Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life

“To allow ourselves to be truly in touch with where we already are, no matter where that is, we have got to pause in our experience long enough to let the present moment sink in.”

Developing the theme of The Importance of Mindful Living, Kabat-Zinn reminds readers that, despite the busyness of modern life, we must take time to pause. This allows the present moment to fully sink in and be registered and appreciated. Without doing this, according to Kabat-Zinn, we rush through life in an automated state, seeing only our thoughts and interpretations of the world, rather than fully appreciating the world as it is in front of us.

“We usually fall, quite unawares, into assuming that what we are thinking—the ideas and opinions that we harbor at any given time—are ‘the truth’ about what is ‘out there’ in the world and ‘in here’ in our minds. Most of the time, it just isn’t so.”

Kabat-Zinn postulates that, if we are preoccupied with the clutter of our own thoughts, which is inevitable unless we make a concerted effort to do otherwise, we don’t actually see the world as it is. Instead, we see it through a veil of our own thoughts, which project our expectations, preferences, frustrations, and beliefs onto our surroundings. This obscures our surroundings and prevents us from engaging with them.

“The work of waking up from these dreams is the work of meditation, the systematic cultivation of wakefulness, of present-moment awareness. This waking up goes hand in hand with what we might call ‘wisdom,’ a seeing more deeply into cause and effect and the interconnectedness of things, so that we are no longer caught in a dream-dictated reality of our own creation.”

Kabat-Zinn explains that, in achieving moment-to-moment awareness and appreciation, one can foster wisdom. Wisdom encompasses an appreciation for the unity and wonder of the world around us while acknowledging and appreciating the immense diversity of the world.

“We will need to become more aware of and take precautions against the incredible pull of the Scylla and Charybdis of past and future, and the dreamworld they offer us in place of our lives.”

Kabat-Zinn touches on the fact that many of us are drawn to muse on events of our past, or on our hopes for the future. Kabat-Zinn warns against being pulled in by these temping thought patterns, as they draw us away from an appreciation of the present moment.

“If what happens now does influence what happens next, then doesn’t it makes sense to look around a bit from time to time so that you are more in touch with what is happening now, so that you can take your inner and outer bearings and perceive with clarity the path that you are actually on and the direction in which you are going?”

Further expounding on The Importance of Mindful Living, Kabat-Zinn suggests that one cannot live authentically unless one is making a concerted effort to be mindful. Unless one is mindfully considering their surroundings and their choices, they have no authentic control over their broader life direction. Instead, they are simply living in automation.

“A diminished awareness of the present moment inevitably creates other problems for us as well through our unconscious and automatic actions and behaviors, often driven by deep-seated fears and insecurities. These problems tend to build over time if they are not attended to and can eventually leave us feeling stuck and out of touch. Over time, we may lose confidence in our ability to redirect our energies in ways that would lead to greater satisfaction and happiness, perhaps even to greater health.”

Kabat-Zinn suggests that many people, particularly in the Western world, are ruled by their fears and insecurities; these unconscious thoughts, which bleed into the way an individual views and responds to the world around them, disconnect us from our ourselves. A disconnection from self leaves us feeling out of touch with our passions, our directions, and ultimately the person we want to be. Living this way also prevents us from being happy and healthy, further developing the thematic importance of The Importance of Mindful Living.

“The habit of ignoring our present moments in favor of others yet to come leads directly to a pervasive lack of awareness of the web of life in which we are embedded. This includes a lack of awareness and understanding of our own mind and how it influences our perceptions and our actions.”

Ironically, Kabat-Zinn explains, a preoccupation with the future actually diminishes our thoughtful execution of actions to dictate our future. If we are not directly aware of the web of life in which we are currently partaking in, we fail to understand our own mind and therefore fail to take actions that are authentically in line with who we are and what we want.

“While it may be simple to practice mindfulness, it is not necessarily easy. Mindfulness requires effort and discipline for the simple reason that the forces that work against our being mindful, namely, our habitual unawareness and automaticity, are exceedingly tenacious.”

