Mindfulness is a practice in which we become aware of the various facets of our experiences in the present moment. We can learn to be aware of how we move, how we feel (physically, emotionally or mentally) and how we respond or react to each moment of life.
During practice observe everything that arises in your being. Observe the thoughts, the emotions without judgement. Observe without discrimination. Allow both negative and positive thoughts to arise without trying to cling to the positive or push away the negative. Be watchful and unaffected, in the centre of these energies rising.
The more you observe with a quality of allowing all, the more centred you become. The more you watch yourself with no judgement, the more you allow parts of yourself to come to the surface. Parts of your being you didn’t know existed. It is then that you being in its totality will start to unfold in front of your eyes.
The more you watch the more you see the image that you have created. The more you see the image, the more aware you’ll become of its strength and weaknesses, the more you watch the strength and weaknesses with total acceptance, the more open you see the situations that this image creates through its qualities. The more you see this, the easier it will be to act out of the box. How can you act out of the box, if you don’t even see the box? Can you see the box you have created for yourself? Have you wondered why the same things keep happening to you? Know the image! Know the box and come out to open yourself to the reality, the totality of who you are. That is nothing, but life itself. You have been cutting yourself from its flow by shrinking yourself to a much smaller version of who you are.
With mindfulness, the image you have created of yourself, which you seem to be working so hard to maintain, starts dissolving. You begin to see that you were fighting for the small share of the bargain. Let go of who you think you are, let go of your image, let go of the beggar and die in the love that you are.
Rumi says:
With an axe cut the tie
And this, your prison, defy
When your chains you untie
With Kings identify.
die, die,
The handsome King satisfy
For the Lord when you die
Your glories multiply.