If any of you read this blog regularly, you’ll probably think it’s ironic that I made a big deal about getting back into writing in the fall and then posted nothing for several weeks! I suppose that’s just how things go sometimes. Often things in life come in waves. I had a wave of energy and inspiration and then it was overtaken my many other types of waves over the fall.
I might have commented on this in a previous blog, but I’ve often found the book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind (S. Suzuki), to be a helpful guide in my mindfulness practice. In his book, Suzuki refers to “mind waves,” which are basically anything that arises in our minds as we practice attending to our present moment experience. Mind waves can consist of worries, ruminative thoughts, images or memories, painful or pleasant physical sensations, strong emotions, desires or urges to do certain things (such as to stop practicing mindfulness!), and so forth. The idea is to be present with all of those mind waves, allow them to come and go, and attend to your experience of the here and now.
I was recently away at a mindfulness retreat (I’ve been attending for 20 years but hadn’t been since the start of the pandemic), and I experienced many mind waves during the trip there and at the retreat. Although I have flown during the pandemic, this was the first time I’d left the country, and my earlier flights were 45-minute affairs. This time, I was in busy airports with very little physical distance, people coughing up a lung, touching their faces, snorting, sneezing, and so forth.
I digress here a bit, but I’m really not a cougher. Even when I get sick, which is rare, I don’t cough much. As a result, I am often baffled by just how many coughers are out there. There is a pandemic of coughing, even if it has nothing to do with COVID. There are also many people who seem to sigh heavily, spewing breath out of their mouths on a regular basis. Sometimes you can actually feel yourself inhaling and even tasting such breath. I found myself trying to dodge it, but it’s impossible to see and hard to anticipate. OK, I should stop now. Suffice it to say, my mind waves consisted of anxiety about being in close proximity to so many people, worries about returning home with some kind of illness, and at the same time, a sense of freedom and happiness about being close to people. It was a mixed bag.
During the retreat, many mind waves rose and fell, and I discovered (for the 100th time) that it was exhausting and impossible to try to prevent or push them away. Standing in front of a wave with your hands out to stop it just doesn’t work. If you’re far enough away, the best thing to do is just to watch the waves come and go. If you’re really close, you can dive into them or try to ride on top of them. But you can’t stop them.
The basic practice of mindfulness is to notice when mind waves arise and attend to your present moment experience. You might choose to attend to your breath as it rises and falls, sounds that you hear, the physical sensation of sitting or walking, thoughts that pass through your mind, emotional states that rise and fall, or anything else that you’re experiencing in the present. Don’t try to get rid of anything or judge certain mind waves as “good” or “bad” or undesirable in some way. Just allow them to come and go and turn your attention to the present, over and over.
All of this is hard work! By the evening session at the retreat, I was usually pretty much done. The idea of sitting on that cushion for another hour and a half before bedtime sometimes made me want to run screaming from the room. That was another mind wave to notice and ideally to not act on, although I’ll admit that I was so dead during the last evening that I snuck into the kitchen and ate a bunch of chocolate that someone had left out. That did, however, get me through the next half an hour!
If you’re trying to practice mindfulness more often or incorporate it into your daily life activities, remember to give yourself a break sometimes. Mindfulness in many ways goes against how our brains normally work – our “default mode” as some people refer to it. It takes time and practice to get used to bringing your mind to your experience of the present. You don’t have to do it all the time, all day long. Just a little practice once in a while can be plenty, along with some pitstops here and there to refuel. Surfing the waves of our mind takes some getting used to but can become easier over time. ~Alexander L. Chapman, Ph.D., R.Psych.