savoring our breath and releasing our pain and sorrow to the earth. Every step brings us home to the present moment, the only place where life is possible. 

We become aware of our breathing and the contact of our feet on the earth. We feel the warmth of the sun on our face and the breeze on our skin. We become aware of the sounds of the birds, and the fragrance of the trees and flowers around us. We enjoy every step; with each step we make an imprint of peace on the earth. We can practice in a park or some other beautiful, quiet place. This nourishes our spirit, strengthens our mindfulness, and helps us heal.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

In times of trouble and strife, I tend to go away and be by myself. One of my favored jaunts is the quick trip to the Berkshires in neighboring Massachusetts, where I can stop by the Red Lion Inn for a cup of tea, and then drive up to the nearby outlets at Lee if retail therapy is needed. On a winter trip there, I found a little path in the middle of town, right beside and behind their charming library. What hustle and bustle the busy season might produce on the Main Street dissipates and disappears the moment I start down the stone-lined garden walkway. 

A bee gets busy with the mounded flowers of the Monarda, emblematic of its common name ‘Bee Balm’. A few benches invite me to sit and dwell there, but my mind is on walking so I merely pause, always grateful for an invitation. On this summer day it feels like the world has paused, and it’s a fitting feeling. 

Stands of Japanese anemone are just beginning to bloom – one or two flowers offer more pollinating opportunities for the bees, while loads of buds hold the promise of fall just around the corner. Rushing through summer is a sacrilege, though I won’t pretend I don’t welcome fall this year. When summer is cruel it can be worse than winter – mostly because it’s not supposed to be.

I walk on.

“When we walk, we can take the hand of our loved one who has passed away and walk with them. Our legs are their legs, and our eyes are their eyes. When we see something beautiful – the blue sky, a brilliant sunset, a majestic tree, or an animal – we can stop walking to allow this sight to penetrate our consciousness and nourish us deeply. We allow this beauty not only to nourish us, but to nourish our loved one in us. We enjoy everything, not only for ourselves but also for our loved one who has died.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Every last one of us has been (and is still going) through an incredibly traumatic event, one that has at times made it feel like there are no safe spaces left: a worldwide pandemic. Whether or not we have collectively acknowledged and reconciled this is the stuff for future historians to figure out. My guess is we haven’t even begun to come close, as it’s still going on, but the world moves forward regardless, too selfish and stuck in its ways to do otherwise. To that end, some of us have had to devise ways of dealing with the stresses and worries that accompany the seismic changes at work now, and I’m thankful that for me one of the coping mechanisms has been meditation. 

The beauty of meditation is that it can be done anywhere, at any time, in almost any format that works best for the practitioner. You can do it first thing in the morning, or last thing at night, or on a quick ten-minute work break in the middle of an office day. Once you learn to access a form of mindfulness, meditation becomes a valuable and integral tool in coping with a world that has, for most intents and purposes, seemingly gone mad. 

As a tried and true Virgo, I appreciate a more rigid and defined schedule, opting to engage in my twenty-minute daily meditation right after I finish the work-day – when working from home it affords a demarcation that divides work from home, and allows a full decompression from any tension that has built-up in a work-day. This method has been in place for a solid three-plus years, which has given me practice in understanding how it works. The moment I start the deep breathing I can feel my body and mind relax, and I immediately begin to inhabit the present moment, eradicating worrisome thoughts and the meddlesome wandering of the mind. 

During periods of stress or anxiety, I can usually start the deep breathing exercises, and more often than not it will take a bit of the edge off of whatever is going on at the moment. If I’m in a place where I can get away for a few minutes, that brief moment of mindfulness bordering on meditation becomes a safe space – a space I can conjure in more circumstances than I once thought possible. 

We have arrived at the last day of March, and though it’s supposed to be departing like a lamb, the weather seems hell-bent on proving contrary. While antsy and anxious to get outside and start working on the yard and gardens, I bide my time in relative peace and quiet, choosing to focus on my daily meditation, and making use of some mindfulness cards that were a gift from a friend this past Christmas. 

Many of the emotional maelstroms of my younger years could be attributed to things that simply fomented and simmered in my mind rather than anything that actually came to fruition. It’s taken many years to see how I was creating such tension and consternation, and I still occasionally fall into the trap of worrying about all the ‘what-ifs’ instead of focusing on what actually is. That’s where daily practice of mindfulness comes into usefulness. The repeated intentions of being present and mindful as a baseline and at-rest condition ideally do not allow much room for the imagined perils that may or likely may not come true, and once you access that frame of mind, it’s easier to keep the nagging worries at bay. 

As we close out March and enter April in dreary and rainy form, I look to the beauty and peace and extra time to sit quietly indoors. There will be time enough for work and play in the days to come. Worrying over it now does no good, so let’s inhabit this moment together, in full awareness. What do you see around you? What do you find most beautiful in this specific moment? There is always something…

While I make it a point to meditate for 20 minutes every day, I won’t pretend I’m always loving it and looking forward to it. After a day in the office and running around on whatever errands need to be done, then cleaning or cooking for the evening, the thought of meditation is just one more task added to an exhausting list. Those are, in the way the universe so cleverly (and annoyingly) works, the times when I need meditation the most, so of course I want it the least. 

Far more enjoyable are the meditations that come on a Saturday or Sunday or day off. I thought about that this weekend, when a rough week of work was willfully forgotten by Saturday, and I went into my daily meditation with vigor, embracing every minute and soaking in the momentary stillness and calm. As I sat there, I slipped much more quickly and easily into a state of calm and stillness, the beautiful and desired space of blankness. More importantly, I moved into a deeper state of meditation and mindfulness, pushing further into the practice, finding another level of peace that quelled all the worries of the week. That was notable, and something new.

When I looked back at it wondering why it was easier to meditate on a Saturday, it dawned on me that I was entering that particular meditation from a place of calm. I’d already inadvertently created a space of stillness, because I’d already relaxed my mind and let go of my worries. In other words, my meditation had a head-start, allowing me to move more quickly into that state of calm which usually only arrives after a number of moments of deep breathing and focus. By the time I’m typically at such a state, I’m already fifteen minutes into things, with only five minutes of deeper meditation to go. 

There are ways around this – longer meditation is the easiest route, but comes with a greater time investment. During more difficult periods, I find half an hour is a good amount of time to gain a full and deep experience. Another idea I may implement is simply preparing myself and relaxing beforehand, so when I actually sit down to do the thing I’ll be ready to quickly and easily enter into the space. Whatever the case, I’m always happy to discover a place of deeper connection to a sense of calm, and to try to return there in the future.