Today, I wanted to essentially talk about mindfulness in daily life, and it's a little bit of a continuation of yesterday, but honing in specifically on how do we be present across the day in our real lives. I've talked a bit so far in the past days, what does that mean to be mindful or aware? And specifically, I'm referring to this thing called present moment awareness, to know what's happening as it's happening, to not be kind of in a sleepy stupor on autopilot, swept away by a gazillion thoughts, and instead just to see, oh, yeah, sight is happening, body is happening, present moment is happening, and to just kind of rest into that, not overcomplicate it, just, oh, yeah, yeah, here I am, aware.

So that, really that simple quality the Buddha considers the center point of awakening. He says it's the direct path to really have this presence. So there are ways that we could be mindful of things like kindness and patience. We could be mindful of grumpiness and sleepiness. But it all starts with the simple mindfulness itself. So today I wanted to look about how do we really cultivate and nurture that quality.

And the starting point is really just an intention to do so. I sometimes note that if I go, say, take a walk, and one version of just going to take a neighborhood walk, I set an intention. I say, this is going to be a mindful walk. And I'm clear with myself, that's the purpose and intention of this walk. It turns out when I do that, I'm actually quite present and quite mindful.

When the random thoughts come up, it's like, no thank you, that's not what I'm here for. I'm here to be mindful on this walk. But if, say, I had a busy day and then I go on a walk and I set no intention, it seems like I'm way less mindful. It's just kind of la-di-da, I'll follow the thoughts, follow the distractions. And so simply inserting an intention can really change the tone of it.

And this isn't just activity by activity. The more we practice, this intention gets lodged deeper and deeper in our being. It's not like we need to set an intention constantly, verbally. We start to live the intention. Like, oh, this is just how I want to eat my breakfast. This is just how I want to be in conversation with someone.

And so one thing that really factors in with being mindful in daily life is the intention. A second is the conditions of our life. I remember there was a chapter I was working a job for a tech startup. I was doing some pretty heavy thinking, some kind of analytical stuff. and then on the weekends i would go help my friend at the an arts market help him sell things and it was a pretty chill market and so i noticed that in the job where i had to do this really intense thinking all day on a computer mindfulness was kind of spotty and then in the job i just had to sit in a chair at an outdoor market and talk to people periodically mindfulness was really quite good and it was so clear like oh you just changed the condition there's a different impact and we see a condition in our lives as modern people is how busy we are.

What I tend to notice, the more busy I am, mindfulness just isn't quite as strong. I'm not quite so busy, and there's more white space. There's more transition time. Oh, I tend to be more mindful. The quote I love from the Buddha I've shared before, he says, one who is skilled in goodness, is contented and easily satisfied, unburdened with duties, and frugal in their ways.

Now, and part of that is because the more we do that, just mindfulness comes more naturally. Another big one is how much we're sucked into a technology, to distractions.

I suspect for most people, if you just take away the single condition of your phone for one day, mindfulness goes up. This is simple, so you can just play with that. What is it if I turn the device off at 7 p.m.? What is it if I keep it in the other room when I'm not actively using it. We bring this playfulness in. And so I'm not saying this to quit your job, cancel all your activities, throw away your phone.

Instead, it's just to note, oh, conditions have an impact. What are the conditions of my life? And just bring some curiosity to that. How can I play with conditions within the responsibilities of my life to facilitate my deepest intentions? Another big consideration for mindfulness in daily life is momentum. And this is really a big part of why we do formal meditation every day. Why you do something like go on a deep dive, a retreat.

You'll probably notice that the five minutes after this morning meditation, you're probably a little bit more present than five minutes after an intense work meeting. There's momentum to this practice. It spills into our day. For those of you who've been on multi-day retreats, you'll note that maybe the few days or weeks after a retreat, there's just a bit more momentum. Like the mindfulness just comes more effortlessly, almost on its own, more naturally.

And so we can just start to play with that. We see, oh, momentum is a real phenomena. I don't need to get neurotic about building and guarding momentum, but just see, oh, cause and effect. That's a real thing. You know, U Tejaniya would point to the mechanics of it. And he'd say, really, momentum is about craving aversion and delusion. He said, when there's a lot of those afflictive forces in your mind, or their relatives, like anxiety, despair, depression, anger, momentum, they're momentum killers.