The theme The Challenges and Benefits of Meditation is alluded to in Kabat-Zinn’s admission that, while simple, the practice of mindfulness is challenging. During meditation, meditators must learn to bring awareness of the constant flow of thoughts, which flow incessantly and automatically. By bringing awareness to thoughts, the meditator aims to bring awareness to the moment more fully, and ideally to participate more fully in that moment, rather than being swept along by thoughts that are not directly relevant to the present.

“In some ways, it’s as if you died and the world continued on. If you did die, all your responsibilities and obligations would immediately evaporate.”

Kabat-Zinn encourages would-be meditators to metaphorically die during moments of meditation. This strategy helps meditators to disconnect completely from the incessant noise about their responsibilities and obligations and to instead focus completely on their present moment. This strategy is one of many suggested by Kabat-Zinn throughout his work to assist individuals in disconnecting from their lives; it alludes to The Challenges and Benefits of Meditation, a recurring theme.

“Bringing awareness to our breathing, we remind ourselves that we are here now, so we might as well be fully awake for whatever is already happening.”

A focus on one’s breath is a fundamental tenet of meditation. Because breath is continuous and constant, anchoring oneself to the movement of breath in and out of the body is an effective way to bring and hold attention to the present moment. This present moment awareness should bring a sense of calmness, alertness, and appreciation.

“Lots of things intrude, carry us off, prevent us from concentrating. We see that the mind has gotten cluttered over the years, like an attic, with old bags and accumulated junk.”

Kabat-Zinn uses the metaphor of an attic crowded with junk to illustrate the crowdedness of our minds. The likening of thoughts to “old bags” and “junk” emphasizes Kabat-Zinn’s belief that, like unused possessions in an attic, most of our thoughts are irrelevant and unnecessary. We hold onto them thinking that we need them, but in fact they only clutter and crowd our lives, preventing us from seeing what is important.

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”

Kabat-Zinn quotes Henry David Thoreau, who chose to leave society and live in the woods around the nearby Walden Pond for two years and two months. Thoreau decided to live in a deliberate manner that celebrated the present moments unfolding in front of him. His decision to live in a simple cabin in nature assisted Thoreau’s mission; he spent hours in meditative focus considering the woods, the pond, and the sunrises. Kabat-Zinn postulates that we can emulate Thoreau’s mission in our own lives simply by bringing our awareness to present moments.

“I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the hands would have been.”

Kabat-Zinn once again quotes Thoreau. During his time at Walden Pond, Thoreau spent whole hours watching the progress of the sun, aware only of the singing birds and the environment immediately around him. Thoreau praises this time as far more valuable than time spent working. This challenges societal beliefs about the importance of spending time productively; Kabat-Zinn uses Thoreau to argue that choosing to be appreciatively present in one’s life is productive in and of itself.

“The tack we take in meditation is simply to witness whatever comes up in the mind or the body and to recognize it without condemning it or pursuing it, knowing that our judgments are unavoidable and necessarily limiting thoughts about experience.”

Kabat-Zinn, in expounding on the Challenges and Benefits of Meditation, explains that it is difficult to not condemn or pursue thoughts during meditation. This is a significant challenge, as our automatic thoughts encourage us to make distinctions on whether things are good or bad, to analyze the comfort or otherwise of the physical body, to condemn one’s mind for wandering to what one has planned later that day, and a million other things. The challenge of meditation is to recognize and witness, non-judgmentally.

“From any angle, the posture itself embodies wakefulness, even when the eyes are closed and the face is serene and peaceful. It is mountainlike in its majesty and solidity.”

Kabat-Zinn praises the posture of sitting meditation above other meditative positions, as the posture mirrors the internal experience which the meditator wishes to have. It is wakeful yet serene, as well as being inherently majestic. In taking a meditative seat, Kabat-Zinn invites meditators to celebrate their inherent power and composure.

“With each step, the foot has to come down somewhere. Climbing or descending over boulder fields, steep inclines, on and off trails, our feet make split-second decisions for us about where and how to come down, what angle, how much pressure, heel or toe, rotated or straight.”

