Multiple times throughout the work day, especially if I’m feeling stressed or not particularly enamored with the way the day is going, I’ve developed a habit of “switching on” my mindfulness. As soon as I do this I start to engage in a bit of the “noting” style of mindfulness as popularized by Mahasi Sayadaw. For me the things that I always notice first are colours. my mind is just like “Red, Green, GREENY GREEN, OOH THAT’S A NICE BLUE THERE” and I am instantaneously brought back into the moment and become aware of my environment. But of course there are a million other things in any given environment to pay attention to, so I wonder why it is colour for me. One explanation may be that as a synesthete, I have a natural inclination towards the perception of colour, maybe even a heightened sense (though I certainly don’t have any objective data on that assertion).
I asked my partner what she pays attention to during this kind of meditation switch on and she had a totally different answer, which was something along the lines of “following the process of my own inner anxiety and it’s futility then watching it dissipate” It struck me that she had a totally different strategy for becoming present than I did, though both of us basically did these automatically and not in any consciously willed fashion. It led be to think about mindfulness being thought of in a lot of different forms, and perhaps these could be represented on a kind of grid like as follows:
Active being something you willingly are engaged in, passive being the kind of constant buffer that you generate against instantaneous reaction, external referring to the mindful appraisal of others and their actions, and internal referring to how you observe/appraise your own thoughts.
I think that representations like this are really awesome and super useful, as we all collectively navigate the space of mindfulness and our own unique interactions with our own minds. So what happens when you turn on your mindfulness in day to day life (off the cushion), what do you instantly pay attention to?
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Nice article, thank you! I tend to notice my breath and take in what is around me and mostly hear sounds. Interesting how we all find different ways either consciously or unconsciously.