Mindfulness of Reactions
“The practice of mindfulness is not reserved for the meditation cushion...If we are able to wake up, if only occasionally and for a few moments at first, stand back from the ongoing drama of our lives and take an objective look at the habit patterns in which we are caught, then their compulsive hold over us begins to loosen. We dis-identify from them; that is, we begin to see that those thoughts and feelings are not us. They come along accidentally. They are neither an organic part of us nor are we obliged to follow them.”*
In the children’s book, “Tiger, Tiger, Is it True?,” Tiger jumps out of bed and his foot lands on a toy. He goes crashing down. He knows, with certainty, in that instant, that he is going to have a rotten day. And the day does not disappoint. It is as rotten as he expected it to be when he first slipped and fell.
Tiger could have had another thought, one that went like this, “Oh my gosh. Mom told me to pick up my toys and I left them all over the floor. This is what I can expect to happen if I leave small toys lying all over my room. This hurts. I do not like this feeling. I would rather clean up my room than have this happen again.”
Tiger’s first reaction set up the book for a lovely dramatic climax and satisfying resolution. Option two is an example of mindfulness, paying attention, in action. Mindfulness is not some whoo whoo practice, it is a call to attentiveness.
This makes it possible for us to check our thoughts and feelings before they wreck our day, week, month, and sometimes life.
You have searched me, Lord,
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Psalm 139:1-3 NIV
The scriptures remind us in so many ways how much God knows about us and how little we understand ourselves. Maybe today we could go to the source for our self-understanding.
God, hear our cries!
*Snelling, J. (1991). The buddhist Handbook. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, 55.
