By Time Is Everything Revealed

My Personal Path to Mindfulness

I was the sort of kid who wanted to be the Indian and not the cowboy (even before I empathized politically and spiritually with that side). I didn't care much for cops and robbers and really would rather have been off inhabiting the persona of Cú Chulainn (one of the greatest Irish heroes from our mythos) or Bruce Lee (whose philosophy would soon impress me as much as his cinematic martial arts). Maybe both of those figures were shaped by a self-perception as an outsider warrior, which necessitated dignity, respect for others, honed skills and discipline. So the play scenarios of my formative years were as much about feeling the power and honing it as asserting power itself. Self-control and self-confidence came when I joined a karate club aged eight. I joined with several school friends and I was perhaps seeking to perfect my inner Bruce Lee, if not my command of martial arts. My school would show martial arts and action hero movies on Fridays as an ongoing fund-raiser, and that sparked in us a desire for these action hero skills.

The karate would eventually bring me into direct contact with the difference between being "mind full" (inner dialogue and the noise of unfocused thoughts) and having or adopting "in the moment clarity" — that which we now call mindfulness. Clearing your mind before a bout, being super alert to the reality of your opponent and focusing attention on their body language and movement patterns meant you could defeat them more quickly, without bruises or humiliation. Decisiveness kept everybody's honor intact. You respected your opponent, so ego was not a factor, and being mindful in the ring was as important as your physical moves. So over the next few years and into my early teens, being mindful in the ring taught me to be mindful in life beyond the ring. And so it came to be that faghann iarraidh iarraidh eile — the seeking for one thing finds another.

That's not even hindsight — that is just how it happened. Events follow events, decisions beget other decisions, life experience leads to more life experience. Picking up this book is perhaps a start, but there is a next step. In fact, picking up this book may be the next step in something that began much earlier. Not everything is linear, and not everything is so apparent. I joined karate to jump around and kick, but it kicked me in the eye with insights into something else. There are so many things that happen in life that lead to a different place than expected. I am sure there is a science behind why people pick up one hobby or interest over another, and I am sure there is a debate as to whether it's because you were wired for it (physical aptitude or mental aptitude) or it wired you (the interest in sports made you fitter and so healthier, or the chess made you good at your eventual business career). Whatever the case, we know mindfulness can rewire you — adjust your thought patterns and the thought-to-feeling relationship — and so control your mood and reactions. We know it can condition your stress reactions and provide self-control and movement out of negativity and ruts.

The karate could have led to me being a sportsperson, but it led somewhere else instead. What I do know is that no experience is wasted. It is all part of the fabric of life, and some experiences may result in rewards years later. We can also use mindfulness to alter our reactions and move beyond the experiences that may affect us in less than positive ways, freeing ourselves from limitations on our full potential.

Looking back, I guess I first encountered mindfulness at quite an early age. It was not yet the globally embraced tool it is today, and it was not even called mindfulness at that time. Between the ages of eight and fourteen it was showing itself to me as I was engaging with it as a martial arts discipline, as a device to get in the zone and out of bouts unharmed. It was not to the front of my brain as a natural part of my everyday experience of life, let alone a spiritual technique or a physiological tool to calm my issues or get through bouts of depression. I had suffered from periods of despondency and depression from early childhood and in keeping with everything else I had experienced spiritual crises early on too — all of which I now see as the mud and sediment required to root the lotus. It would take its time to grow and unfold but the negative experiences did not rot the bud — they just made it flower more beautifully. I was in my twenties before I came to this realization — tá fáth le gach nidh — there is a reason for everything. I am grateful to depression for teaching me resilience, independence and compassion. Nothing in life is wasted.

By my early teens, I had read a couple of books by Bruce Lee and also Morihei Ueshiba (the founder of aikido), I had begun to read Sun Tzu, Lao Tzu and Confucius and I was leaning more into the spiritual side of things. Simultaneously, I had become a vegetarian, more respectful of nature, and had encountered the Krishna consciousness with the Hare Krishna community in Dublin. The martial arts had led to personal discipline, which had led to meditation, and that led to reading more about Zen and other Buddhist philosophies, which had led to exploring the tenets of all religions and a search for more insight. Sati — as "mindfulness" was called — and satori (self-awareness) were just around the corner. I was at that point in life where everything seems to be happening: spiritual yearnings, sexual yearnings, the call to be individual but also to belong. At that age, the big questions arise. Who am I? What am I? Why am I? And at that time I personally didn't find satisfactory answers to those conundrums within the Catholic tradition in which I had been raised — so it was easy for me to drop it and look to other faiths and their texts and systems to get a different perspective. When I wasn't listening to music or thinking about the girl down the road, I read everything I could get my hands on about religion, philosophy and psychology. I had a thirst for knowledge and an interest in the human condition and the divine experience. Eventually, I found the translations of Thomas Cleary and began to really explore Buddhism. All of a sudden, "Who am I?" was replaced with "What is ITLμITL?" and spiritual and metaphysical conundrums became koans for a time.

