“Faith is like a bright ray of sunlight.
It enables us to see God in all things as well as all things in God.”
- St. Francis de Sales
We have all heard about mindfulness, but very few of us make any conscious effort to practise it. Some of us react with “I know I ought to do it, but I don’t have the time,” or “That’s for Buddhists, I’m not interested.” If you see mindfulness as centring on yourself, or as emptying your mind, then that’s good. Those are not things you should train! But mindfulness, when understood correctly, is a virtue.
Mindfulness, also known as presence or awareness, is the bringing of our attention to our embodied lives in the present moment. Philosophy, spirituality, and psychology all demonstrate the importance of developing this skill.
Philosophical foundation of presence
We are temporal beings. Our lives are lived along a timeline, in a single dimension. This is how we understand our lives, of choice after choice made all in a row, like a thread weaving in a specific direction.
Sometimes, we try to see forwards and backwards along this thread. But the past is present to us only as imperfect memory, and the future is present only as imperfect imagination. Either can inform our current choices, but all of our choices are made in the present. Although the entire thread is real, the only point on the thread where we can see truly is the one where we stand right now.
God, however, is the eternal being. He created time and stands outside of it. To him, the thread of my life is not one-dimensional. Rather, he sees the entire thread all at once as part of the multi-dimensional tapestry of history.
Since God can be said to be synonymous with “goodness,” “beauty,” or “truth,” and with anything else that transcends time, we can picture our relationship to all of these transcendentals in the same way. If we want to connect with real goodness, we should not look forwards nor backwards. We should look outwards.
Our imagination is a useful tool, as is our memory. But they are not where goodness, beauty, or truth will be found. God is with us in the present moment.
Spiritual understanding of presence
Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In every thing give thanks.
St Paul tells Christians to pray without ceasing. Many hear this call and feel guilty about their worldly tasks, thinking they should rush as quickly as they can so that they can get back to prayer. But if that’s true, then we shouldn’t be washing the dishes at all. We shouldn’t even be eating! We should just pray till we die.
That’s obviously not the goal.
So we need to figure out how we can pray while doing the dishes.
Prayer is to be present to God. We have already said that God is with us in our current moment, and less present in our imaginations and memories. So being present to God (goodness, beauty, truth) in the present moment is prayer.
When we are meant to be washing the dishes, we are tempted to think that there is nothing to which it is worth being present. But isn’t there goodness in serving your family? Isn’t there beauty in the sparkling dish? Isn’t there truth in doing a thorough job? If prayer is being present to God, then washing the dishes with presence is prayer.
In the spiritual classic The Practice of the Presence of God, it is told that:
[Brother Lawrence] was never hasty nor loitering, but did each thing in its season, with an even uninterrupted composure and tranquillity of spirit. Said he, “The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer; and in the noise and clutter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess GOD in as great tranquillity as if I were upon my knees at the Blessed Sacrament.”
Brother Lawrence’s presence of God made him the same in the time of business and the time of prayer. Just as Brother Lawrence was praying while he was in the chapel, he was praying while he was washing the dishes.
This is the Christian’s goal in daily life. To “pray without ceasing,” whether we are doing so by participation in the Mass or by washing the dishes. To be present to God in each moment of our lives.
Let me put forward a quote on this same point by Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh:
If while washing dishes, we think only of the cup of tea that awaits us, thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance, then we are not ‘washing the dishes to wash the dishes.’ What’s more, we are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes. In fact we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can’t wash the dishes, the chances are we won’t be able to drink our tea either.
He is right! If we are not aware of the good in the moment of doing the dishes, if doing the dishes is not a prayer, then there is no point in even being alive at that moment. We may claim that we are looking for God in some other moment, but we aren’t really in that other moment. In the mean time, God is looking at our present moment, waiting for us to be there too and look outwards at Him.
Psychological benefits of mindfulness
Brethren: Be sober, be vigilant, because your adversary the devil,
as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
whom resist, steadfast in the faith.
We have both bodies and souls. We must develop a spiritual life. But this does not mean that our body is bad. If you focus only on the soul, you are missing part of the picture.
