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There are more reasons why Mindfulness has been practiced for thousands of years than the widespread benefits to physical health, mental health, wellbeing and our ability to function intelligently and effectively. When we live mindfully, we experience the sublime in the ordinary.

If there is no meditation then you are like a blind man in a world of great beauty, light and colour.”      Krishnamurti

Mindfulness opens our eyes

We begin to see that the small things aren’t small after all.  We live our life ‘as if it really matters (as Jon Kabat Zinn puts it).

As always, Mary Oliver can express this much more vividly and succinctly than I can so here is her inspirational poem.

Mindful 

Every day
I see or hear
something
that more or less 

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle 

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen, 

to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over 

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional, 

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant – 
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab, 

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help 

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these –
the untrimmable light 

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass? 

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Why I Wake Early)

This blog was written by Joanne O’Malley, Mindfulness at Work.