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For many of us, being overly absorbed in the world is our normal state.
We can become fixated on social media, streaming services, our work, anything. And this type of absorption is mindless and unconscious.
We spend hours and hours, scrolling further and further down our social media feed. We think about what we need to do later that day instead of giving our attention to the person or task before us.
For some people, there’s nothing wrong with this. They don’t experience a wave of negative emotions that stream from their mindlessness. But for others, it often leads to depression and anxiety. Instead of being present to the moment, they are thinking about the problems of the world or the looming threats around them. And eventually this may lead them to the practice of mindfulness.
The wide array of knowledge about mindfulness tells us that being in the present moment is good for both our physical and mental well-being. It reduces stress, chronic pain, depression, and anxiety, while improving digestion and sleep.
It can no doubt be overwhelming trying to be in the present moment every moment of our waking lives. That’s a daunting task indeed. So to make this more achievable, we can devote our undivided attention to the moment for a short period of time each day. The obvious way to do this is to practice some kind of meditation be it awareness of the breath or sensations around the body. By sitting still for 10-20 minutes each day, and concentrating our minds, we are able to become less at the mercy of the “monkey mind” that can run out of control.
As we progress, we might try to bring this same sense of awareness into our lives. We can try to be present to the moment at work, at the dinner table, or even while watching TV.
But what can happen is that we can become so fixated on the meditation method that it itself begins to stand in our way. While we are spending time with our family, we might try to maintain a focus on our breath instead of giving our full love and attention to them. While we are working, we might do the same and end up having a substandard performance.
Of course, in extremely stressful situations, using our meditation method off the cushion might be the most effective way to cope. If we are extremely nervous before a big event, focusing on our breathing can calm us down. But in our day-to-day lives, we should try to be present to the moment by giving ourselves to the people and tasks around us.
Being present with our partner means that we listen intently to how their day was. We ask genuine questions about it. And we share our day with aliveness.
Being present to our young children means enjoying playing with them, answering their questions about the world with the same awe and wonder as they ask these questions, and feeding them nourishing food that we prepare with love and attention.
Being present at work means doing our job with passion and creativity, not just going through the motions and waiting out the day.
So, in a sense, we will have gone full circle by spiralling upward. We can move from worldliness, which is an unconscious absorption in the world, to worldfulness, which is a new type of absorption in the world, a deeper, conscious one. We can lose our lower selves to the world, but attain our higher selves by connecting to the world around us.
Meditation is an important tool for developing mindfulness, but it is a means not an end. If we take it as an end in itself, we are likely to become overly fixated on it and even self-absorbed. We might end up ignoring the people around us and the problems in the world. We might develop a kind of apathy and mistake it for spiritual detachment.
We need to continue to develop mindfulness so that it enables us to live fully in the world around us. From sitting meditation, we can progress to walking meditation to running meditation to working meditation to living meditation to living—living fully.
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