That is not to say I became a Buddhist, or a Hare Krishna, or a born again anything. I became both faithful and faithless — I felt I didn't need a religious structure to define my spiritual self or my self- expression and I soon realized that the questions "Who am I?" and "What is ITLμITL?" didn't matter — the answer was the same: everything and nothing. I acknowledged that the giving of attention to those sorts of questions could bring about a portion or invocation of sati/mindfulness — that the activated mind in the moment of the question, in the moment of the pondering, in the moment of realizations or non-realizations, was, in that instance or "now," of absolute purity and unity. It was, in that moment, utterly connected to everything that is everything and all that is nothing. And therein is satori — comprehension and understanding. But once that hit me, I didn't need to keep asking. I wasn't searching anymore, I was just enjoying looking further — or, perhaps I should say, just looking more.

By my late teens and early twenties I could again look at and gain great joy from the works of writers in the Christian tradition such as Thomas Keating and Anthony de Mello — exploring parables, a system I knew well from my first fourteen years on the planet. For the first time, I saw a message that I had missed in the faith of my parents — "the Kingdom of God is within and all around." I could live the rest of my life in the Kingdom of God. Life was the Kingdom of God. Prayer was the Kingdom, drinking was the Kingdom, chasing girls was the Kingdom, fasting, feasting, running, sitting still, whatever I did was the Kingdom — the Kingdom was mindful living. Being was and is the Kingdom.

Sometimes you forget that every second of your life is the Kingdom of God, and other times you bubble up with the joy of it. For the most part, life goes on — as the saying goes, "before I was enlightened I chopped wood and carried water, after enlightenment I chopped wood and carried water." Enlightenment/ mindfulness is a superpower, but you won't get a cape and the ability to fly or stop bullets. You will remain human — mindfully human — and human fully. The firewood won't chop itself, and if it did, you would miss out on chopping it mindfully. I move in and out of the moment, in and out of grace, in and out of depression and in and out of palpable joy. That's life. That's even a good life. Mindfulness has made my lows more bearable and less frequent. It has made my pleasures and highs all the more of an experience — because I am with them as they happen. I am living my life. So many people just daydream their life. To me, it doesn't matter if you only live once or are eternally reincarnated — live your life or live your lives — but live. Experience it. Life can be cruel, heart-breaking sometimes, but also beautiful and joyous. Live the low, live the high, know you have lived.

I have a background in holistic therapy and have spent a large portion of my working life delivering workshops, clinics, courses and programs in the therapeutic use of both horticulture and art, incorporating the dynamics of holistic practices to heal the whole person and not just the condition, to form social cohesion and not just paint over a graffiti wall or create a community garden on waste ground. I have worked with children at risk, adults in recovery, self-help groups, corporate and state bodies. So mindfulness has not just helped me personally, it has also been invaluable to me professionally. It was a professional context that led me to first use seanfhocail as a trigger device to open debate or tempt enquiry. I was creating a garden with a dementia group, and the old sayings and songs were great motivational tools to keep the group in good morale and encourage active participation. Later, I worked with some early school leavers on a community park project and we researched the local history to find an appropriate theme and design. Part of that included taking oral history from within the community (to make it an intergenerational project) and here the old sayings broke some barriers and made it fun. Those experiences sowed the seeds for this book — to cultivate positivity through interaction with culture. With some groups and clients, the art project or the gardening activities or whatever the means of self-expression was as much about catharsis or distraction from negative thought patterns or painful real-life situations as it was about building skills and steps to self-esteem and confidence. I have studied psychology, sociology and other social sciences to develop integrated programs and as part of that I have trained in the therapeutic use of mindfulness.

