Australian_Yoga_Journal_2016_08_09_downmagaz.com

august/september 2016 yogajournal.com.au
50
Justine Buckley
Doko Hatchett – mindfulness teacher,
zen master and founder of Mudita Institute
– says mindfulness holds the key to the
artful precision required to understand and
refine our lives. “It is the art of
remembering to hold something steady
enough, for long enough, and in such a way,
that causes concentration, insight, and
wisdom to flourish.” Doko teaches that
we’re not developing mindfulness and
concentration to escape from life, we are
developing concentration to ‘end’ our
meeting of life unskillfully.
Justine explains that mindfulness should
be practiced in the good times to develop
qualities which can then show up for you
when you need them. Otherwise, she says,
we’re at the mercy of habitual or
conditioned responses and ways of
thinking, reacting and behaving.
“Essentially a mindfulness practice is
not separate to our daily life; it’s embedded
in our daily life. It is our daily life. It’s a
practice of giving our best attention,
bringing as much of our energy to this
present moment that we can muster.”
For example, if we feel anxious, she says,
we can say “hello” to our anxiety and ask it
how we can help, ask our anxiety what it
needs. “We start by bringing non-panic to
that situation. Anxiety is going to arise, you
can’t help it … here it is … but I do have a
choice about how to respond. If I’m busy
and in my habitual flow, I have no
awareness, and without awareness I have
no choice in how I’m going to respond
helpfully to that emotion.
“Your mind is like a wild horse, and if
it’s not trained, it does gallop and we’ve got
no control over where it gallops and where
our attention goes, and it will fall into
habitual patterns … in Buddhism we would
say anger or ignorance. Our attention is
often obsessed with our problems and
sorting our problems. With mindfulness,
we’re calming things down, by stepping out
of the problem-solution dynamic.”
Justine describes the Buddhist term,
kalyanamitta, which means “our lovely
friends”. She says, “It’s important to be
surrounded by lovely friends externally, but
we also need to look after the good friends
inside us. We’re used to bumping into the
not-so-lovely friends inside us like our pain,
our trauma, our anger, grief, aggression,
impatience, and our unkindness to ourselves.
“Through mindfulness, we’re wanting to
water and pay attention to the good friends
inside us such as goodwill to ourselves, our
equanimity, and our willingness to give our
best self to a situation, to help a situation,
rather than asking why, which brings more
stress and winds us tightly.”
However mindfulness, Justine says, is
not a cold mental exercise. “It’s a whole
being’s response to this life we’ve been
given. It’s very heartfelt. I have faith in
mindfulness and self-compassion. It’s
delightful to sit back and see, wow, if we do
these things, if we put our attention to
developing warmth and patience with
ourselves, the world is transformed.”
The day after my time with Justine,
I practice early-morning yoga with
two friends at the top of a rugged beach
headland. As we move through our
sequence, we see a pod of northbound
humpback whales. Their presence is
breathtaking and my mind is suspended
in a moment of wonder. I feel calm. I
breathe. Then my mental chatter returns.
The whales are a tribe, faithfully shepherding
their young on an annual pilgrimage.
I notice my thoughts. I return to the
breath. My mind is active yet not invasive.
The whales are guiding each other to
warmer waters. I see the majestic
underbelly of one of the pod’s pathfinders
as he breaches straight ahead. I notice,
I breathe. I lap up the warmth of a
magnificent sunrise and am intensely
grateful for an inner sensation of
awareness … of spiritual guidance …
aglow in my heart.
Further information: www.muditainstitute.com; www.coolkarmacollected.com;
www.themindfulnesssummit.com; www.mrsmindfulness.com;
www.joyfulmind.net.au; www.insideouted.com.au; www.yogabynature.com.au;
www.futurelearn.com/courses/mindfulness-wellbeing-performance
PHOTO: MARIKE KNIGHT/SARAH ENTICKNAP