The practice of mindfulness has as its overall goal the reduction of suffering and an increase in fullness in the totality of our lives. But in order for us to see the actual benefits now, whether here in Ireland or wherever you are reading this, we need to practice it with the big and small moments of each day. This profound text indicates one way we do this. Mindfulness has a quality of not wobbling in the face of the different winds that blow us, the difficulties and changes which we face in our day-to-day living. Persistent practice allows us to hold ourselves more lightly, and not be as strongly fused with the story we maintain about how our lives should be or how certain moments in the day should go. One way of saying this is that we are not as attached, or not clinging, to outcomes, or to some fixed aspects of our identity. In this way changes and unexpected turnings do not bring the same dismay as once they did:
How do we arrive at non-agitation through non-clinging?
When the instructed person does not regard form with these words: “This is mine, this I am, this is my self.”
The form of his changes and alters,
but with the change and alteration of form,
sorrow, lamentation, pain, displeasure and despair do not arise.
