David Johnson

Those days when I can’t seem to find focus. My mind is looking for ways out. I can feel the resistance to what needs to be done. Time is wasted doing that which does not need to be done, following links on websites, reading that which is interesting but not necessary right now.

I write this as much to remind myself of what I need to do when resistance creeps into my life.

Body

As the resistance to getting things done kicks in, the body tenses. For me that sits especially in the shoulders but I can also feel in my mind. Like a caged animal, my mind wants to run from where it is being held, from the tasks at hand. Unless I can grab hold of the mind, it is around this time that I start getting distracted. It is my mind’s equivalent of escaping from the cage…though in reality it is still trapped.

Anchor

What I need in that moment is an anchor. Something firm to hold onto that prevents me running off into unproductive activities. By anchor I am not necessarily talking about a physical thing, though it could be. Examples of anchors might be:

• Drop everything, get out and take a walk. Just remove yourself from the focus of your activities and change the scenery.
• If outside is not an option, change the scenery through a walk to the bathroom (whether you need to go or not), a walk to the coffee machine, or to a window with an expansive view.
• Meditate - feel your feet on the ground, the contact of your body with the chair. Become aware of the sounds around you. Bring your attention to your breath, just breathing itself naturally. Watching the rise and fall of the belly can further help to ground you.
• If you have some spiritual practice, in that moment drop into that. For example the recitation of a mantra, itself a meditation.
• Journal - just write, let the mind run free. Perhaps write about what needs to be done. If you are keeping a Bullet Journal, get more detailed in there. Break up the tasks.

Take small bites

And then when you return to work don’t try and get everything done at once. If you didn’t do this during your break, look at the tasks that you have set yourself and break them down into smaller bite size chunks. And then slowly work through those chucks.

Take a break

Periodically take a break, perhaps every 20, 30 or 40 minutes stop, walk around, breathe deeply, stretch for 5 minutes, and then back to work. After a longer period of time, take a loner break. The Pomodoro Technique can be helpful with this, and there are many computer and phone apps that implement variations of the technique.

Go steadily but gently

Finally, go gently on yourself. Do not set expectations that you cannot keep. Incrementally stretch yourself, trying a little more each time, each time building on the progress made the day before. With practice the distractions become less, the mind tamed, quieter, and progress is made in work.

Further reading

Steven Pressfield wrote a whole book on the subject of resistance called The War of Art. Take a look a it if you would like to look at the creative blocks in your life.

During an afternoon Mentoring circle in Maui Community Correctional Center (MCCC) yesterday, I led a meditation. The meditation was on awareness. Initially I asked the men present to bring their awareness to the breath as a means to focus ourselves and to quiet the mind. To move away from the busyness of the day to the be present in where they were now.

Next I led us on a scan through the body, bringing our awareness to sensations in the body and using that light of awareness to relax and let go of areas of tension.

Finally, I invited everyone to scan back up through the body, to sit with that silence and stillness that awareness had brought to them. I reminded everyone how that stillness is available to us at all time, standing in line, resting in bed, we just have to bring the light of awareness to our breath and our body.

As the meditation drew to a close, my co-facilitator read out the following quote. I don’t know who it is attributed to, but for me it speaks to the places that we run to in order to escape that which we do not like in our lives or about ourselves. It is the place where addiction can spring from. Meditation offers one solution, or a part of a solution to making friends with and gaining control over the agitation in our mind.

My sense is that as part of a meditation practice, it could be helpful to reflect regularly on this piece.

As you settle into your breathing, you may notice your mind telling stories, trying to solve problems, taking you away from your breath and your body? Why? Perhaps there is something there we don’t want to experience: Shame, fear, anger, sadness, feeling unloved. We hate these feelings, so we do what we can to avoid them. All addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and just can’t stand it. So we drink, use drugs, eat, blame, argue, fight, look for excitement, zone out - anything to avoid feeling those unpleasant feelings, many of which have been with us since childhood. And the most common addiction of all is thinking. Often we think to avoid feeling. We think because we believe we can find a solution to avoid our pain and suffering.

So now, come back to the breath and notice how it feels. Are you trying not to feel something? What is it? See if you can just be with it.

If you have an intellectual leaning, it is very easy to learn about meditation, what it can do for you and the transformation that it can bring. Books about meditation are a dime a dozen these days. Magazines devoted to mindfulness, an aspect of meditation, sit on the magazine racks in all good book shops and grocery stores.

Reading through these publications, it is very easy to understand the mechanics of the meditation process and how the transformation can take place if you follow the instructions given and diligently pursue the practice.

But there is a chasm of a difference between that intellectual understanding, of getting what meditation can do, and holding the knowing of meditation practice in your heart.

My own teacher use to speak about the challenge of bringing our understanding of meditation from our head to our heart, to that place of knowing.

