5-Minute Mindfulness (17 page)

And, yet, as they say, God is in the details. Learning to live a mindful life—day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute—can help you rediscover the sacred, however you may define it and however far removed from it you may feel now.

A SATORI A DAY

Even the craziest of days offers us opportunities to experience those aha! moments of clarity that illuminate our lives—and change us forever. Whether you see these soulful moments as whispers from God, blessings from the universe, or simply gifts from your subconscious doesn’t really matter. What matters is that they happen, and with a little mindfulness, we can experience them more often.

You have most likely experienced these flashes of insight before. Which of the following have happened to you?

• You feel one with the cosmos on a starry summer night.

• You are struck by the generosity of spirit of an unexpected act of kindness.

• You feel a special sudden kinship with God during a service at your favorite place of worship.

• You benefit from the wisdom brought to you by a departed loved one in a dream.

• During a time of crisis, you are reminded that we are all in this together.

• The answer to a problem that has been worrying you appears out of the blue while you’re in the shower.

• You are overcome with gratitude for the love in your life at a family gathering.

• You wonder anew at the miracle of life when you hold a newborn baby.

• Someone you thought would never forgive you for a past action reaches out to you, and you are humbled by the gesture.

• You forgive someone you thought you could never forgive, and you feel liberated by the gesture.

In Zen Buddhism, such a flash of awareness is called a
satori
. A satori can strike anytime, anywhere—all you have to do is notice it. When you are paying attention, life becomes a series of satori on the path to enlightenment.

MINDFULNESS: ENLIGHTENMENT WAITING TO HAPPEN

While we cannot plan to experience a satori, we can pay attention to our lives as we live them and become mindful of our aha! moments as they happen. Through mindfulness, we can set the stage to reconnect with spirit, illuminate our souls, and achieve enlightenment—one satori at a time.

From East to West, every tradition offers windows to our soul. Let us open these windows and let the light shine in.

What meditation is to the Eastern traditions, prayer is to the Western traditions. Indeed, there are more similarities than differences between these spiritual approaches. Both traditions seek the cultivation of silence as a meditative practice, and both share a desire for the peace of that meditative practice to influence our everyday lives.

What’s more, they both aim to help us:

• Recognize the connections among heart, mind, and spirit

• Realize that divine energy or grace exists in and around the world of life

• Cultivate good character

• Discover a higher power through practice

In addition, the traditions that promote meditation or prayer offer a variety of approaches to unify heart, mind, and spirit, and they teach that divine energy or grace is accessible to us. It’s not hard to see that the reasons for practicing them are shared by virtually every spiritual path. Only dogma separates them.

But, you might ask, isn’t prayer directed to a separate entity and meditation directed to the self? Actually, the writings of Christian theologians resemble the teachings of the other traditions in many ways. Most important, the path to the higher power lies through the efforts of the individual alone. Only the route is different.

If we were to compare the approaches of meditation and prayer as paths on the journey from conscious existence to superconscious experience, it is really very simple. Meditation employs the mind; prayer employs the heart.

Prayer is a mindfulness tool that you can practice anywhere, anytime. You can call for divine grace, blessings, and assistance whenever you need to, and your reward will always be—in addition to whatever else—a mindful soul.

JESUS, TEACHER OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

Many mysteries surround the life and ministry of Jesus the Nazarene, born at the beginning of the Common Era in Bethlehem, Palestine. There are few details about his youth and education, but Jesus appeared at a critical time in Jewish history. Roman domination of the region had created immense hardship on its inhabitants. The Romans considered religious expression a threat to the supremacy of the Caesars, the emperors who had proclaimed themselves gods.

Jesus, a devout Jewish man, began a self-determined ministry at the age of thirty. At the time, there were several divisions in the Jewish faith. The orthodox Jews followed the strict dictates of the Sadducees, while the more liberal segment of society followed the Pharisees. A monastic tradition also existed. These followers, who lived separately in the region of the Dead Sea, away from the great cities, pursued a contemplative, mystical approach to Judaism. Many scholars believe that Jesus was a member of this movement. The Dead Sea Scrolls, found in 1947, were the records of this community and reveal provocative details about their beliefs. Among other things, they cite a “teacher of righteousness,” who is believed to be Jesus. According to the scrolls, his role was to reveal the mysteries locked in the scriptures.

Ultimately, the life and death of Jesus became the fountainhead of a religious movement that changed the face of Western civilization. His two exhortations are the cornerstones of Christian doctrine: to love God above all other things and to love your neighbor as you love yourself.

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

—M
ATTHEW
22:37–40 ESV

LOVE IS THE ANSWER PRAYER

This is a prayer you can say as a mantra, recalling Jesus’s challenge to love your neighbor as yourself:

Love is the answer.

Love is the answer.

Love is the answer.

THE GNOSTICS

In 1945, a cache of ancient papyrus scrolls was discovered in a remote region near Nag Hammadi, Egypt. After years of negotiating their ownership, scholars were able to determine that they dated from the fourth century. They were apparently copied from even older texts by a community of Christian ascetics known at the time as Gnostics (“those who know”). The term is also used to denote “insight.”

