Poetry and contemplative practices complement each other so well because neither requires stories to be effective. They both point us back to the direct experience of being alive and the rich complexities of our shared humanity.
This is why poets can make such excellent mindfulness teachers, whether they mean to be or not. Consider this poem by Nayyirah Waheed, from Salt:
there is you and you.
this is a relationship.
this is the most important relationship.— home
Nayyirah Waheed
What makes the way you relate to yourself the most important relationship?
The way you relate to every person, place, and thing you encounter is rooted in the habitual ways you relate to your internal experience.
We’re used to discussing this in terms of our identity, problems, and stories, but contemplative practice offers a contrast to the more popular ideas we have about fixing ourselves and the world.
It’s not about improving yourself or saving the world. It’s an invitation to cultivate a more satisfying relationship with yourself, other people, and the world around you.
It’s not about adding something. It’s about subtracting something. It’s about eroding the something that makes our lives feel uninhabitable.
This erosion is a long, slow process that plays out at the level of sensation. Instead of pushing and pulling on our real-time perceptions, we practice—more often than never—bringing direction awareness to a sensation without trying to change it at all.
We simply notice it for a few seconds.
Pleasant or unpleasant.
Comfortable or uncomfortable.
Active or restful.
Loud or quiet.
Scattered or focused.
Whenever we bring direct awareness to anything that we can see, hear, feel, taste, smell, or think without trying to get rid of it or make it last longer, we become more intimately familiar with being alive.
It’s not a dramatic experience. It leads to greater self-awareness and less drama.
It doesn’t solve your problems. It leads to feeling more at home in your life, even with what remains unresolved despite your best efforts to address it.
It doesn’t make other people kinder and thoughtful. It liberates you from needing them to be kind and thoughtful as a prerequisite to your recognizing our shared humanity.
Exercise
This exercise uses a narrow focus to help you collect yourself.
Circumstances for learning this attention exercise
a quiet weekend morning
away on vacation
alert and ruminating in the middle of the night