So…Why mention this?

From my experience many of those who are drawn to meditation feel some connection, some resonance with the practice. They sense that it will give them something that they are looking for, even if they cannot name what they will get or even what they are looking for! Their intuition, their gut pulls them towards a meditation practice.

Also from my experience, those who are drawn to meditation practice are well educated and even if they are not big readers, understand things intellectually.

However, I find that it is very easy to conflate the intuitional pull that meditation has for me with the understanding of how it works, and feel that I know the results of meditation. But life shows me that I far from do.

Let me give an example...

Loving kindness meditation if practiced assiduously will allow us to feel love - defined in Buddhism as the wish for all beings to be happy - towards all beings. I can sit and practice the meditation, and feel a sense of letting that wish reach out to all beings. I get up from my cushion feeling a heady feeling of goodness and well being.

A couple of hours later a good friend does something that upsets me, a good friend, and I have anything but feelings of goodness towards them. What happened to my love of two hours ago?

Transforming the heart

When my teacher spoke about the mind, he would always rest his hand over his heart. Meditation is about transforming the heart, the mind, so that I become an embodiment of what I am meditating on. So that patience does not become something that I lecture people on, it becomes what I am. So that I don’t tell everyone that loving my enemy is the way to be, I am love. So that compassion becomes a part of my ordinary everyday actions.

I am far from those ideals, but aspire to them, and that is why I practice meditation. To take the ideas in my head and bring them to my heart. Meditation takes time, a life time. It requires patience in itself. However, if you have practiced steadily and look back to how you were a few years ago, you will notice a change. Change takes time, but I believe that the effort is worth it.

Meditation is giving a huge, luscious meadow to a restless cow. The cow might be restless for a while in its huge meadow but at some stage, because there is so much space, the restlessness becomes irrelevant. So the cow eats and eats and eats and relaxes and falls asleep.
~ Chögyam Trungpa, The Myth of Freedom, pp. 48-9

Giving space to our thoughts

At times my mind can feel very small and constricted. I probably wouldn’t acknowledge that at the time, as when I’m in such a space it is too caught up in grumbling about something, being frustrated, impatient, judging (myself or others), to actually notice what it is doing to itself. But when I finally muster some self-awareness, that is what I recognize going on - a small, constricted mind caught up in a thick dust storm of not thinking clearly.

Meditation clears my mind, letting the dust settle and allowing me to see more clearly. As opposed to engaging with dust cloud of grumbles and judgements, I just allow them to be. I give them the space to act out as they choose to, watching their antics. With time and me not engaging with them, they run out of steam and the mind settles.

My Todo Lists

My todo lists have also at times felt like a dust cloud, not allowing me to see what is really going on and needs to be done. For many years I have been caught up in an apparently never ending search of where shall I put them such that I actually act on what I put into them?

Will this app work, maybe that app? Yes, my search for an answer was always in the electronic realm. However, nothing ever really worked for me within that domain. No method appeared to stick. I used an app for a while, find myself getting behind in due dates that I have set - for reasons within and out of my control - and then start feeling the pressure mounting in me to get things done. All I could see in front of me was due dates and nothing else. The dust cloud starts to get stirred up again. I became paralyzed into inaction. What was meant to help has now become a burden.

Journaling

While this carousel of a search went on I continued to keep a journal. I have kept a journal for almost 30 years now. Not everyday. Sometimes everyday. Just regularly in an irregular way. Often enough that I regard it as a part of my life, and an important part at that.

My journal writing came out of my traveling in my mid-twenties. I just started keeping a diary of my travels, where I had been, what I had seen and then slowly I found myself delving introspectively into my thoughts and feelings as I experienced life on the road.

In the decades since those travels I continue to write, filling notebooks with thoughts, struggles, celebrations, really whatever comes to mind in the moment that I pick up a pen.

I keep an electronic journal as well. I use it if I am on the move and just want to get something out of my head and pen and paper are not available. For the most part though my journal is a notebook and pen.

So the search for a todo list manager continued. Through it all I felt a continued resistance to managing my todos away from the electronic world. I work a lot on my computer, my devices are all synced together, and so managing lists electronically felt clean and minimalistic. Nothing else to carry around. I just had to find that elusive app that would bring my problems to an end and make my life productive.

Back to paper

My wife has managed her todo lists in the most simplest of ways for as long as I can remember - a pad of paper sits in the kitchen and she writes on it as things come up, and then refers to it through her day. The seed of my way out of todo list struggles was right in front of me, but I couldn’t see it.

I think that in the end exhaustion just set in. I had to find a way forward, and then two methods presented themselves to me.

At some point I came across two pen and paper ways of managing your life.

• The first was Patrick Rhone’s Dash/Plush System.
• The second was the Bullet Journal.

