Buddhism & Mindfulness
All spiritual paths have the same underlying intention; to reach for heaven and try to pull a little of it down here on Earth. In more of a practical sense, to use our heightened capacity of awareness to consciously and intentionally be in right relation with ourselves, others and the world for greater peace and well-being individually and collectively.
Last year I traveled to Central America and learned about the Toltec beliefs about uniting heavenly ideals with earthly realities within and around themselves.
This year, I traveled to Thailand and learned about the Buddhist beliefs that finding freedom from constantly living in reaction to temporary phenomena (whether internal as thoughts, feelings and sensations or external as events, actions and experiences) and rather practice returning to silent awareness and the ability to consciously respond (if one wishes to) to phenomena in whichever way they choose, preferably in a way that contributes to the health, peace, and well-being of all living beings.
The similarities of the beliefs of those across the world from one another wasn’t as baffling as one may expect; if you look at each religion or spiritual belief system throughout history, they are all trying to reach higher than this mundane plane.
Some things get lost in translation, but the basics in each spiritual path are the same: We all have an idea of how beautiful this world could be, and we are aware of how our animalistic tendencies can make this world extremely ugly. Thus we create rules, principles, parables, rituals, practices and teachings to hopefully work towards conscious evolution to be more harmonious, beneficial beings.
Buddhism is one of the most beautiful and gentle spiritual paths I’ve learned about. At the Mindfulness Project in Thailand, I spent a month receiving meditation instruction and teachings from a Buddhist monk as well as visited a monastery each weekend to dive deeper into meditation practice and Buddhism.
Meditation is the practice of non-judgmentally observing one’s thoughts, feelings and sensations, becoming extremely in tune with and adept at identifying, recognizing, and responding to each internal phenomena consciously. The result is complete freedom from said internal experiences, being able to choose how that thought, feeling, or sensation ripples into one’s greater belief system or actions.
The ultimate goal in Buddhism is to reach enlightenment from within, not to blindly follow teachings but to really think deeply and critically about the truth, about reality, and hopefully to eventually reach a state of nirvana and self-mastery in which one experiences complete freedom, unconditional love, compassion for all living beings, appreciative joy and absolute peace of mind.
Buddhist monks go through a rigorous training of eating one meal per day, only wearing one sheet of clothing, shaving their hair and eyebrows, begging for their food, meditating and chanting most of the day, not sleeping very much, being of service, and not touching others. These challenges give them the opportunity to practice observing the thoughts, feelings and sensations that come along with loneliness, lack of individuality, tiredness, hunger, and humility. They practice not letting these things impact their overall emotional state or their actions, and over time, with practice, they gain complete mastery over these things; freedom from discomfort determining their behavior or state of being.
It’s incredibly admirable, and in just a short time of learning Buddhist tenets and practicing mindfulness and meditation, I realized that every experience we have is an internal experience, and we have the power to determine our responses to those internal experiences in order to create more peace, ease and joy in our lives.
For example, I was paying closer attention to my thoughts and feelings and realized that I was paranoid about the people around me either disliking me or intending to harm me, and this was causing me to feel as though I should be quiet, small, hide and people-please as much as possible so as not to incur the wrath of the people around me. The result was, that I was creating distance between myself and others, making me feel lonely and them feeling as though I didn’t want to connect with them.
Upon noticing this pattern, I intentionally began to let go of those thoughts as soon as I noticed they were emerging. Once I let them go, I was able to be present, in the moment, authentic and connecting with the people around me. I recognized that the paranoia was trying to keep me safe by assuming the worst and tip-toeing through life, but the result was loneliness and self-isolation, which is far more damaging, so I began consciously choosing trust and vulnerability so I could really build up relationships with the people around me.
Everything is temporary, and if we allow ourselves and our lives to be jerked around by instincts, conditioning, external influences, fears and subconscious patterns, then we give up our power to consciously create the life we want to live, the emotions we want to feel, the people we want to be, and the world we want to live in.
Practicing mindfulness and meditation and learning the Buddhist teachings allows us to recognize the perceptions and interpretations we are creating out of reality and to intentionally choose perceptions and interpretations that are more peaceful and beneficial.
Access The Mindfulness Project’s teachings on yoga, meditation, mindfulness and Buddhism on their Patreon or go visit them on their website or in person in Thailand through Worldpackers.
