Welcome to Wake Up Now! This blog is about my experience with applying teachings on mindfulness to the immediate and rugged experiences of daily life. You will find a few definitions and references here to clarify the topic, yet this is not intended as a scholarly approach to mindfulness. I invite readers to post thoughtful and respectful comments about their understanding and experience of mindfulness as it applies to being an ordinary "Mary or Joe" in the world.
I liken how we think about the "self" to a Sesame Street skit called "Capital I". It's a cartoon where there is a big shiny I in the sky and the song goes something like this ..."Capital I, Capital I, in the middle of the desert in the centre of the sky" and so on. There are all these little men working on the I polishing it and shining it. It's quite cute really. It is kind of like what we do with our thoughts. When we are feeling good about ourselves, or in general, we spend a lot of time thinking .... I I I I me me me me ..... and put a lot of work into polishing it, making up stories and justifications for why our I is so special, solid, singular and real. The problem with this is that it gets in the way of seeing the mountains on the other side of the desert, or appreciating the wildlife all around.
Another approach could be to try eating humble pie. What if we instead visualized ourselves as a grain of sand in the desert? Along side millions and millions of other grains of sand the same size. What would we see then? Would it take as much work? Would we be so disappointed and angry the next time a bird poops on the big I in the sky? Who is more able to appreciate the infinite space of the present moment, a grain of sand or a Capital I?
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