The Art and Practice of Mindfulness

According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, “We all have an innate ability to be present, composed and thoughtful as we face the challenges of our busy lives. That’s the ground of mindfulness.

“With some guidance and training,” he explains, “mindfulness can develop into a way of living that brings greater focus and effectiveness — as well as kindness and caring — in everything we do."

Scientific research and our own experiences reveal being mindful improves our health, our work, our relationships, our very lives. His definition of mindfulness, as found in the August 2021 issue of Science of Mind magazine, is straightforward: moment-to-moment nonjudgmental awareness.

“What is available to us is the full spectrum of who and what we are,” he says. “What is required is nothing special, simply that, as human beings, we start paying attention more systematically, wake up to things as they are and act with integrity, with wisdom, with care and caring.”

The art of mindfulness, as Kabat Zinn says, is “befriending your mind and your life and world through the daily cultivation of mindfulness as a love affair with the present moment, with life itself, and with the domain of ongoing learning and growing, healing and transformation.

“If we embody the practice and the art of mindfulness, he adds, “if we take care of that and are willing to fully in habit this moment, all else will follow.”

Enter the Mindfulness Room

All kids safe. All kids thriving. And a systemic shift in our education system to embrace mindfulness as a path to greater learning and understanding.

These three goals guide Rev. Veronica Valles — Ms. Veronica or Ms. V to her students and teachers — in her work as a peace educator and children’s mindfulness instructor.

Imagine walking into a mindfulness room, whether at work, home or school, surrounded by a calm and peaceful environment. Imagine visiting the relaxation station or the kinesthetic corner or the light and aromatherapy zone.

The lights are low and non-fluorescent. The windows look out onto trees — and you can open them to listen to the rain. Nature's healing capacity enters the room with you, along with your mindfulness buddy. This is the environment where Valles gives children places to sit, places to be calm, places to just be.

By being mindful, the children become curious. They begin to work on understanding their emotions, they cultivate kindness toward themselves and others, they monitor their own internal weather. “Everything we say and do are seeds in the kids’ consciousness,” Valles says. “They carry those seeds throughout their lives. I pray the seeds grow into the tools they need.”

— Learn more about Valles’ work with mindfulness for children in the August 2021 Science of Mind magazine and by visiting https://www.veronicavalles.com.

Meditation on Oneness

By Ernest Holmes

I know there is a Power for Good which is responding to me and bringing into my experience everything that is necessary to my unfoldment, to my happiness, to my peace, to my health and to my success. I know there is a Power for Good that enables me to help others and to bless the whole world.

So I say quietly to myself: There is one Life, that Life is God, that Life is perfect, that Life is my life now. It is flowing through me, circulating in me. I am one with Its rhythm. My heart beats with the pulsation of the Universe, in serenity, in peace and in joy. My whole physical being is animated by the Divine Spirit, and if there is anything in it that does not belong, it is cast out because there is One Perfect Life in me now.

And I say to myself: I am daily guided so that I shall know what to do under every circumstance, in every situation. Divine Intelligence guides me in love, in joy and in complete self-expression. Desiring that the Law of Good alone shall control me, I bless and prosper everything I am doing; I multiply every activity; I accept and expect happiness and complete success.

Realizing that I am one with all people, I affirm that there is a silent Power flowing through me and them, which blesses and heals and prospers, makes happy and glad their pathway.

And realizing that the world is made up of people like myself, I bless the world and affirm that it shall come under the Divine government of Good, under the Divine providence of Love, and under the Divine leadership of the Supreme Intelligence. For thine is the kingdom, and the power and the glory, forever. Amen.

— Excerpted from Living the Science of Mind.