Poem
Mindful, by Mary Oliver
I didn't read the commentary after the poem on this site, hopefully its nothing inappropriate.
Daily Practice
Someone asked the instructor what his daily mindfulness practice is like. He describes a consistent morning routine:
-- Wake up, do some of the "office stretches" that we learned in an earlier week before getting out of bed. These are things like loosening up the wrists, ankles, neck, a small back stretch, then get up.
-- Shower
-- Sitting Meditation for 30 minutes
-- A few more gentle stretches for a few minutes that came from the sections we learned on "mindful yoga"
-- Breakfast, Off to work.
-- Work varies, but he describes frequently giving talks or teaching. During longer events, take relatively frequent breaks (I don't remember a timeframe but I'm guessing hourly). Give the students a break too. During the breaks, breathe, relax, think about something else, do some sort of stretching briefly that's appropriate for wherever you are.
-- Whenever working with people, practice "insight dialogue", the act of mindful speaking and listening, as often as possible. It seems like this practice is a huge part of how he interacts with others on a daily basis.
-- Nothing standard in the evenings.
-- A specific mention is made about the stretching, the idea of breaking this up throughout the day when there are free moments here and there, instead of having to try to scramble to find 20-30 minutes to do it all at once.
Followup Questions
-- A question is asked about caffeine and alcohol, does he try to eliminate these for a clearer mind. The answer is no, he's a craft beer enthusiast, and he drinks coffee daily, but does set a limit on the amount.
-- I ask (OMG THERE I GO TALKING AGAIN) if he always practices the same type of meditation, or if there is an intent to "mix it up". He says that he prefers the "choiceless awareness" meditation that we learned about last week (note: I couldn't remember the phrase, I described it as "open awareness" in last week's writeup), and that he tends to stick with that almost all the time.
-- I forget if it came up as a result of a specific question or not, but he talks a little about his own personal experience with meditation. Even after decades of doing this, its different every day. Sometimes there is a strong focus there, and sometimes his thoughts just won't stop, and everything is going a mile a minute. He does say that typically during a 30 minute meditation, even if things start out racing a mile a minute, at some point... estimating 15 minutes but unsure since there's no staring at a clock along the way... the thoughts will start to settle down and everything will slow down.
So a personal note here, I've very frequently, but not always, experienced the same thing, where I will notice my mind starting to slow down at some point while I'm meditating. I have typically been sticking to 15 minutes though, and realize that I do want to slowly work my way up to a half hour daily. I began this earlier today, setting my clock for 20 minutes instead of 15. Additionally, while I frequently notice things slowing down during the course of meditation, sometimes I notice the opposite. Sometimes I feel like I'm just ready to be done, and I start feeling very restless, and I can't seem to reign that in. Its different every day and doesn't necessarily seem to directly correlate to how I think I'm feeling when I start the process.