You can use these exercises a few days each week to help maintain clarity, compassion, and mindfulness.
- Try practice acting on thoughts of generosity that come across your mind.
- Determine not to gossip or speak about a third party who isn’t with you at the time.
- Pick a person in your life that you usually ignore or feel indifferent to. Consciously pay attention to him/her.
- Observe any desire that arises strongly in your mind. Note whatever emotion you feel associated with it (such as loneliness, fear, longing, boredom, and so on…)
- Use times of unhappiness as opportunities to pay attention. What are the sources of discomfort? Is an expectation not being met, or a desire going unfulfilled? Do you find a sense of being out of control?
- Choose a simple activity and be as mindful of it as you can. Note the experiences of following through on these intentions.
- When you find yourself waiting in line, stuck in traffic, sitting in a meeting, or otherwise “between worlds,” practice awareness of the breath or of sounds, sights, and so on…..
*Adapted from Tricycle Teachings: Commit to Sit/ 2015
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