My first take was that the Bullet Journal was just too complicated, would take an age to learn and ironically because of that would just be another addition to my todo list. It was relegated to the runner’s up position and I started experimenting with Dash/Plus. However, no matter how much I tried, I couldn’t make it work for me. Something was missing. So I bit the bullet, excuse the pun, and dived into exploring the Bullet Journal.

The Bullet Journal

Fears of over complication couldn’t have been further from the truth. Yes there was a learning curve, but within a short time I was getting into the rhythm of writing down things to do, checking them off as they got done, moving items from here to there à la the Bullet Journal methodology. Journal feels a very apt name for this system. My Bullet Journal felt like a very natural adjunct to my regular journal. My Bullet Journal was keeping track of a part of my life. It was not only helping me move through and manage what I had to do, it also held space for me to go back and see what I had been doing with my life. At times I was even exploring some insights where some activities or decisions had proven challenging.

Creating and holding space

Perhaps most importantly for me is the space that I feel the Bullet Journal holds for me when I enter my todos. Some are urgent, some have dates when they need to be completed, others are just sitting there waiting to be done. It offers a space to download from my head stuff that needs to be done. With my head cleared of the noise of what has to be done, my Bullet Journal then gives me the space to look at…let’s say, my life. If it is not done today, it gets moved on. Perhaps in time it is erased from my todos. I can check back over a day or week to see if there is something that has slipped my mind…or observation.

The space that Bullet Journal creates for my todos allows my mind to relax, not constricting (which it was before) around deadlines and wanting to get items of the list.

The field of my Bullet Journal

Returning to the quote at the top of this piece, my Bullet Journal has become the field into which I can let loose the restless cow which are my todos. The Bullet Journal system gives them a space to rest, and to be moved elsewhere if necessary. But not moved in anxiety. The system allows it and works with the move.

As my todos rest, so do I.

Meditation is my life blood. My days feel better when I start them with meditation, even the bad days. I have touched into something inside me which only grows more familiar with time…I am reminded of the inner resources which we all have at our disposal. We only need to cultivate them…and at times, despite my best intentions, I miss a cultivation session.

The “miss” in the title is not a yearning to be back on the meditation cushion at some point in a busy day - though that wish might be there! Rather I am referring to those days when I do not get round to a formal meditation session. I say this well aware that I can be prone to rarely agreeing with people when they say, “but I  never have time to meditate.” I still believe that if we want to meditate we can carve out some time in the day. Yet despite all of those beliefs….I still miss some days. If I do any meditation on such days, it is done “on the hoof,” as I go about my normal day. And the trick is to be comfortable about that while not making it a habit - _meditation _is the habit that we are aiming for.

Challenging, “But I don’t have any time to meditate."

​We find time for so many things in life - checking our social media feeds, watching television, reading a book, taking a walk, . Some of these I love doing, but if we want meditation in our lives, it might mean putting some of our habits aside or at least eating a bit of time out of one or two of them. There needs to be a commitment from our side. Developing the mind, which meditation enables us to do, requires the building of a habit so that the progress that is made during each session can be built upon, one session at a time.

And then something happens - being at ease with that

But sometimes even the best made plans are interrupted. We have to be careful here, the mind is tricky. Meditation is a marathon not a sprint and not every mile of that marathon is comfortable. If you do not have strong enough resolution, an uncomfortable mile will see you drop out of the race, perhaps never to return again.

Sometimes though we have to get up so so much earlier to catch a flight or train to travel to a meeting. We are on the go all day, exhausted and distracted. Or we wake up, our head blocked and energy drained. Yes, if we are feeling alert enough we can use time on a flight or train, or even while lying unwell in bed to close our eyes and drop into meditation - just don’t fall asleep! All of these situations offer opportunities to do some meditation, a little more of that below, but when a tired mind finds it hard to focus, allow yourself to be comfortable with that. With the intention to get back into your routine as soon as your life allows it, recognize that you are resting your mind for when your energy does lift. Do not allow yourself to build more stress into your life with, _”I must find the time…” _Instead practice acceptance and letting go into the hand that you have been dealt that day.

Meditating on the go

​Missing a formal meditation session does not mean that your meditation practice has to miss a beat. In part it depends on the way that we choose to view what meditation is and isn’t.

Is meditation only those times that you are engaging in your formal, seated meditation practice?

When I visited the Tibetan monasteries in South India I was always impressed how the monks kept their practice going even when they were busy with monastic duties - the monasteries are monastic universities, and aside from study and prayer time there are the pragmatics of running these organizations and younger monks running errands and cooking meals for their older teachers. For some of the monks this might mean getting up in the morning and launching straight into work. As they went about their duties, the young monks’ lips would be moving as they recited their prayers (read, “meditating”). These prayers, linked to meditative visualizations and reflections on the words that they were reciting, all playing a part in the transformation of the heart that meditation gives to us.

