Mindfulness
Mindfulness is consciously paying attention to what is happening in the present moment. It is a state of wakefulness that allows us to fully experience and be present with what's occurring in our body and mind in the Now - feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling, whichever sense or senses we happen to be focused on - without the need to conceptualise or judge or form an opinion on that experience. We just let it be as it is and are fully immersed in the direct experience. We are also able to sense and be present with what's around us - our environment - again, letting it be just as it is in each moment. It's not a passive state - on the contrary, it's awake and alive and full of potential as the only place we can truly act is in the Now. The past has gone and the future is yet to be, so when we are mindful we are, in a sense, surfing the wave of the Now as it continually arises in our awareness.
Tai chi qigong can help us to let go of our chattering mind by dropping our awareness and attention into the body and focusing on the felt-sense of our experience. Moving meditation gives us the ability to be present in all four limbs, the head and trunk simultaneously, harmonising the movement effortlessly with our breathing. As we become more comfortable with our body/breath, in the Now, we are able to expand our awareness to include our environment. The ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ become one. We feel the substance of the air as our limbs move through it, much like moving through water. By extending our awareness deeply into the Earth and upwards to the Heavens, we have a sense of open spaciousness and connection to a greater whole, liberating us from our small-minded, conceptual self. We have entered, what psychologists in the West refer to as, a state of Flow.
