What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness means:

Present moment appreciation of your inner states and the world around you.

Mindfulness also means:

Creating new categories
Welcoming new information
Tolerating more than one view

Mindfulness also means:

Letting go of the demand for categories
Disassociating from the craving for information
Detaching from the need for a point of view

Mindfulness helps you gain better access to:

Intuition
Creativity
Community

In that context, mindfulness helps you:

Clarify your values
Strengthen and direct your will
Make better choices

"In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, the really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline."

David Foster Wallace

Author, This is Water

Intent, Flow, and Skillful Means

Although mindfulness sometimes occurs by chance,

we can also make it an active practice,
a kind of observing, watching, noticing,
in which we:

Set the intent to see the present moment.
Encourage deep relaxation and “flow.”
Cultivate skillful means to wake up.

Using Mindfulness to Find Meaningful Work

Finding and maintaining meaningful work requires regular, consistent action, but the steps are clear and the results immediate.

Finding your own meaningful work requires primarily that you get in touch with your beginner’s mind.

In beginner's mind you "hold the question."
In beginner's mind you "only don't know."

“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

Shunryu Suzuki

Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Mindfulness practice is perhaps the best way to nurture beginner’s mind.

Practicing to be mindful challenges you to recognize things as they are and to change your life through action that:

Increases well being
Reduces suffering
Does no harm.

In that context, beginner’s mind is:

Trustworthy.
Patient.
Without goals or an agenda.

Several other behaviors and conditions are key to finding work that is meaningful. These include:

Honesty and Openness
Friendship and Compassion
Ethics and Morality
Philanthropy and Gift-giving
Financial security and Freedom from debt
Mastering an art, trade, craft or profession

The gift of here-and-now awareness, presented by mindfulness practice, magnifies your ability to practice these behaviors and create these conditions. It also helps you to see the consequences, short-term and long, of not practicing them.

With mindfulness,
you can clearly see
how to include and strengthen these
conditions and behaviors
in your every-day life
— from moment to moment.