Mindfulness is best when it is practiced with deliberation. I haven’t talked about deliberation much, but I intend to!
Mindfulness, deliberation, and intention are three concepts that have vast levels of philosophy to them, and easily as many applications our lives. Mindfulness teaches us to appreciate each moment. That appreciation isn’t a giddy rush of joy, but a more subtle feeling of existing without the burden of schedules.
Schedules are great for getting things done. They break tasks into down into manageable units.
We have lived so long with schedules that we expect our lives to conform to the concept of schedules. They won’t do that.
Sure, we see there’s a time called infancy, childhood, adolescence, and so forth. We understand day and night. The progression of life from beginning to end. These are all parts of a continuum.
Neither day nor night, turns off and on like a light bulb, do they? There’s dusk. Twilight. Last light. Night. First light. Dawn. Sunrise. Full light. Morning. Noon.
I could go on and on, but these terms mark our instinctive understanding that all of existence is on a continuum. These things would be very hard to fit into a schedule.
Isn’t it true our schedules must adapt to them? If not, try sunbathing at 3 am in Dublin. Ludicrous, and I hope you take my point. While there are things that are exclusive dichotomies (pure black/pure white. Off/on), there are so many more things that are continuous. Our existence is one of them.
We pay attention to the flow of time really only when we are either out of it, or, being mindful. In mindfulness, we can stop rushing, stop hurrying, and feel the life in our bodies, the awareness of our minds, the pulse of being alive.
We do live in a kinetic universe, but we don’t always have to be bouncing about it, with only reaction to shape our destination. Mindfulness