Let It Sneak Up On You

Let awakening sneak up on you. Mindfulness is a kind of odd, liminal sort of awareness. When your mindfulness is well developed, you are sort of paying attention to everything all the time, which is impossible when one states it that way.

Another metaphor is to talk about writing a book. If you have a book project underway, and you go to a party, you can reasonably tell people at the party that you are writing a book, even though you are not engaged in writing at that moment. No one would say to you, “You’re not writing a book. You are standing around, drinking wine and schmoozing with your friends.” You might think up a brilliant point for your book and excuse yourself to go write it down before returning to the party.

Realizations often appear from nowhere when you are not meditating, or even on a retreat. I still have a distinct memory of my first meditative realization. I was standing in the parking lot of a grocery store.

But this is also why mindfulness is critical. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that a realization could sail right past you unnoticed.

Since awakening is just the ultimate realization, and each realization on the path is just a mini awakening, you don’t want to miss any of them.

The answer is always the same. Sorry, not sorry. Keep up your consistent meditation practice, which will increase your mindfulness automatically, although you can work on your mindfulness while you are meditating.

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