​In a similar way your busy day need not be an impediment to your meditation practice. Be creative, look for those moments when you can bring yourself back to the present. Stop and be aware of those sips of your morning coffee - feel yourself bringing the cup to your mouth, and the coffee gliding down your throat. As you walk between meetings or to catch a bus instead of getting lost in thought or worry, be aware of yourself walking, of your feet lifting from the ground and then being placed back on the earth. Have you been put on hold while making a call on the phone? Meditate while waiting for someone to answer. Even if you go to the toilet, use that quiet moment to sit and watch the breath.

Be creative, look for those opportunities, even if it is a snatch of meditation. You are keeping the momentum going. You are building the habit.

What strategies do you use?

​Do you have any strategies to keep your meditation practice on track when life gets busy? Or is it truly a struggle to balance meditation practice with life commitments?

Two minutes walk from where I live is a bluff. It is not immediately obvious that the bluff is accessible, being as it is down a short path at the end of a cul-de-sac. For those who do find their way there, they are afforded a view of a great part of the North Shore of Maui - across Paia Bay to Baldwin Beach, then further in the distance to Kahului, Wailuku and the sweep of the West Maui mountains. On a clear day the Hawaiian island of Moloka’i is visible.

One never knows how this view will greet you - clear weather, storm clouds, the ocean flat, gentle and calm, or heaving with the power of a swell bowling in across the expanse of the Pacific Ocean. In thinking of the many moods of this view, I am reminded of a quote by Lama Anagarika Govinda in his classic book, “The Way of the White Clouds.” The book is Lama’s experiences on a pilgrimage across Tibet prior to the 1959 invasion of the country by China. On reaching the sacred mountain, Mt. Kailash in far Western Tibet, he writes,

​To see the greatness of a mountain, one must keep one’s distance; to understand its form, one must move around it; to experience its moods, one must see it at sunrise and sunset, at noon and at midnight, in sun and in rain, in snow and in storm, in summer and winter and in all the other seasons. He  who can see the mountain like this comes near to the life of the mountain, a life that is as intense and varied as that of a human being.

I feel the same way about this view from the bluff. I’ve seen it on a still, clear, quiet morning where everything is in sharp relief and the ocean is resting quietly. I’ve also seen it with waves breaking everywhere, the size of some of them looking terrifying, meanwhile the hilltops are shrouded in cloud and sit there dark and ominous. In visiting this place over the last two years I have been greeted by pretty much everything - well almost everything. I can’t claim to know the complete character of this North Shore yet. That’s for a lifetime of presence and observation.

View from a hill

​There is a story that when some students of my Buddhist teacher were looking for a property to purchase as a retreat center that he instructed them to find a property on a hill with expansive views. The land that they ultimately bought did indeed fit these criteria.

His suggestions were informed by the Buddhist teachings. When we engage in meditation, focused study or work, in time our mind can feel tired, small and constricted. When this happens the advice is to take a break and look out over an expansive view. It clears the mind and gives us a wider perspective than our exhausted mind is holding in that moment. Taking in that larger panorama gives our mind the space and permission to rest, our concerns getting lost in the vastness of the space that we are looking out over. It’s almost as though the mind just drops the baggage it is carrying, sighs deeply and slides into a relaxing rest.

In speaking about meditation and an agitated mind, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche said,

Meditation is giving a huge, luscious meadow to a restless cow. The cow might be restless for a while in its huge meadow, but at some stage, because there is so much space, the restlessness becomes irrelevant. So the cow eats and eats and eats and relaxes and falls asleep.
~ The Myth of Freedom

​The vastness of the expansive view makes the noise in our mind seem so small that in the end the mind just comes to stillness. In time and with the benefit of much practice, we come to recognize that view as a mirror of our mind. The vastness of the vista reflects the true nature, spaciousness and vastness of our mind. Within that space, the volume of noise that our thoughts create, gets lost and falls quiet in the space that they have to dance in….just like the cow in the meadow.

After I finished my morning meditation this morning, I went outside with a cup of coffee and stared up at the sky. Meditation can sometimes feel like a workout for the mind and gazing up the sky can be thought of as resting and taking in the effort and experience of your session before getting on with your day. The expanse of the sky allows the mind to rest in its experience.

Where is your panorama?

Do you know where the panorama is that you can turn to when your mind is feeling tired and constricted? If you do know where it is, are you making use of it when your mind is calling for a rest? It is very easy for the constricted mind to take control and constrict our movement as well.

