The following reflection originally appeared in the newsletter I sent out on April 11th, 2025.
Feel free to read just the bold words and skip the rest.
Introduction
For many meditators, there is a clear divide between “meditation” and the rest of “my life.” Quite often, “meditation” is the time they carve away to do something like sit still for a half hour and focus on the breath, or to take a week to go on a retreat. “My life” is everything else — relationships, work, chores, eating, hobbies, and so on.
A big part of the maturing of Buddhist & meditative practice is tearing down that divide — where there really isn’t a big distinction between practice time and life time.
While this is a vast topic and could include things like love, patience, skillful action, integrity, and on and on, one key is learning how to be mindful, aka present moment aware, in any given circumstance.
When talking about daily life mindfulness, it’s tempting to oversimplify, and say something like, “make it your top priority and it will happen,” or “here’s a great trick to 2x your mindfulness across the day.”
While those pointers have their uses, what I’ve realized in practice is that actually living a mindful life is similar to how a chef might work on a recipe — identifying the key ingredients, and if the flavor isn’t quite right, giving some attention to whichever ingredient is lacking.
Anyhow, in today’s reflection, I’ll cover four essential ingredients that lead to a mindful life: intention, momentum, conditions, and tactics.
Note: in this article, I’m going to assume you understand what is meant by mindfulness / awareness / presence, though if you’re not sure, here’s a short article I wrote that points directly to what it is.
Intention
Being mindful across the day starts with the intention to do so.
If the average person went on a casual afternoon walk without their phone or another person, and they set no clear intention for the walk, it’s likely that they’d drift off into all sorts of thought worlds and stories.
However, simply by taking a moment ahead of time to say, “the intention for this walk is to be mindful, to stay connected to the senses, and to let go of random thoughts,” chances are they would be significantly more mindful on that walk.
The same applies to “low-brain power activities” like washing the dishes or showering, as well as “high brain power activities,” like reading or having a conversation.
If we zoom out a bit, this doesn’t just apply to one-off activities, but to our life as a whole. If you live a week, a month, a year, a lifetime with a strong intention to be aware as much as possible, that’s going to have a real impact.
Another way to think about this is as “prioritizing.” If you really prioritize mindfulness above and beyond working out your personal dramas, planning, rehashing, and entertaining or stimulating yourself, it’s likely going to happen.
In other words, mindfulness in daily life tends to not happen by chance — it happens because we have some real intention or aspiration to do so.
Furthermore, every time we act on that intention, like with a mindful walk, it strengthens that deeper intention in our heart, spilling over into everything yet to come.
Of course, while an intention is a necessary foundation, it’s also not enough by itself.
Momentum
If you do a “formal meditation” for an hour in the morning, you’re likely to be more mindful in the five minutes afterward than beforehand.
If you go on a one week meditation retreat, you’re likely to be more mindful the day afterward than the day beforehand. If you spend five years doing a “formal meditation” every day, you’re likely to be significantly more mindful across the day than you had been five years earlier.
What I am speaking to is momentum, or the snowball effect. The more you do something, the more naturally and easefully it happens.
A great quote from my teacher, Sayadaw U Tejaniya, is that “there are always at least two main causes which affect your present experience: The momentum of your good and bad habits and what you are doing right now.”
You might consider the momentum you’ve built so far today — screen time, distraction time, focus time, mindful time, etc. Maybe zoom out and also consider the momentum you’ve been building over the last year or decade – what hobbies and habits have you prioritized? Both the today-momentum and years-long-momentum spill into this very moment, which brings us into the third part of the quote.
Where you steer your heart & mind from right now determines the baseline of your heart & mind a day or year from now. This process will be easier if the momentum that spills into this moment is filled with simplicity, single tasking, white space, and mindful experimentations. However, even if it’s the opposite, chaotic and scattered and distracted, the way forward is still the same. Relax and be aware.
When we’re getting started on our mindful in daily life journey and “good habit momentum” isn’t so strong, there’s generally going to be a lot of distraction, mind wandering, and reactivity. It’s hard to be mindful. But don’t be discouraged!
A rain jar is filled drop by drop, and so too your mindful life is built over a long-run commitment, not a one-week burst.
