“It taught me – it gave me greater appreciation and understanding for the present moment. By that, I mean not being lost in thought, not being distracted, not being overwhelmed by difficult emotions but instead learning how to be in the here and now, how to be mindful, how to be present.

I think the present moment is so underrated. It sounds so ordinary. And yet, we spend so little time in the present moment that it’s anything but ordinary.”

—

“I remember getting told off once at the monastery. So I was a very naughty monk.  I can’t even remember now why. I think I’d read a book or something in the library that I wasn’t supposed to read or something. And I was given a task to do, and it was to cut the grass. And it was to cut the grass with a pair of scissors. Now, at the time when I was doing it, at least for the first kind of hour or two of doing that, in my mind, I was just busy talking to myself. This is ridiculous. This is crazy… So stupid, la-la-la-la…

And really kind of just building up a lot of frustration and anger. It was entirely my own kind of doing, that stuff. And I was kind of creating this tension in the mind and in my body. And at some stage, I think I remember just kind of just laughing to myself at the absurdity of it. But through having let go of that storyline and having let go of that tension, all of a sudden, I was kind of released from that story.

And all of a sudden, it actually became quite a pleasant activity. So it’s a really good example of how, look, the activity is what it was. I got to define the experience of that activity by how I was relating to it with my mind. And so in the monastery, you’re constantly kind of challenged. You know, if you’re sweeping the floor are you sweeping the floor whilst thinking about something else that happened in the past or looking to the future, hoping something will happen in the future? Or are you simply present with the sound and the sensation of the broom?

And it’s such a simple idea. But if it’s done sort of repeatedly over time, then it has a really sort of transformative effect on the mind.”

—-

“And I sometimes think that, in our search for happiness, we make so much noise – if not externally, in our own mind – that actually we miss the very thing that we were looking for and we realized that, oh, actually it was here all along. So I sometimes worry about this kind of search for happiness or trying to be more happy. And that, for me – I can only speak from my own experience – but the framework of meditation was so useful where there isn’t really this idea of trying to be happy. It’s more simply creating a framework where we let go of all the things that bring us unhappiness.”

— Andy Puddicombe (emphasis mine)

 

(Lots of great stuff, and I especially like that last bit – searching for happiness or trying to force happiness is often not particularly all that useful or productive.  It’s throwing happiness icing on top of a mud pie.  There’s still so much mud there, that it’s nothing but a fragile veneer (that, probably, creates more mud of resentment that lies on top of the icing).  What mindfulness, being present, and ontological inquiry and discovery allows is to recognize and let go of that which is making the mud within us.  To get rid of the mud.  Clear the plate, and allow the happiness (and joy, fulfilment, etc) to rise up naturally – and authentically – from our own self-expression.

Also, I very much like and it totally deserves being doubly highlighted: “And yet, we spend so little time in the present moment that it’s anything but ordinary.”)