Some people think of mindfulness meditation as a way to cultivate altered states of awareness. I’ve come to see it as the opposite.
We’re so busy plotting and planning that we lose track of what’s beyond our control. We navigate our lives by clocks and calendars, forgetting to align our pace with the passage of time itself. We make the shift so infrequently that we forget how to do it.1
Mindfulness practice reminds us to switch gears and practice slipping back into the natural flow.
One good way to explore this underrated skill is to shift your attention from whatever situation you’re in to the raw sensations that comprise it, especially the details that are winding down. Situations are like scenes from a story, while sensations are the countless sights, sounds, and sensations that make scenes possible.
To spot sensations that are winding down, practice noticing when things are changing or moving. Once you start looking, listening, and feeling around for them, you notice they’re everywhere.
If you look out a window for a minute, what seems like a still shot often reveals subtle fluctuations you’d easily miss without slowing down and becoming interested. Clouds drift, birds flit by, a car passes. Assuming meditation requires closing your eyes can lead to missed opportunities to experience the dynamic visual details available in most moments.
The same applies to ambient sounds. There’s nothing wrong with relegating these details to the background most of the time, but inviting them back for a few seconds or minutes can be surprisingly satisfying.
The same applies to physical sensations. It would be exhausting to monitor every bodily sensation throughout the day, but making time to tune into them—more often than never—shifts us into the natural, unaltered flow of time.
We’re so used to racing through moments we don’t like and trying to hold onto the ones we do that we lose touch with what it feels like to relax our grip on time. We start to think nature can only be found outside, on weekends, or during vacations. We forget that our bodies, senses, minds, and emotions are part of the same nature—and that we can learn to inhabit it more fully with practice.
The poet Jarod K. Anderson tries to remind us.2
We can't always escape our obligations to sit by a mountain stream. But we can close our eyes and remember that we are a mountain stream. Our blood. Our bones. Our minds. Dark water rushing through caverns. Red, red iron carrying oxygen born of starlight and soft, green treetops. The nature we long to visit is out there. But it is also in here. In us. Hold your own hand. See your thoughts for what they are, as natural a mechanism as photosynthesis. Feel gravity wrap around your bones like ivy. We are this world. We are the spark. We are nature.
Years wind down. Seasons and days fade into the next ones. Every sight, sound, and sensation we observe as it winds down becomes an intimate reminder of the difference between living in our imagination and being alive in the unrepeatable moment we’re in right now.
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Exercise
This exercise uses dynamic perceptions to develop perceptual clarity and equanimity.
Circumstances for learning this attention exercise
Watching snow fall
Listening to the wind rustle tree branches
Sitting next to a cozy fireplace
