Where Mindfulness Lives
By: Josh Bunch
Tags: Mindfulness, Buddhism, Aristotle, Stoicism, Meditation

Where Mindfulness Lives

It happens like it always does, in the dark and on the floor, with dogs snoring, a clock ticking, and coffee brewing.

I sit — I breathe.

Something is different. I struggle to find out what it is. I fidget. My mind and my breath aren’t working together so much as competing for the same space.

I try and force mindfulness, and it gets worse.

It’s obvious to the rational side of me that relaxing harder is impossible. But I have a history of making things work, an identity of accomplishment. I will get all zen this morning. I will make mindfulness work.

When that finally fails, I almost quit. But something tells me to sit for a second longer because who cares if it’s not going well. “You are not your performance,” a voice echos. It sounds like Brad Pitt from Fight Club saying, “you’re not your khakis.”

Watch, don’t run.

And I do, for a second longer than I want, I observe and stop forcing. And something happens.

Things start to play out as if I’m directing the movie instead of staring in it. Paradoxically, by giving up control, I gain more of it.

That’s when it hits me. Mindfulness is the middle, somewhere between too much force and too little effort.

Aristotle called it the golden mean. At one end is excess, at the other deficiency. Between timidity and rashness, for instance, lies the mother of all virtues; courage. And mindfulness is no different.

There must be an active level of involvement. For me, that means sitting in the dark, on a pillow, surrounded by husky’s and pit-bulls, drowning in dog fur. For you, something else entirely. The fact remains, even something as simple as breathing takes effort. And effort equals energy.

But beyond that, you cannot force enlightenment any more than you can will yourself to write a best seller. But you can sit. You can breathe and type and let whatever happens happen.

You can become a channel and notice the value of each breath, of each sentence, distracted and confusing as they may be. And you can edit.

If one sentence always leads to the next, and you’re not afraid to write it, if the next breath is welcomed without judgment, and you’re willing to sit with whatever accompanies it, something truly remarkable happens.

The book writes itself. The sentence speaks volumes. The breath inspires.

Mindfulness isn’t forcing the perfect breath. There is no perfect. Or permanent. Or personal. Life isn’t sustainable at the extremes but rather lived well in the middle. A feeling where effort and relaxation come together to form non-attachment — a sense of freedom from the things that like to control me, to the concept that no thing can control me unless I let it. Not even my own judgment of my actions.

My next meditation isn’t my masterpiece. Similarly, my next sentence isn’t my novel. They’re first drafts.

Quality writing, like mindful breathing, doesn’t happen because you make it. You sit, because that’s your only job, on the pillow or at the computer, and you get out of your own way, free from expectation. You let it flow. You are a conduit with one objective: the middle, the mean, the space between.