See if you can carve out the time, indeed make it a priority to let your mind relax in that spaciousness - I’m heading there right now…

Two days before Christmas, two days before the socializing of the Holiday season really got into swing, two days before I felt that at some stage in the next week I will need to dip deep into my inner resources to navigate my introverted self through the busyness of seasonal jollity - I get a migraine.

Migraines for me are a three day presence of dull thick, hard throbs in my head and psychologically feeling completely out of sorts in my body. This one though had another surprise up its sleeve. It lasted for five days. All of this is preceded by the green light to say that a migraine is on its way - auras flying around in front of one of my eyes, increasing in number until I can hardly see out on one eye. Migraines are definitely more than simply a headache.

Half way those five days I drove myself to the Maui Arts and Cultural Center to see an animated Japanese movie that was being shown as a part of the Maui Film Festival. This might sound like a crazy thing to do after what I described in the last paragraph, but having sat with migraines for almost four decades now, I try to find ways to not let them completely bring my life to a stand still. I told myself that a late afternoon movie would be half full and that I could relax in a dark, empty theatre. Well I got that wrong. The movie, Miss Hokusai, was good while confusing in places and beautifully illustrated. An historical drama based around the artist Hokusai, known for his woodblock print of a wave. I was drawn to see the film by my new love and curiosity of Japan (see my last post), but while I enjoyed the animation and am pleased now that I saw the movie, I had to breathe deeply through the ninety minutes to not let the waves of nausea overwhelm me.

And it is that image that I want to borrow from here - waves. the word gives a sense of something in motion, moving, changing, crashing down and rising up again. Very definitely not fixed. There is even sound connected with it, from that of little breakers, to the giants that you can experience here on Maui.

When pain grabs us the feeling can be so unpleasant that we almost lock onto it. In engaging in this conversation I am not thinking of chronic pain. While what I share here is, I believe, true for all pain, some pain is just too overwhelming to be dealt with any other way than strong pain killers. Remember the priority is to look after yourself and do what is right, seeking medical advice where appropriate - do not regard these words as a substitute.

What I am offering here is a form of mind training to help us be with, manage and hopefully even lessen the pain that we are feeling.

So returning to that moment when we lock onto that pain. As we do so we create this image of solidity in our mind. This pain is solid, unchanging and it hurts! So we want to get rid of it, this lump of PAIN! An unchangeable, unmovable thing in our body called pain. It hurts one way right now and that is the end of the story. But let me invite you to try something….what if we can find some space to sit or lie down with this pain, perhaps in a quiet darkened room? Bring your mind to the area where the pain resides. Watch and observe it with the light touch of your awareness. If the pain gets too much do what you need to do - medication, the comfort of others -  and then when you can return to the pain. What is going on there? What does the pain feel like? Does it have a color? Does it have a shape? Does it feel light or heavy? Is it moving? Can you “hear” a sound there? Perhaps the analogy of the wave is fitting?

None of this is to deny pain and the hurt that it causes us, but what I am inviting you to explore here is the solidity or otherwise of the pain. I am inviting you to get to know the pain and develop a relationship with it beyond our habitual recoiling from it. I am suggesting that if we sit with the pain we can see that it is not a solid object. There is something changing and evolving about it. It’s output as it were is the pain that we feel, but the actual thing that we call pain seems to be undulating and constantly reorganizing.

​It is because of this changing nature that we can bring our awareness to bear on pain, lightly touching in on our experience of it in that moment, and then letting it go because it is changing….even if in the next nano second it strikes us hard again. It’s about the intention that we bring to our experience of pain. The intention to let go of the pain as best we can instead of holding. But do remember that there is no denial of pain in there - pain is pain (a kidney stone reminded me of that!) and where you need to cry out, reach for medication, consult a doctor - DO! However, the more that you familiarize yourself with pain’s changing nature, the easier the letting go and being able to breathe into it will become.

What we are looking to do here is to lessen the sense of solidity that we attach to pain.

Changing perspective

​Another way of handling pain is to shift the perspective with which we are seeing and experiencing it. Where we can find the space within ourselves reflect on others, maybe starting with friends, who might be suffering pain, whether due to similar causes or different. Imagine as you breathe in that you are taking on that pain, and as you breathe out you are giving them a state free of their pain - they are healed. As you strength in this practice grows, widen your sphere of those who you want to help. If resistance arises, that is fine - we all have our limits of how far we can spread our help - with practice that resistance will lessen.

By taking our mind away from our own pain and giving ourselves the perspective that others out there are hurting as well, we diminish our self-involvement with our own pain. Again, this is not to deny our hurt, but rather to move it into the space of a larger perspective - and that shift can make our own discomfort seem smaller, at least a little bit, and more bearable.

Over to you

​I invite you to try these methods out next time that you are in some physical discomfort. You might find that you have a preference for one method over another. That’s fine. Use what works of you. 

