5-Minute Mindfulness by David B. Dillard-Wright PhD

Author:David B. Dillard-Wright PhD [Dillard-Wright, David B., PhD, Spear, Heidi E., and Munier, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4405-3264-1
Publisher: F+W Media, Inc.
Published: 2012-07-16T16:00:00+00:00

“Yoga gave me the ability to calm down.”

—CHRISTY TURLINGTON

CHAPTER 8

SAY A LITTLE MINDFUL PRAYER

“You don’t have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body.”

—C. S. LEWIS

Even as we quiet the mind and listen to the body, communing with the divine may seem improbable at best and impossible at worst. For many of us, our daily lives are too busy, too messy, too full of mundane details to encourage connecting with spirit.

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

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