I have not had the same experiences as those whom you have been speaking with. I have been practicing for going on 15 years and the space between stimulus and response has grown and continues to expand on the cushion and off. It’s not perfect by any stretch. I still automatically react from time to time, but it is nowhere near what it was before I began daily practice. I think you may be reaching for perfection instead of realizing that when the mind wanders, we see where it went, then we bring it back.
As for ways I remind myself of my intention to engage in mindful living, I have Buddha statues all over my house which remind me although even that has become automatic most days as I have had these statues all over my house for years. Big ones, small ones, and medium size ones. Finally, in addition to my daily practice, I read mindfulness related literature most days and I have a sangha at my home once each week.
There were good points he raised and I wanted to share my response with you all as it provides more context for what I was saying:
Hello fellow MBSR teacher and traveller! Thank you so much for taking the time to read and respond—and most of all for your practice.
It sounds like your 15 years of practice has created beautiful growth in that space between stimulus and response, both on and off the cushion. That's wonderful, and I absolutely agree that formal practice creates profound benefits. I'm not suggesting meditation is insufficient—quite the opposite!
You caught me on the perfectionism—guilty as charged! But what I'm describing isn't about mind-wandering during or post-meditation, but rather the process we use for decision-making, especially when we're stuck. I realized this most clearly when I transitioned from being a full-time mindfulness teacher to joining local town politics with the intention of making our politics more mindful and inclusive (I'm an immigrant from India). While I could hold space beautifully for agitated practitioners as a teacher, as a town councilor when triggered, I realized I could stay calm and kind outwardly, but my processing was still defined by default conditioning—going into defensiveness rather than curiosity about others' perspectives.
This took me back to the original mindfulness discourse by the Buddha to understand what was missing, and I realized there was a lot missing in secular traditions. The 8 mindfulness skills I developed (what the Buddha called liberation factors) need to be cultivated throughout the day to disrupt our default habits. That's what I meant about long-term practitioners finding micro-practices challenging—not the formal practice itself, but remembering to use brief centering techniques during actual daily moments to recognize their biases and default habits and invite the right quality of mind to transform our stuckness to clarity.
I love that you have Buddha statues throughout your house as reminders—that's exactly the integration I'm talking about! I also have Saraswati statues (the Hindu Goddess of knowledge, art and music—according to the story, her temple in Bodhgaya marks where she guided Buddha to sit under the Bodhi tree). And yes, sangha is so crucial, especially when dominant culture pulls us away from inner knowing.
I received this comment yesterday:
I have not had the same experiences as those whom you have been speaking with. I have been practicing for going on 15 years and the space between stimulus and response has grown and continues to expand on the cushion and off. It’s not perfect by any stretch. I still automatically react from time to time, but it is nowhere near what it was before I began daily practice. I think you may be reaching for perfection instead of realizing that when the mind wanders, we see where it went, then we bring it back.
As for ways I remind myself of my intention to engage in mindful living, I have Buddha statues all over my house which remind me although even that has become automatic most days as I have had these statues all over my house for years. Big ones, small ones, and medium size ones. Finally, in addition to my daily practice, I read mindfulness related literature most days and I have a sangha at my home once each week.
There were good points he raised and I wanted to share my response with you all as it provides more context for what I was saying:
Hello fellow MBSR teacher and traveller! Thank you so much for taking the time to read and respond—and most of all for your practice.
It sounds like your 15 years of practice has created beautiful growth in that space between stimulus and response, both on and off the cushion. That's wonderful, and I absolutely agree that formal practice creates profound benefits. I'm not suggesting meditation is insufficient—quite the opposite!
You caught me on the perfectionism—guilty as charged! But what I'm describing isn't about mind-wandering during or post-meditation, but rather the process we use for decision-making, especially when we're stuck. I realized this most clearly when I transitioned from being a full-time mindfulness teacher to joining local town politics with the intention of making our politics more mindful and inclusive (I'm an immigrant from India). While I could hold space beautifully for agitated practitioners as a teacher, as a town councilor when triggered, I realized I could stay calm and kind outwardly, but my processing was still defined by default conditioning—going into defensiveness rather than curiosity about others' perspectives.
This took me back to the original mindfulness discourse by the Buddha to understand what was missing, and I realized there was a lot missing in secular traditions. The 8 mindfulness skills I developed (what the Buddha called liberation factors) need to be cultivated throughout the day to disrupt our default habits. That's what I meant about long-term practitioners finding micro-practices challenging—not the formal practice itself, but remembering to use brief centering techniques during actual daily moments to recognize their biases and default habits and invite the right quality of mind to transform our stuckness to clarity.
I love that you have Buddha statues throughout your house as reminders—that's exactly the integration I'm talking about! I also have Saraswati statues (the Hindu Goddess of knowledge, art and music—according to the story, her temple in Bodhgaya marks where she guided Buddha to sit under the Bodhi tree). And yes, sangha is so crucial, especially when dominant culture pulls us away from inner knowing.