Becoming Mindful in a Busy World

In today’s busy consumer culture the average American is bombarded with materialistic advertisements and pressures at a constant. We learn in school that money and worldliness is necessary for being successful, but we are not taught how to make money and our education is limited to what our communities will allow us to be exposed to. I did not learn about the bombing of Dresden until 12th grade English class. We are often used in this money-making mechanism we call a government and spit out because we have not learned to think for ourselves. We are taught to strive for materialism and often we have little choice but to enter into that world, but we never hop off the bandwagon and take our lives into our own hands. We rely on the government to tell us what to do and what is right, and even when we rebel we often don’t take control over how we chose to live and believe.

Living mindfully and peacefully in a society that bears little resemblance to those concepts (and often contradicts them) is very difficult in and of itself. In addition, we often have to work with the society and the materialism to give ourselves food and a roof over our heads. Even our places of worship have tapped in to this market culture, using its marketing techniques to enhance membership. To be mindfully present at the moment and to reprogram ourselves to feel the things we were taught to avoid is, to say the least, a challenging task that takes a lifetime of dedication. The benefits to overcoming the stress and the emotional suffering that many of us struggle with in a modern world are endless. To take everyday situations that normally are labeled hectic and unpleasant and make them into something warmly meditative is invaluable. In Peace is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh offers new insight into how to be mindful in everyday life and turning the negative aspects of experience into peaceful ones (Hanh xiv).

Buddhism teaches that desire leads to suffering. One must let go of desire in order to attain peace and being present in the moment. If one hopes or yearns for something and does not attain it, it will cause emotional suffering. However, if you do not attach emotion to your goals and understand what went wrong and why if they are not attained, then no suffering will ensue. Like Hanh, Ram Dass practices mindfulness and awareness. After his greatest challenge, being “stroked,” Ram Dass collected himself and began to see his condition as a gift. The pain of the suffering began to diminish and was saturated with a sense of peace and mindfulness (Ram Dass).

Hanh teaches, in his book, that it is not possible to suffer or be in a state of desire when one is mindfully present in the moment. This is because desire denotes that one is thinking of the future and the past. “I want to get that new dress. I wish I didn’t fail that exam. I wish it wasn’t raining. What if I get in an accident?” All these are examples of desire which can eventually (or even instantaneously) lead to suffering. Traditionally, religion is used to alleviate some of the stress and suffering attached to desire. It can ease (existential) stress “by granting us a sense of control over an uncertain and terrifying world” (Newberg 131). Religiosity is beneficial and healthy, it reduces stress and physical ailments and improves our relationships with others (129-130). Reducing desire and being present at the moment can conceivably also carry these benefits.

Hanh’s story of the river who chased nothing but the clouds is an example of the incompatibility of desire and mindfulness. The river spent her days wishing (desiring) to possess a cloud of her own, but the clouds were always changing and her efforts were met with failure and frustration. Her life became filled with anger and suffering. One day a wind blew all the clouds away and all that way left was the empty blue sky. She felt life was no longer worth living. ‘“If there are no clouds, why should I be alive?”’ Later for the first time the river was able to become introspective and look at herself (instead of chasing after the clouds). “She realized that what she had been looking for was already in herself. She found that the clouds were nothing but water…And she found out that she herself is also water” (Hanh 130-131). This story is a metaphor for someone in today’s consumer culture, always chasing after something ‘better’ that is believed to be outside of oneself. When, in reality, our own happiness and success come from within, not from attaining money and fame. The river was incapable of being in the present when she was chasing after the clouds because she could not see anything but her goal, she was unobservant and unaware. When she realized that the clouds and the river are interconnected she was existing in the moment and she did not wish to posses the clouds.

Most people have trouble attaining mindfulness of the present and still act as a part of modern western society. Virtually everything we are taught in school, work, and from the media is to hope and strive for your goals. We live faced paced lives that are so goal oriented we cannot ‘stop and smell the flowers.’ Meditation and ‘aimlessness’ is seen as secondary and to be practiced when our goals are achieved. However, one finds that after being in the moment and practicing meditation, that “the opposite may be more helpful” (Hanh 38).

I have personally found it difficult to do this. Especially, because I’m juggling so many different responsibilities at the moment: college, jobs, relocation opportunities, pursuing career prospects. Everything can feel so overwhelming and frustrating, but that is because I don’t set aside enough time to just sit and feel. I’m so full of hope and worry that I prevent myself from living mindfully. Hanh elucidates on the notion that hope is an obstacle to attaining peace at the moment. “Since we cling to our hope in the future, we do not focus our energies and capabilities on the present moment” (Hanh 41). Often I feel obsessed with figuring out how I’m going to come up with 100 grand for the next four years of college, or how I’m going to come up with the money to buy groceries this week. But when I come home from work or school and start to paint, I realize how futile it all is and that if I don’t live in the moment, I’ll end up as a worried old 60 year-old who hasn’t lived a day in her life. To me living is being mindful, and whenever I’m able to calm myself down I remember that and try and savor each moment. My happiest moments are my least “productive”.

Hanh really emphasized on some things I strive for. I’ve always hated washing dishes until it became part of my job. I realized instead of making this another chore that why not make it into a type of break from my busy life? I notice each individual texture on the dishes and how the water moves and feels on my hands. I found that my experience with doing the dishes is much like Hanh’s. He describes that he takes his time washing each dish, and turns it into almost a type of meditation (Hanh 26). The process is so redundant and relaxing that it almost instantly pulls me into the moment. The reason that I do not find washing the dishes unpleasant is because I don’t think about not doing them when I am washing them.

Hanh helps us tap into the moment and become aware of ourselves and our
surroundings. By becoming mindful of the world, you inevitably notice how you can make things better for you and others. By becoming peaceful you bring peace to others which has a domino effect. Being mindful is also a way we can help recognize and prevent the damage done to our environment. While it is very difficult, it is possible to work and play in American culture without being sucked into the desire and stress that is associated with our materialism.




Works Cited


Hanh, Thich Nhat. Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life. New
York: Bantam Books, 1991.

Newberg, Andrew, Eugene D’aquili, and Vince Rause. Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief. New York: Ballantine Books, 2001.

Ram Dass: Fierce Grace. Dir. Mickey Lemle. Ram Das. Dist. Zeitgeist Films, 2001.



2007