WHAT IS MINDFULNESS MEDITATION?
WHY DO WE PRACTICE IT?

Mindfulness is a state of awareness to the present moment experience.  Mindfulness is being fully present and alive; complete embodiment of the body and mind.  Moment by moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and the surrounding environment.  Mindfulness embraces the present non-judgmentally with loving-kindness.  Mindfulness is the natural presence we experience when fully awake, open, and tender.  It is the serenity experienced laying in the middle of a field on summer evening watching shooting stars zip and zing across the sky.

Meditation is a practice of training the attention.  It enables us to recognize the conditioned mind and habitual thinking that keep us trapped in suffering.  Meditation encompasses a variety of forms for quieting the mind and opening the heart.  Meditation may include contemplative, concentration, observational, listening, visualization, and mantras; each practice is specific to fostering awakening, understanding, and compassion.

Practicing mindfulness meditation opens us to fullness of life.  To embody the totality of the human experience means embracing everything that arises as is, there is neither grasping after the pleasant moments nor aversion to the unpleasant moments.  Rather mindfulness meditation opens us to experiencing life free from the discursive thinking, evaluation or habitual reactivity.  Instead of being tossed about by the waves of life like a ship on the sea, we develop the capacity to witness the waves and sink into the deep stillness of the ocean.  We can recognize the waves as being ephemeral yet the deep ocean remains unchanged.

In order to experience the true joy, equanimity, compassion, and loving-kindness of this life we need to understand our own mind.  Understanding the mind evolves over the continuous observation of the mind.  The more attuned and aware we become of our own proclivities the more apt we are to respond from a place of loving-kindness.  Responding kindly and gently to ourselves opens the door to a secret garden of infinity and timelessness.  New insights arise, the heart blossoms, and the immense blessing of this life in human form unfolds.

The more we commit to our practice, commit to exploring our self, the more we experience the wellspring of being, and simply being is peaceful.