And let me know below how you get on, success, struggles, or if you have any questions. If you have another method that you use to manage your own pain, I’d be interested in hearing about it.

I find it interesting watching people clean their teeth. This is not a regular pastime of mine I hasten to add, but from time to time I find myself visiting friends and we happen to pass in the evening as we get ready for bed, toothbrushes in hand. I believe that observing how people clean their teeth can give a glimpse into how their mind is working…at least in that moment. ​ Some people have a long routine worked out. They use an ordinary toothbrush and spend many minutes using up and down, and circular motions to scrub their teeth. As the toothpaste becomes stirred up they froth at the mouth while front teeth grin brightly beneath the fast moving brush. Any attempt at communication with these teeth brushers is normally met with an incomprehensible “mmmmmmm mmmmm” noise, varying in tone as meaning is attempted to be conveyed.

Other people can’t get their toothbrush back into the cup or holder in which it sits during the day, quick enough. Pick up the toothbrush, on goes the toothpaste, a quick dab of water under the tap - up, down, roundabout, spit out the toothpaste, rinse the toothbrush and back in the cup - onto the next thing.

The electric toothbrush users offer similar patterns. Some sit or stand there, moving the brush around their mouths seemingly completely preoccupied with their toothbrushing. Others quickly buzz the brush through their mouths before replacing it in the recharger.

Through all of these, you sometimes see people attempting to multitask. Toothbrush busy in one hand while a draw is being opened, a cell phone tapped, a stove turned down with another, all the while trying to prevent foaming toothpaste from dripping onto the floor!

I have been guilty of all ways of brushing that I have mentioned  above and probably many more in between.

For myself, I currently use a Philips Sonicare toothbrush. This post is not a product endorsement but a suggestion for an aid to help with your meditation that came to me while I was brushing my teeth one evening. For those of you who have a meditation practice, this can be a way to build on it while off your cushion. For those who are trying to get started with meditation it can give you an extra tool to help build your focus. Or on those days when it can be difficult to squeeze in a formal meditation session, cleaning our teeth is a daily ritual for all of us and so opens up a chance to not miss out on our regular practice.

Use it or adapt it in a way that works for you.

For those who do not use a Sonicare, the models that I have had (I am onto my second) have a built in 2 minute routine. You can brush say the top front of your teeth and then there is a slight change in the motor sound. That is a signal that 30 seconds have past and at that point you change to the back of your front teeth. This process repeats itself over two minutes, taking you through the back and front of your upper and lower teeth. For those two minutes you know that you can focus thoroughly on cleaning your teeth.

Meditation asks us to focus our mind. To not engage in any other activity. To let thoughts arise, note them, not get caught up in them, and then let them go on their way. For the 2 minutes of a Sonicare program the stage can be set for a meditation practice - a micro retreat perhaps?

• The area of focus is brushing your teeth. You must only brush your teeth. No attempted communication with others. No trying to multitask.
• You can sit or stand, whatever you usually do. I normally just end up staring at myself in the bathroom mirror.
• If while you are brushing your teeth a thought comes up, something that you need to do, something that you need to say, just note that thought and let it go. Return to the job in hand - brushing your teeth. There is plenty of time afterwards to do. After all, it is only 2 minutes.

You obviously don’t need an electric toothbrush to do this, the electric brush just aids in the timing. If you are brushing your teeth with a manual brush, I would suggest being disciplined with a longer brushing routine. Perhaps have a clock at hand to help time how long you are brushing for?

One of the knock on effects of meditating while you are brushing is that you’ll end your toothbrushing feeling lighter and clearer than if you tried to do other things at the same time, or than if you simply rushed your brushing to get onto the next thing. When you rush your mind is never focused on what you are doing, rather it is already moving onto the next thing that has to be done. With time the habit of rushing makes the discipline of focusing much more difficult - we are trying to build a habit of focus, instead we are building a habit of movement.

What other daily ritual in your life might offer itself up as an opportunity for a regular meditation practice?

As I journal and reflect on the Medicine Walk that I went on last Monday, I am reminded of the importance of some digital tools that I make use of to help prevent me from getting caught up in the digital world. I thought that I would share them here with you should you also want to explore moments of mindful stepping back while engaging in your digital life.

Before I go any further, I just want to mention a couple of things:

• First I want to say that I receive nothing for mentioning the applications that I speak of here. They are simply tools that I have found online and that have been of great help to me.
• Second, and this is quite important, these apps will have no effect if you do not start them up in the first place. Now that might sound quite obvious, but the mind is tricky and sometimes forgetful, and you can always convince yourself that you do not need to take any breaks this time. So until you get into a habit of using them, find someway to remind yourself. For example, on a Mac you can set applications to start when the computer starts up.