Kabat-Zinn uses the analogy of hiking a technical path to explore the concept of moment-to-moment mindfulness. When we are walking, we find a place to step, trusting inherently that our next footfall will also find a place to step. In walking as in meditation, meditators should try to foster a level of innate trust in the unfolding of moments.

“By becoming the mountain in our meditation, we can link up with its strength and stability, and adopt them for our own. We can use its energies to support our efforts to encounter each moment with mindfulness, equanimity, and clarity.”

Kabat-Zinn makes recommendations to his readers on the thoughts and ideas they can hold in their mind in order to assist them to reach a meditative state. He celebrates the inherent strength and majesty of mountains and metaphorically compares a sitting meditator to a mountain. In this analogy, Kabat-Zinn encourages readers to channel calmness, confidence, and stability into their meditation; this will enable them to achieve trust and appreciation of the moment-to-moment experience of meditation.

“Can you see that not practicing is an arduous practice?”

Kabat-Zinn asks readers to consider times in their life where they are not engaging in daily meditation and mindfulness and to compare their stress levels, inner peace, and relationship quality to times where they are engaging in these practices. Kabat-Zinn draws attention to the recurring theme, The Importance of Mindful Living, in posing this question; he brings attention to the fact that avoiding these practices makes life less enjoyable.

“If you start reflecting on such questions when you’re in your twenties, by the time you are thirty-five or forty, or fifty or sixty, the inquiry itself may have led you a few places that you would not have gone had you merely followed mainstream conventions, or your parents’ expectations for you, or even worse, your own unexamined self-limiting beliefs and expectations.”

Kabat-Zinn asks readers to pose important questions to themselves through meditative practice, but without the demand for immediate answers. Through posing these questions and watching the thoughts that come up, Kabat-Zinn suggests that we can come closer to becoming the person we truly and authentically want to be.

“Why not try to live so as to cause as little damage and suffering as possible? If we lived that way, we wouldn’t have the insane levels of violence that dominate our lives and our thinking today. And we would be more generous toward ourselves as well, on the meditation cushion, and off it.”

Kabat-Zinn asks readers, as part of their meditative practice and commitment to mindful living, to attempt to reduce harmful thoughts and actions to themselves and others. Harmful thoughts are borne from fear and insecurity; meditation helps one to accept their fears through sitting and witnessing them with honesty. This helps to lessen the power that these fears hold in one’s life. Kabat-Zinn believes that a widespread commitment to not harming could have immeasurable positive impacts on the world.

“It means knowing who you are and that you are not your karma, whatever it may be at this moment. It means aligning yourself with the way things actually are. It means seeing clearly.”

Kabat-Zinn explains that karma refers to the thoughts and beliefs one puts into the world and the trend for similar belief and thought patterns to follow. Only with mindfulness can one change what they are putting into the world, and therefore what they are receiving, as mindfulness allows one to witness their thoughts and impulses with honesty and to decide whether they authentically reflect who they wish to be. In this way, mindfulness allows one to take greater control of the direction of one’s life.

“When we are in touch with being whole, we feel at one with everything. When we feel at one with everything, we feel whole ourselves.”

Kabat-Zinn suggests that meditation can bring about a wonderful feeling of wholeness within oneself, as well as a feeling of wholeness and connection with the world at large. This feeling of wholeness is not a denial of the enormous variety of the world, but rather an appreciation of that variety and a commitment to honor it and appreciate it in its multiplicity. This belief can bring a sense of peace and hope.

“Such occasions are good opportunities to experiment with mindfulness as a pot into which you can put all your feelings and just be with them, letting them slowly cook, reminding yourself that you don’t have to do anything with them right away, that they will become more cooked, more easily digested and understood simply by holding them in the pot of mindfulness.”

Kabat-Zinn explores the way that mindfulness helped him to manage his anger. He suggests that mindful practice is essential for managing big emotions, as honest observation of these emotions, and the preceding thoughts, allows one to fully understand the emotion and then to act on it in a way that feels authentic.