Maintaining Mindfulness

How do we maintain mindfulness in the face of frustration, noise, disagreement. It is very easy to practice mindfulness in a quiet environment with all the support of having meals prepared etc. It is much harder when we are facing pain, noise, frustration, misunderstandings. 

Yet the very practice of mindfulness is to help us with this. The whole point of the practice it to help us in the face of difficulties and to live peacefully and well. The intention of mindfulness is to train our mind in one pointed focused awareness in order to tame our mind. 

When our mind is tame we have the ability to maintain our equilibrium in the face of stress and distress. 

A very simple practice of mindfulness is the practice of patience. At the heart of patience is an understanding that nothing is permanent everything changes even this difficult experience.  The one thing we can guarantee is that change will happen. When we fully understand and appreciate this we are able to practice patience and kindness and understanding. 

To begin with it is important to practice at a very small level. While we are waiting for the water to boil for our pasta, or we are sitting in traffic waiting for the lights to change. We can focus our attention on what is right now. Where is our body, how is our breathing, what we are we seeing or hearing.

Take care 
Elizabeth