Of course, even people doing this for decades will note that it’s still hard and there are still lots of gaps in mindfulness. It’s like this. If you look closely at the “rain jar of the mind,” it’s probably also a lot fuller than it used to be. Take delight in this, even if your judging mind tries to hijack the show.
Anyhow, when we start doing more formal practice and coming back to the all-the-time intention, we cultivate a different kind of momentum, and step by step, live our way into a more mindful reality.
Conditions
If you had a 60-hour work week, were raising small children, sleeping four hour nights, and living outside a construction site, chances are that it would be a lot harder to be mindful than if you didn’t work, had no children, slept eight hour nights, and lived in a forest.
Similarly, when people go on a meditation retreat, all the conditions around them are curated to support mindfulness — noble silence, nutritious meals prepared for them, teachings, communal support, a schedule, a meditation room, an absence of responsibilities and technology and so on.
Of course, the result is that people tend to be more mindful than they would otherwise.
One Burmese meditation master, who emphasizes long-term intensive & reclusive concentration practice, was once asked by a lay person, “I find it hard to be mindful at the supermarket; what should I do?” The master replied, ” don’t go to the supermarket; if you can’t be mindful, avoid it.”
Now take that response in contrast to my teacher, who emphasizes mindfulness all-the-time-everywhere.
He was once asked how he would conduct a meditation retreat for advanced students. He replied, “I would hold it in a supermarket; for an advanced meditator, it’s easy to be aware in ideal conditions, so the challenge is to do it in less supportive conditions.”
If you’re interested in daily life mindfulness, these are two common philosophies on how to approach the conditions of your daily life. One is to remove distractions. The other is to fully embrace the wholeness of our life and treat every situation as a challenge to learn and grow from.
While I lean pretty heavily to the mindfulness everywhere side, there is also a middle way.
In other words, we can be wise and discerning with what we put our time and energy into, probably still going to the grocery store, fulfilling our responsibilities, and doing what brings us joy, but maybe also letting go of some low value habits or undertakings. As I wrote about recently, simplifying our life and letting go of the busy busy busy.
From that ground, no matter how easeful or challenging, we set a clear intention to be mindful, and learn how to be mindful in those chosen environments, little by little. Of course, life will throw us some curveballs too, whether that’s illness, travel, a friend/family member in need, or an unexpectedly busy week. Rather than get worked up, we just meet this challenge too. It’s like this.
Even people who have the full schedule with work, kids and responsibilities, can find a fair number of conditions that are workable — for example, when driving, walking, or doing chores, is there a strong intention to be mindful, or is there a willful checking out into media or thought worlds?
In terms of helpful conditions to bring into our lives, the obvious ones are meditative inputs. For example, one “condition” is doing a daily formal meditation. Also, doing some dhamma reading or studying, going to a meditation group, talking with other spiritual practitioners, or going on periodic retreats. All of these strengthen the intention and momentum, making mindfulness more natural and spontaneous.
In a nutshell, the more we align our conditions with our core priorities and simplify the noise, mindfulness follows naturally. You can do this without being perfectionistic and controlling about it.
*of course, fellow Buddhist nerds will know the ipurpose of all meditation is to find a sense of peace, well-being, freedom and mindful awareness that is independent of conditions. While true, the road to that lived experience generally comes from supportive conditions.
Tactics
While actionable tips, tricks, methods, practices or “tactics” are certainly important for daily life mindfulness, they really don’t gain any traction if they happen in a vacuum.
For example, I’ve met with many meditators who are interested in “being mindful across the day” as a substitute for actual formal practice, usually because they don’t like sitting still. However, unless they are a very experienced, advanced practitioner, it tends to falls apart very quickly.
In other words, the degree to which the below tactics will “work” depends on your intention, momentum and/or conditions. A mindful life isn’t so much about having a fancy tool belt as it is a wholehearted embrace of mindfulness as a way of living.
In turn, if you find that you try these and you aren’t gaining any traction, the “issue” is likely not with the tactics themselves, but rather the other ingredients.
In any case, wherever you’re at in your mindful, the following tools will certainly tip the momentum needle towards mindfulness.
