Life Speed and Mindfulness

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Life Speed and Mindfulness

Right now you should attempt to live in mindfulness, 100% in mindfulness. Maybe 2, 3, 5 hours and see how it goes. After that try a whole day a month, then a week just to see how it goes.

To live in mindfulness means to get rid of all, 100%, the non-essentials; keeping only what is utmost necessary. But do not turn yourself into an eccentric nor isolate yourself from others. That would not work and not be correct. As a Buddhist practices mindfulness he is more likeable as he gets better at it. Living in mindfulness does not mean looking like you just recovered from a long illness. But I personally know a few in Myanmar, Shwe Oo Min, Mahasi, U Pandita, Pa Auk ... who try to act like that. You actually get tired looking at them living in their kind of mindfulness. They should have known that they just have to live normally, exactly the way they used to live before, same way, same speed. They say they cannot be mindful if the speed of their life is at normal pace. To that argument, I would ask: "Do wrong mind and right mind have different speed?" Of course the answer is no. Wrong mind and right mind occur in roughly similar speed. Think back when we were living without mindfulness: we moved left right, up down, every directions, in haste and with all the three poisons greed, anger and ignorance in our heads. If that was so, how can we now not move at the same speed but with right thinking, right focus, i.e. mindfulness. Why? The answer is within ourselves! We do not understand so we think we must slow down to keep focus and let our right mind catches up with us.

So what is the speed on mindfulness? It is true that at the start we do not focus well, we let our mind wander about too much and it is difficult for the mindful mind catches up with us. But remember correct mindfulness is not about counting 1, 2, 3, 4 ,... No. Correct mindfulness means function in full knowledge, focus and care. Simply it means just that.


The Anaka Drum | | Introduction to Satipatthana Sutta

The Bicycle | | Hell

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