Mindfulness and what it has meant to me

A couple of decades ago I was invited to go on a 5 day meditation retreat which set me on an interesting and useful path. I learned that this kind of meditation (Vipassana or Insight meditation) was a way of studying the workings of my own wayward brain, which, I've learned, is like most other people's brains.

Our minds are amazing tools with a life of their own. They come up with the most inopportune thoughts seemingly for no reason.  But they also make useful connections and can be incredibly creative.  They can also focus and help us learn.  But this is not all they do. 

Anyone who has watched their own mind and its workings will know that it tends towards the negative:  It jumps to false conclusions, generates negative emotions and often leads us to actions that make situations worse.  We can, however, train ourselves to see things differently and to understand what is happening inside other human beings when they do things that trigger us (and often they intended no harm at all).

Mindfulness is a form of brain training in which we try to reinforce and use pathways that lead us to be kinder and happier rather than being controlled by brains that tend to focus on the negative and being driven by our deepest, unexplored fears.   Like all training, it takes time and when it comes to performance, we can have good days and bad days - sometimes being kind is easy while on others it is hard to remember to even try.  Despite that, training helps us to do things better more often and to notice it when we don't and see it for what it is.


I found it incredibly useful and have found that by understanding my own mind, I can understand much more about others.  It helps me recognise pain that is often disguised as aggression. And THAT means that when people are horrid and mean I don't have to take it personally.  That on its own has been and invaluable result of participating in practices that foster mindfulness.