My own interest, love and respect for Irish traditions means I approach this book as an opportunity to explore. It is as much my journey as it is a journey I invite you to partake of therapeutically or, indeed, spiritually. I am not a guru on a mountain, dispensing pearls or kicks in the eye. I am within the human condition and continually undertake journeys and exercises to explore my own spiritual and psychological awareness. I do have experiences and awareness that I share through my writings here, but you may find a different solace or foothold in some of the seanfhocail — that is great if you do. It is the trigger point that is most important. The exercises and actions will help — but it is your life, your own roadmap. I do not say follow me. I do not say I can solve it for you — although I hope this book helps. I intend it to be helpful. But you steer your own ship, you climb your own rocks, you feel your own footing — that is how to live. You must take your own journey and solve your own self. I am not the mountain — I am my own mountain. This book is not the mountain. If anything, life is the mountain. You are your own mountain.

This book is an opportunity for me to explore what Zen masters may call kensho — "seeing essence" or looking into one's nature. In my case, this means looking into my cultural heritage — the seanfhocail. In doing so I invite you to walk a little with me, for it is a pathway to mindfulness and to psychological well- being and spiritual awareness. But the pace you take is your own, the stops you rest at are yours to choose. It is a helpful road to the base camp; the mountain you will scale in your own time. Remember: by time is everything revealed.

What Is Mindfulness?

As children, we may have heard the word mindful, in the context of, for example, "be mindful that I need you back early to help" or "be mindful of that stray dog" — and so we come to associate it with "remembering" and, to a degree, with "alert caution." And indeed, there is a portion of both within mindful practice and mindful living, especially if we take caution to be attentive. But it is not about filling your mind with situations or factors that need attending to — that approach is having a "mind full" of thoughts and to-do lists. No, being mindful is simply to be present, to be aware. Not self-aware in a self-conscious way; there is no need to analyze and react. It is about experiencing the moment, being truly yourself in that moment, in the context of being fully alive and participating in what you are doing or where you are. You may respond to what is going on, you may feel the experience of it, but you don't have to react. You can be you, you can be — you do not have to "act" or "become" anything — your true self gets to experience the moment and you get to be, in that moment, your own true self. Mindfulness is alertness to the present moment ... but in that present moment you truly live. No daydreams, no hang-ups — pure life as it happens.

Mindfulness is more than a stress management technique, although it is globally popular as that (and if that's your reason for picking up this book, the techniques within will guide you there). You can utilize mindfulness to catch your breath, to slow the pace and find some inner peace, but it offers so much more — spiritually, psychologically — and it even impacts positively upon physical health. Before we explore the more, let's look at the immediate.

The modern world is fast-paced and stressful. When we charge through life reacting to everything, we are all about the reactions and the experience, not the true reality. Mindfulness slows the charge and allows us to respond rather than react, to witness in the present rather than moving between past recollection and leaping forward to make sense of our lives and ourselves. Caught between forward planning and nostalgia — where are you right now? Are you actually living your life? Or are you mentally flicking back and forth without ever truly taking in the experience? Fast forward, rewind, fast forward, rewind, pause a bit, fast forward again — are you experiencing your life and yourself as a film? Are you playing over the same tired dramas and stresses, are you brainwashing yourself in the process? Is it all in your head — the mind full? There is an alternative — being mindful.

Being mindful is simply being aware of what it is you are doing while you are doing it. You are reading a book now. The words on this page are understood by the language center of your brain. You are conscious and sentient. You are standing, sitting in your favorite chair, on the commute home, lying on your bed, sitting under a tree. Whatever your surroundings, wherever you are, you have just cognitively scanned it or opened the file of it. How about doing that with your other senses? Are your feet on the ground? If so, feel them make contact with the solidness of the floor or earth. How is your back against the chair? Experience how the chair supports you. You are a physical being in a physical reality — you are engaged in the mental process of reading and responding to the words, but your reality is that you are alive, a part of the living world. Take a breath, feel the air as you inhale it through your mouth or nose and experience the exhale. Take a deliberately deeper one — don't worry if people are nearby, they are caught up in their own worlds. That breath, that process of breathing, is what keeps you alive and it is also the easiest way to switch on mindfulness. Coming to your senses is what helps you come to your senses. There is no delusion or fast forwarding when you take the moment to become aware of the breath in and the breath out. No matter how stressful the day, or where you physically are, those breaths are life, real life. Mindful life.