Our nervous system is a wonderful part of our bodies. The amygdala is constantly evaluating sensations for us (e.g., low blood sugar). It activates our nervous system into a setting to help us respond (e.g., we start to crave food). This passes a signal onto you - it may be time to eat. Your nervous system is ready to act. Now it is up to you to respond to that signal.
If we aren’t present, we tend to react automatically. If we have a hunger signal, we munch down a snack without thinking. On the other hand, when we are present, we notice the signal. This tells the nervous system “signal received,” and the amygdala slowly turns down the volume. Then, we choose how we would like to respond “Okay, what is my body trying to tell me? How ought I respond?” So being more present to our feelings, somewhat surprisingly, means we get more control over the feelings.
This is a good thing - being present to signals can help you avoid automatic reactions, and can also help you to choose positive reactions. Let’s say you see a tree full of ripe pears. The parasympathetic system activates, readying you to enjoy the beauty. If you notice the signal, you can consciously decide to strengthen it, relishing the beauty of the pears for a bit longer.
Failing to be present to our nervous system’s signals is the cause of addiction. After all, what is an addiction but an automatic response to a craving? This is the reason that mindfulness practice has been proven to help overcome addictions. If you would like to be more in control of yourself, you should practice being present to your nervous system’s signals.
Failing to connect with the present is also the cause of anxiety and of shame. After all, what else is anxiety but excessive preoccupation with a falsely imagined future, and what else is shame but excessive preoccupation with a falsely conceived past? This is why mindfulness training is an effective treatment for anxiety and mood disorders.
Finally, failing to be present is the source of distraction. After all, what is distraction but being present to something else than the thing on which you would like to focus? That is why mindfulness practices are proven to increase cognitive ability and help recover our attention spans.
Becoming present
This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.
Do you rejoice in every day? Are you as grateful as you’d like to be? Are you as free of anxiety as you would like to be? For a cloistered monk, it’s easy to stay “recollected.” But we decided to take the Dominic option, rather than the Benedict option, and so have to live in a world that makes it hard to stay present.
Our world is filled with distractions from the present. While waiting, I no longer simply wait, I text my friends. While doing the dishes, I no longer just do the dishes, I listen to music. The attention economy has taken our focus and sold it for advertising revenue.
In contrast to our ancestors’, today’s world no longer forces us to focus on the present. If a caveman didn’t do so, he would get eaten by a sabre-tooth. If a mediaeval didn’t do so, he’d miss out on the one month a year he could eat ripe pears. I can stay non-present, and still eat ripe pears free of sabre-tooth tigers.
So we need to train mindfulness. Here, we are lucky. Even just a little bit of time spent every day on improving this skill makes a big difference. I propose to my readers that we do three things every day:
Every evening, reflect on how God (goodness, beauty, truth) was present in your day. This could be as simple and secular as gratitude journaling. I suggest praying a daily Examen. See my article “What is the Examen?” for five variants.
Pick one task every day and commit to being fully present during it. I read about a lady who had a note taped above her sink reminding her to be mindful while washing the dishes. You could pick brushing your teeth, going for a walk, anything physical where you are often distracted.
Stop once a day and connect with your senses and body. This keeps you more connected throughout the rest of the day. Here are three options (I suggest the body scan):
Breathing: Focus on your breath for 10 minutes.
Sense check: Stop and list five colours you see, five textures you feel, and five sounds you hear, then four of each, then three of each. Smells and tastes are possible too, but a bit tougher.
Body scan: You can find lots of audio guides online (including on Spotify), or read the endearingly crazy
’s article here (he credits his body scan technique to mystic G.I. Gurdjieff via Maronite priest Father Joseph Azize).
Join me
I am resolving to grow in mindfulness. If you would like to do the same, I challenge you to join me in the following three tasks every day:
Praying the Examen.
Being fully present to one task.
Doing a body scan.
Will you join me?
Body scans are particularly well suited to recorded guided meditations. I recommend this one by Leigh Brasington, he's a Theravada Buddhist practitioner, but this scan is just attention instructions with no religious content.
http://www.audiodharma.org/mp3files/2007-02-03_LeighBrasington_GuidedMeditationBodySweep.mp3