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Mindfulness Is the Key to Life
Welcoming Well-Being and Happiness through Mindfulness
During a week of retreat, practicing conscious breathing, walking meditation, and mindful breakfast allows us to generate the energy that helps us to recognize, in ourselves and around us, the well-being that is already present (the absence of toothache, headache, tension).
Mindfulness (Sanskrit smṛti, Chinese niệm: “now” + “mind”) is the energy that brings the mind back to the body and to the present moment:
- I breathe in and I know that I am breathing in.
- I walk and I know that I am walking.
- I eat my breakfast and I know that I am eating my breakfast.
Walking and Breathing as a Celebration of Life
Each step, invested one hundred percent body and mind, brings solidity, freedom, and joy:
- Not thinking, not talking, remaining attentive to the present moment.
- Saying “I have arrived” with each step, “I am home” with each in-breath.
- Touching the wonders of life: the flower, the mist, the ray of sunshine, our own eyes, each human being – “I come from the Kingdom of God.”
Transforming Suffering into Understanding, Love, and Sangha
Lasting happiness is born from understanding suffering (the first noble truth) and its roots (the second noble truth). Just as the lotus grows in the mud, we must use suffering as compost to allow the flower of understanding and love to bloom.
The teaching of the Dharma is a rain that waters the seeds of wisdom in you; walking, sitting, and eating in mindfulness are practices of “selective watering” of the wholesome seeds.
A practice center or a sangha is a mini pure land, a concrete space where the art of happiness, transformation, and healing is learned.
