The Mindful Life with Waylon H. Lewis

Nirvana! Enlightenment! Who Cares!

By Waylon H. Lewis, 2-20-06

	Brigitte Bardot has nothing to do with the Mindful Life.

Pema Chödron, a famous-ish American Buddhist nun, once gave a beautiful, succinct definition of the path to spiritual realization. To paraphrase: 'If one can keep the sadness and pain of samsara in their heart, and at the same time the vision and brilliance of the Great Eastern Sun, then the warrior can make a proper cup of tea.'

A proper cup of tea. The fruition of a spiritual path ain’t fireworks and trumpets and angels descending from heaven. It’s more likely to be whatever happens to be happening, in that moment. Or, as the Zennies say, before enlightenment you chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment? Chop more wood, carry more water. Nirvana—or whatever you want to call it—is no big deal.

I publish a little Boulder-based magazine called elephant. We do stories on yoga, on conscious consumerism and green living, on Buddhism and the ‘contemplative arts.' We do stories on a lot of other things, too—everything from bicycling to work and the stock market to green tea and green fashion. So what do all these things have in common?

They can, related to properly, be a part of living a ‘mindful life’—which just happens to be elephant’s slogan, our raison d’etre, and our mission: bringing together those working and playing to create enlightened society.

So what is this ‘mindful life,’ anyway? And more to the point, who really gives a shit? Is this just the latest focus-grouped marketing slogan to come out of money-grubbing pseudo-hippies wanting to ride the coattails of the success of Whole Foods?

Well, yes and no. Mindfulness refers to what the Buddhists call ‘authentic presence’—the ability to be genuine and fully present, no matter the circumstances. Good or bad, happy or sad—whatever the circumstances of our life—being genuine can cut through a great deal of unnecessary suffering. We’re so used to a basic level of emotional turmoil that, like the sound of Broadway’s traffic outside my apartment windows, we often forget it’s there. This forgetting isn’t a good thing, always—it’s a kind of falling-asleep to the vicissitudes (good scrabble word) of life. For when we’re ‘awake’—whether through something as mundane as meditation practice or something as spectacular as a first love—the world can be vivid, ordinary and magical, full of possibilities.

The Buddhists’ version of a life well-lived, or ‘the mindful life,’ is referred to as the Bodhisattva path—essentially, living a good life that also happens to be good for others. As the saying goes, ‘If you want to be unhappy, think only of yourself. If you want to be happy, think only of others.� It’s that simple.

We’re not talking about renouncing worldly possessions, shaving our head, finding the closest cave and becoming nuns or monks. At least, I’m not. I like to work hard, work out, play hard, love...I like life. And that’s the ‘life’ half of the ‘mindful life’ equation. We’re not hiding our (spiritual) light under a bushel, as the saying (sort of) goes. We’re talking about finding ways to connect spiritual and temporal, to engage the world directly, with mindfulness—whether it’s taking the time to smell the roses or write yo’mama, remembering to take your tote bag to the grocery or recycle the toilet paper roll instead of tossing it in the trash, mindfulness can be—must be—banal, basic, everyday—or it’s just a lot of high-minded, nice-sounding talk.

So, at the end of the day, the Dalai Lama doesn’t have much on your average soccer mom or Nascar dad, frat boy or sorority girl. We all want to live a good life (whether happiness means a Soho loft or two-car garage, 72 virgins or just one Mr. Right, organic granola or a quarter-pounder with cheese). We want to love our children. We all like blue skies and a green earth. We all want to leave the world just a little bit better than we found it. If it sounds trite or cliché, that’s because it’s so true, so often. The big ideas—world peace and such—we can all agree on. It’s the brass tacks, the day-to-day and moment-to-moment stuff that tangles us up.

The devil, as always, is found in the details. And so is the mindful life.

Bookmark www.newwest.net/themindfullife to keep up with this new blog from Waylon H. Lewis

Like this story? Get more! Sign up for our free newsletters.