Tactic 1 — Prompt awareness
As you read these words, take a moment of pause and ask yourself, “am I aware?” Rather than answer with a yes/no, can you use that as a prompt to notice that sensations/sounds/sights are happening. Notice that you’re not, in this moment, spacing out in thought or absorbed into these words like a floating disembodied brain. There is a clear sense of being here, even if just for a half-second.
This is my favorite daily life method; to prompt awareness. There are three prompts I’ve used:
- Ask “am I aware?” or “is there awareness?”
- State, “may I be aware”
- Say, “aware” or “mindful!”
You can start training the prompt in your formal meditation practice. Regardless of what you are practicing — breathing, body scan, open awareness, sound, etc. — periodically verbally prompt awareness. My teacher said to do this as often as feels helpful, so long as you don’t become tense. This could be just a few times during a formal meditation. Every couple minutes. Or even every 10 to 20 seconds.
The magic of this tactic is that the prompt will begin to spontaneously happen all across the day. It’s as if during formal meditation, you “program” the habit in your mind. Then you keep it up throughout the day, continuing to prompt it as often as you remember.
Even if you are “already aware,” continuing to say and attune to the prompt, further entrenches the habit-momentum. All this adds up to it snowballing and spontaneously happening in the gaps of mindfulness.
Some people also like to pair this with using an interval timer, whether via an App or a physical device, which will ding or buzz at various intervals across the day, serving as an “external” prompt.
Tactic 2 — What’s Obvious?
Often, the people who have the hardest time with daily life mindfulness are those whose formal meditation practice is focusing exclusively on a single thing, like breath or a mantra. They associate that object with being mindful. In turn, across the day, when it’s harder to do that practice, mindfulness falls apart.
It’s important to learn to be adaptable with our mindfulness, not depending on a single object.
One way of doing this is to continually attune to “what’s obvious,” like the touch of your feet when walking, the food in your mouth when eating, the sit-bones-on-seat when in a chair, or whatever random sound or bodily feeling that arises.
You could literally ask, “what’s obvious?” or just wordlessly notice it.
Tactic 3 – Attune to The Sense Doors
Another daily life tactic I like is to practice with the “sense doors,” which is to say, rather than focusing on a single sound, relaxing into the whole flow of hearing, or rather than focusing on a single body sensation, relaxing into the sense of the body in space.
Notice that “body sensations are happening” or “sound is happening” without needing to laser focus on it.
One that is especially potent is mindfulness of vision. My teacher mused that a big reason people struggle with daily life mindfulness is because when they meditate, they always have their eyes closed, so when they open them, mindfulness falls apart. In turn, can you simply notice that right now, seeing is happening?
The beauty of this approach is that it doesn’t require much focus-power, allowing you do it in any given activity. For example, it’s possible to be attune to body, sound or sight, and still read these words. Absolutely possible!
Tactic 4 – Pause Often
When in doubt, just pause. Take a breath. Have a few seconds of physical stillness. Relax. There’s a funny way that mindfulness tends to follow pausing.
To play off habit science, you could consciously pair a pause with a frequent activity, like using the restroom.
Tactic 5 – Creativity
There are so many other tactics that are perfectly good, so if you have a clear sense of “what is awareness,” feel free to experiment and try things. See what works and what doesn’t. Trust your findings.
Tactic 6 – Relax into It
This is more of an “advanced” tactic, but when your practice is really rolling along, you might find that quite often, you don’t need to do anything at all — you just relax into the awareness that’s always here.
Tactic Overwhelm
Six possibilities is a lot. I’d suggest just picking one for at least a month, before focusing on a different one.
Of all the tactics I mentioned here, maybe one specifically calls to you, but if not, try taking to heart the prompting habit, “am I aware?”
Even one second of awareness, when done repeatedly, can add up to a mindful life!
Conclusion
Being mindful in daily life is a lifelong journey. I’d encourage you to not read this and become overly serious and tense about perfectly optimizing your conditions and guarding your momentum.
Instead, can you learn how to love the ride? To love the experimentation. To be interested in cause and effect. To let go of the perfectionism. To maintain relaxation and gentleness. To channel a deep patience and persistence.
And remember, the mindful life starts with the intention to do so, and is nurtured along by the ingredients of momentum, conditions, and tactics.
Maybe take a moment to reflect upon your great intention for your life, as it pertains to mindful awareness.
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