The early Christian church regarded the Gnostics as heretics because their gospels were unauthorized by the early church. The Nag Hammadi scrolls are believed to be remnants of those gospels, and their contents have surprised and mystified scholars. They include teachings on spiritual practice and statements that closely resemble Buddhist thought. Excerpts have been compared to Zen koans.

A GNOSTIC KOAN

This is a divine riddle you can meditate on in times of trouble:

If you bring forth what is in you,

What you bring forth will save you.

If you do not bring forth what is within you,

What you do not bring forth will destroy you.

THE MONASTIC TRADITION

One of the first early Christians to formally retreat from society was a young man named Macarius, who began an austere life in Wadi Natrun in the western desert of Egypt. By the fourth century, the dissolution of the Roman Empire was under way, and many sought the peace and serenity that religious life offered. By the time Macarius passed away at the age of ninety, more than 4,000 monks had been drawn to his monastery alone. The movement was so widespread that a century later, the daughter of the Emperor Zeno joined the community disguised as a monk. After centuries of building, raids by a variety of rulers, and a renaissance in monastic life, the monastery of Macarius still flourishes today.

In the following centuries, from Egypt and the Sinai to Greece and westward to Europe, all classes of people joined these spiritual communities.

The Monk’s Rule of Three

Monks (from the Greek
monos
, meaning “alone”) initially lived in caves at the extremity of civilization. Their initial goal was threefold:

to reach
apatheia
(“pacification”), where the passions are quieted;

to practice
hesychia
(“reposing in silence”), where the mind withdraws from the outer world to reflect on spiritual realities; and

to attain
metanoia
(“all being together”), where the soul is transformed.

Monastic life followed a rule of order that dictated every daily activity. Prayer was the central practice throughout the day, punctuated only by domestic duties assigned to each member. Reflective time was also allotted to the study of scripture to provide inspiration. Guidelines were established that included poverty, chastity, and obedience. And, like the Buddhist monasteries, those of the Middle Ages “specialized,” with a particular approach to emulating the life of Christ. Some were dedicated to healing the sick, others to teaching or preserving Christian writings.

THE CONTEMPLATIVES

Over time, withdrawal from the outside world became more than an accepted way to exercise the contemplative side of Christianity. The life of seclusion evolved into one of the few ways to receive an education or practice the arts. Gradually, those realms became intertwined with monastic life, so much so that the artistic and intellectual legacy of Western culture is innately connected to its spiritual tradition. The contemplative life encouraged this, and it is being revived today to encourage creative people to unlock their potential.

HILDEGARD OF BINGEN: THE POETESS OF PRAYER

Conditions in the eleventh century brought these circumstances to a summit. In 1098, Hildegard of Bingen was born to a noble family in what is now Germany. From childhood, she appeared to be unworldly, and she entered the religious life at fifteen. Until the age of fortytwo, she pursued the contemplative regimen of the convent. Then she reported a revelatory vision, in which she understood “the meaning of the expositions of the books … the evangelists and other catholic books of the Old and New Testaments.” More important, she also saw that her future work was to write about and expound on what she understood in her revelation.

The work and writings of Hildegard reflect that this revelation was more than an intuitive flash. She produced extensive theological works on Christian doctrine, poetry, music, and morality plays and scientific works on botany and medicine. She also presented a supremely meditative view on interpreting the Gospel of St. John. Seeing it as an allegory of the spiritual condition of the human race, she urged contemplation on spiritual rather than literal meanings of the Scriptures in her public teaching.

Hildegard did not go about her life quietly in a plain nun’s habit, praying and contemplating throughout the day. Until her passing in 1179, she conducted herself as a resourceful manager of a convent, a composer, a teacher, and an artist. She is said to have worn colorful clothes and appreciated beautiful gems and scents. Her peers regarded her as prophetic and as one who saw profoundly into the mystical dimension of nature.

A CREATIVITY POEM

This is a prayer you can say whenever you feel the need for divine inspiration:

The earth is at the same time mother,

She is mother of all that is natural, mother of all that is human.

She is the mother of all, for contained in her are the seeds of all.

The earth of humankind contains all moistness, all verdancy,

All germinating power.

It is in so many ways fruitful.

All creation comes from it.

Yet it forms not only the basic raw material for mankind,

But also the substance of the incarnation of God’s son.

—Hildegard of Bingen

ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI: THE NATURE OF PEACE

In the thirteenth century, despite an early life of privilege and ease, a young Italian named Francesco di Bernadone received a spiritual command through prayer to dedicate his life to peace and contemplation. In answer to this, he was to found the brotherhood of the “little friars.” They came to play a significant role in European spirituality in the following centuries as the Franciscans.

A former knight, Francesco began a new life in Assisi to live in imitation and union with Christ. Besides preaching and cultivating an attitude of equanimity with men and nature, he lived in poverty. When critics of the Church admonished him, he argued that he was truly free.

Ultimately, he was a man of God, a man of nature, and a man of peace.

A NATURE PRAYER

This is a prayer that celebrates the natural world and our place in it. Say it whenever you feel the grace of God in the bounty of nature.

Praised be you my Lord, with all your creatures,

Especially my Lord Brother Sun,

Who brings the day, and by whom you enlighten us.

He is beautiful, he shines with great splendor;