And when they're relatively absent, well, momentum flourishes. That's why he puts so much attention on, say, check the attitude. Is there craving present? Is there aversion present? Am I contented?

He said, if you do that, you start to catch the momentum killers at a lower intensity. I see you at a level one dislike. No, thank you. I don't need to feed that. And the momentum grows because we're not churning on that neighborhood walk. We're not churning in all of our likes and dislikes and wants and resistances and things we're upset about. Oh, no, I don't need to do that.

And so then from this background of having an intention, just observing the impact of conditions, observing the impacted momentum, we come to the actual tactics. How do I be mindfully aware across the day? The first level, this is so much of how U Tejaniya taught, we really just invite curiosity. Like don't just take someone else's answer for it. How does it go for you? What helps? What doesn't?

Can we turn this into playground? Like really have fun with it? How do I be mindful while eating breakfast, while in a work meeting, while driving, while walking the dog. They check it out. And some of what I emphasized yesterday, it's important to really be adaptable. Maybe what works in one context, like sitting meditation, doesn't work so well in another context, like a conversation. So we have to be adaptable.

In terms of some specific things that I've tried, that you might try, one is just do whatever you do in the formal meditation. How many other context does that work in? If you say do loving kindness meditation, maybe that works great while driving. Maybe it doesn't work so well while eating. Who knows? Something like the breath, maybe it works great on a walk, but not so good doing random activities.

So you could just see, oh, whatever I do in sitting, how well does that apply to other contexts? Another great one is just attune to whatever is obvious. On a walk, maybe that means just feel your feet, the feet touching the ground. If you're sitting in an office chair, maybe that just means feeling the pressure of your body on the chair, whatever's obvious. And you could just stay with that.

Or you could, as I shared yesterday, one of those options, modes of awareness, is it could be changing. Say you're on the walk, feeling the footsteps, and then some loud sounds come. Oh, then you shift, and you notice the loud sounds. And then all of a sudden, big gusts of wind come in, and you're thrashed and cold. Oh, just attune to that. And then they die down.

Okay, back to the feet. You could just stay with the feet the whole time. You could be changing. It doesn't really matter. Play with it.

Another one I really like, I've done quite a lot of, you just stay with a sense door. Kind of like I said at the beginning, can you notice that sight is happening? U Tejaniya would say he speculated one of the main reasons people struggled with mindfulness in daily life was because they didn't know how to be mindful with their eyes open. If you always meditate with eyes closed, well, it's going to be hard when there's so much visual stuff going on.

Or when I really like with, say, computer work or conversations, I just feel the body. Not specific, like focusing on one's sensation. Oh yeah, there is a body. Feeling the body, sensing the body. When mindfulness, there's some real good momentum to it. There's a clear intention. Sometimes you can just do the natural awareness, just abiding. It can be really simple. Maybe you even notice this. I love the example of you just go on a walk, you have the clear intention, the mind is clear, and the thoughts and distractions come, but they're not really sweeping you away.

Like, oh, I can just stay with the awareness. I don't need to make this so complicated. So regardless of what these different modes we use, if we focus on what's obvious, we stay with some particular sense door, you do what you do in meditation, you just be aware. Maybe the single biggest technique that I took from that applies to all of them, is just prompting. You just remind yourself over and over.

You could do it by way of a question like, am I aware? A determination like, may I be aware? You could simply say, aware. And the idea is that the more you prompt it, the more it happens. The prompt starts to come up all by itself without you intentionally doing it and stimulates this loop of awareness. And you could do this prompt essentially as often as you like, so long as it doesn't make you tense.

Whether that's once an hour, once every 10 minutes, once per minute, once every 10-20 seconds. Whatever you can do without being tense, without it feeling rote or annoying, play with it. So anyhow, these are a whole lot of thoughts on being mindful in daily life. But it starts now. Always now. And we're about to do this formal SID. And so whatever your practice is, maybe just kind of wiggle in that last one.

Throughout the sit, prompt yourself periodically. Aware. May I be aware? Am I aware? And just see if that helps, and whatever happens, we can just spill it over into the rest of our day. So we'll close here. We'll see you in a bit.