The Art of Mindfulness

Thich Nhat Hanh

• Publisher: HarperOne
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780062123626
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Eastern Philosophy

This selection from Thich Nhat Hanh's bestselling The Art of Power illuminates the core Buddhist concept of mindfulness for the Western reader

In The Art of Mindfulness, one of the most revered Buddhist teachers in the world, Thich Nhat Hanh delivers a life changing practice to overcome our overdriven mind, to let go of preoccupations and multitasking and focus solely on the task at hand. By devoting 100% of our attention 100% of the time on what we are doing in the moment, we can alleviate suffering, fear, and anxiety. With the energy of mindfulness and the capacity of looking deeply, we can find the insights to transform and heal any situation.

The Art of Mindfulness

Imagine the power of our actions if each one contained one hundred percent of our attention.

Many large companies spend significant resources on research and development departments because they know that for their business to thrive, they must constantly improve and stay on top of the latest information. The same is true of figuring out how to create a mindful business: it takes an investment in developing insight that will guide you, protect you, and put you and your business on the right path.

Everything is related to everything else. Your well-being and the well-being of your family are essential elements in bringing about the well-being of your business or of any organization where you work. Finding ways to protect yourself and promote your own well-being is the most basic investment you can make. This will have an impact on your family and work environment, but first of all it will result in an improvement in the quality of your own life.

The foundation of your investment, the key to transforming your professional life, is mindfulness. Mindfulness is the energy of attention. It is the capacity in each of us to be present one hundred percent to what is happening within and around us. It is the miracle that allows us to become fully alive in each moment. It is the essential basis for healing and transforming ourselves and creating more harmony in our family, our work life, and our society. The fruit of mindfulness practice is the realization that peace and joy are available within us and around us, right here and right now. Mindfulness is one of the five spiritual powers, but it is also the foundation for acting in the world in a way that reflects our true power. Our family and professional lives will be poisoned if we don’t know how to create and maintain a mindful home and a mindful workplace. Many businesses intuitively understand this truth.

Political and financial power can’t fully satisfy us when we don’t have mindfulness. We need the energy of mindfulness to help us come back to ourselves and look deeply into our situation. We work in a profession, but we bring to the work our own individual difficulties, pain, and suffering. Mindfulness practice allows us to embrace and understand our suffering. This is the basis for personal transformation and healing.

So how do you do mindfulness? It is very simple and also very challenging. The practice of mindfulness requires only that whatever you do, you do with your whole being. You have to invest one hundred percent of yourself in doing even very simple things, like picking up a pen, opening a book, or lighting a stick of incense. As a novice monk, several times a day I had to light incense to offer on the altar of the meditation hall. I was taught to pick up the stick of incense with both hands, the left hand on top of the right hand, which picks up the stick of incense. A stick of incense is very light. Why do you have to use both hands? The idea is that you have to invest one hundred percent of yourself into this simple act of picking up an incense stick. When you strike the match and light the incense, or put the tip of the incense stick into the flame of a candle, you have to be with the act of lighting one hundred percent. This is the practice of mindfulness.

When you pour tea, the act of pouring the tea into the cup can become an act of meditation if you pour with mindfulness. Don’t think about the past. Don’t think about the future. Don’t think about what you’re going to do the next day. Focus entirely on the act of pouring the tea. Invest yourself entirely in the here and now.

Everyone knows how to pour tea, everyone knows how to drink tea, but not everyone pours tea mindfully and drinks tea mindfully. This is because we have a tendency to run away from the here and now—we a...