Thich Naht Hanh

The Zen Master Thich Naht Hanh speaks of the Bell of Mindfulness. When the bell sounds it brings us back to the present moment. We stop what we are doing, take three conscious breaths, and then return to our activity. The bell can be a purposely sounded gong. At talk and retreats given by Thay, as he is affectionately known, a Bell of Mindfulness is sounded at regular intervals even if Thay is talking. The Bell can also be the brake lights of the car in front of you, the telephone ringing or a dog barking. It can be whatever stops you in that moment.

In Thich Naht Hanh’s tradition he makes use of gathas, short poems, to help us with our mindfulness practice. One that I find particularly helpful when I pause and take three breaths is this one, 

Breathing in I calm my body,  
Breathing out I smile.  
Breathing in I calm my body,  
Breathing out I smile.  
Breathing in the present moment,  
I know that it is a wonderful moment.

or a shorter one,

In - I know that I am breathing in.
Out - I know that I am breathing out.

Software

Mac Apps

Some enterprising software writers have created applications that in their own way create a Bell of Mindfulness, allowing you to stop your digital activity, breathe, stretch and then return to your work. The purpose behind some of these apps is to prevent physical injury such as hunch shoulders, but they can also be used as your own personal Bell.

I make use of the Apple platform for both my desktop and mobile digital life, but hopefully for those who are interested in using these tools but are not Apple users, these applicationss will give you a starting point for research into similar apps for your platform. A couple of these apps, are actually platform independent and make use of web browsers. Some are free, and some cost a few dollars.

• Time Out Free - This was the first application of this type that I ever used. There are many variables that you can set within the application, but in essence after a predefined period of time the app will disable the keyboard, for a period of time of your choosing. You can then just breathe, stretch, take a walk, or go and make a cup of tea. I have always said that the completion of my Masters paper was in part because of this app. Productivity doesn’t just come from just keeping going.
• Pauses - This application is very similar to Time Out Free. A simpler version with a few less options, but no less effective.
• Mindful Mynah - My current go to application for taking a break is very simple in its operation. At a predetermined interval the application will sound a tone. There are a selection of sounds so that you can choose one conducive for you. That is it. No disabled keyboards, just a tone.
• Freedom - This app does not disable the keyboard…it disables the internet! You set how long that you wish to be offline and then once you have pressed the start button the only way to re-enable the internet before your time is up is to restart your computer. Great for those writing projects. Available on PCs.
• Anti-Social - Written by the same company that produced Freedom, Anti-Social will disable access to your social media feeds only, or individual websites that you choose. No more continual checking to see how many ‘Likes’ you have received for your last post when you should be concentrating on something else. 

iPhone Apps

• Mindful Mynah - This is an iPhone version of the Mac app of the same name mentioned above. Useful if you just want a mindfulness bell at hand while working on non-digital projects.
• Calm Button - By the same author as Mindful Mynah, this app bills itself as “Anxiety Relief • Breath Trainer.” I find it very effective for slowing you down, quieting the mind and bringing you back to now. Spend as long as you need with it.
• Samsara - Although this is not mindfulness bell but a meditation timer, I have included it here as it is a timer that I use and like because of it’s simplicity. It will also work when the iPhone is in airplane mode and sounds are turned off, allowing no intrusion from other apps or someone calling you.

Browser Extension

• Bell of Mindfulness - This extension is available for Chrome based browsers such as Google Chrome, and as such it is independent of the platform, Mac or PC, that it is run on.

Search, Explore

We are all of different dispositions. What works for me might not work for you. However, if you are interested in exploring having access to a Bell of Mindfulness in your digital life and these apps don’t quite fit, explore and test out others. Google and other search engines are of course one place to start your search. For those in the Apple world, try MacUpdate or the Mac App Store as well.

If you are using a digital Bell of Mindfulness, what application are you using?

Update - March 22, 2019

I am currently using Rest Time on my MacBook Air, my main computer, to manage my work and rest time. I find it simple, unobtrusive and with the features that I need. There is a two week free trial. Give it a spin.

Boredom is an interesting beast. I don’t know if it is who I hang out with, but few weeks go by without someone complaining of “feeling bored." They’ll scratch the itch as best they can, usually by finding something to distract them, but boredom’s irritations never appear to be far away. If it is such a constant and uncomfortable visitor, how about getting to know boredom a little more intimately instead of pushing it away?

Suffering is wanting things to be other than they are.

You are sitting at a desk at work. What you are being tasked to do is beginning to suck big time. You are finally getting round to some overdue DIY work at home, and already your mind is feeling like a sludge pit as it day dreams and tries to figure out ways to be elsewhere. In both cases your productivity starts to plummet precipitously. Time seems to slow down. You wriggle and squirm, picking things up, putting things down, walking around just hoping for time to pass…what to do?

