mindfulness

Mindfulness is all the rage, ‘intentional’ eating the latest mindful vehicle on the grid. Rather than subject the body to ridiculous regimes devised by the Israeli army or armies of dubious doctors out to make a killing, we are urged to think more as we actually eat, to savour every mouthful, to taste every molecule, as a way to eat less.

Professor Wiki describes mindfulness as an attentive awareness of the reality of things, especially of the present moment. No less than the Buddha advocated mindfulness in day-to-day life: a calm awareness of bodily functions, sensations and feelings, thoughts and perceptions, resulting in wisdom. It’s one of the seven factors of enlightenment.

I don’t remember why I have The Penguin Krishnamurtu reader in my early twenties; no one I know recommended it. Jiddu Krishnamurti is a self-styled world teacher of no religion, philosophy or political persuasion. In the second paragraph he asks if we can either seek or find happiness. His answer, as I read him, is that we can and the way to achieve it is mindfulness.

He suggests that before we can have any relationship to anyone or anything we must first understand ourselves: our way of thinking and why we think certain things; our conditioning and why we hold certain beliefs; the intricacies of our thoughts and feelings; and it’s extremely difficult.

The difficulty is compounded by finding the time for self-reflection, to study ourselves in action, when we are earning a livelihood, discharging our responsibilities, honouring our commitments. Well, if we want to get there, we just must find that time.

Krishnamurti wrote this in 1954. I embrace it and silently, privately practise this business of the self—self-reflection, self-awareness and self-understanding—described in those first five pages of The reader when I read it perhaps in 1977. I rarely mention it to others.

My good woman likes my mindfulness, that awareness of what’s going on around me, and inside my brain, my mind and my heart. I’m not always as thoughtful as I might be (of others), but I’m as mindful as all get-out. I try to keep it one step from self-obsession.

Unfortunately all the mindfulness in the world doesn’t improve the memory. Have I been here before?

Rock on.