Discomfort is a big part of the human condition. There is always something for someone to complain about. At times life seems to be about dealing with what we don’t want. American Buddhist monk and meditation teacher, Ajahn Sumedho, put it well when he said,

Though to compound things, that suffering is mixed by our ego driven pursuit of pleasure over pain. Holding to this way of being we find ourselves blown this way and that by the vicissitudes of our feelings.

If however discomfort is part of the human condition, perhaps another question to be asked of boredom is, “Why shouldn’t I feel like this?” To take this further, what would it mean to stand our ground and embrace whatever is arising right now? From that position we can move away from being concerned about how we are feeling and instead get curious about the feeling itself. I’m not suggesting that we go looking for problems in our lives, but when they do manifest don’t go fighting them, rather dance with them. Make friends with the enemy and see what happens.

American Buddhist nun and teacher, Pema Chödron offers this reflection,

A much more interesting, kind, adventurous, and joyful approach to life is to begin to develop our curiosity, not caring whether the object of our inquisitiveness is bitter or sweet. ~ The Pocket Pema Chödron (Shambhala Pocket Classics)

Boredom is real and it is not pleasant when it hits us. It seems to drain the joy out of life and we just want to be somewhere else doing something else. However, Pema Chödron gives us the invitation to not fixate on whether the current feeling is good or bad - one or the other is guaranteed in life - but rather use whatever is arising in this moment as an opportunity to get to know life and so ourselves in a deeper way. In doing so we are not swayed by what life brings to us but can flow more easily with it. We stand more solidly on the ground beneath our feet, more sure of who we are.

Meditation

Meditation is the tool that can be used to be with boredom and explore more deeply what is actually going on within us. I invite you to explore for as long as you are comfortable with and then step back and take a rest. First let’s explore boredom within a formal sitting meditation session. What we want to do is to have a visceral experience of boredom. To make this happen there are a couple of approaches.

• One is when boredom is quite naturally arising while we are meditating, say while the concentrating on the breath. “Yes” we can get bored while we are meditating. There is nothing wrong with that. It is not a bad meditation. You are simply acknowledging what is arising in the mind in that moment. If you find boredom arising during your meditation, just allow yourself to experience it independent of reacting to it. Feel and be with your discomfort and wish for something else.
• or two we bring to mind a time when we have been bored in our everyday life. First allow the mind to quieten by watching the breath. Then when you are settled think of that time that you felt bored. Go into it. Relive the experience. Remember it in detail and allow the sense of boredom to fill your body.

With you now experiencing boredom, don’t get up from your cushion but allow yourself to go towards the actual experience of boredom. Feel the urge to squirm, the wish to be somewhere else. Explore and try to find where you sense the boredom is located. Watch the boredom. What does it feel like? Is it static or moving? Is it made of anything? Does it have a colour or shape? Does it smell or have a taste? How does your body feel, tense or relaxed? Do you feel excited or dull? Just be with the boredom and be honest with your experience of it. There is no right or wrong experience, just your experience. Initially you might only be able to hold this presence for a short time, we are not use to being with such an unpleasant colleague, but that will ease with time.

Meditation allows us a safe place to explore our boredom. We are doing so in the security of our own home. There is no one else around. We have the room to be gentle with ourselves and explore this uncomfortable feeling in our own time. Look on this time as a rehearsal for your everyday life. As you become more familiar with your own boredom, you will start to transform your experience of it and how you react when its presence arises. We contract less when boredom occurs, and realize that we have something that is workable. You develop the confidence to know that in time it will pass. Our world starts to open up.

Everyday Life

Our everyday life experiences is where the rubber meets the road for our meditation. Our experience of boredom in life can be more challenging to be with because there is probably a lot more happening around us. It is because of this that our meditation time becomes even more important. Regular quiet time spent being with our mind starts to change our habits.

So when you find yourself getting bored, try and resist the urge to wriggle. Bring to mind the experiences of your meditation and try and find the space to just be with the boredom. For introverts, with our tendency to being quiet, this is an ideal time to make use of this strength of ours. Just watch the boredom. Breath into it to calm your mind and body. Feel it. Notice how it changes. Squirm when you need to, fidget and distract your mind, don’t keep yourself in a straight jacket…and then go back to the boredom.

Patience

Familiarity, patience, self-compassion along with commitment will bring change. With time you can change your relationship with boredom and with that the effect that it has on your life. Boredom moves from being a roadblock to something that is pliable.

I’m not suggesting that we will welcome boredom with open arms, I can’t lay claim to that myself, but it will not stay as such an obstruction in your life. Instead of seeing it as something unmovable and stuck, you’ll see it as more transient. It is workable and you know in time that it will pass. Just by your more relaxed hold on it, through becoming more familiar with boredom, its stranglehold is no longer so strong.