Traditional meditation techniques instruct you to sit on a cushion with your eyes closed. This can obviously quiet your mind and be tremendously freeing, especially in higher doses. However, none of that matters if after your session you mindlessly jump on your next call for work, snap at your partner and repeat the same old mistakes.
Sometimes I’d finish a one-hour meditation session and then leave the house, forgetting to lock the door and realizing that I didn’t clean the cat litter. Whoops. So much for being a “mindfulness teacher.” In my defense, ancient meditation techniques weren’t developed during a time where they had smartphones or work from home jobs…or cat litter. Let’s not be too hard on ourselves.
Enter Guerilla Meditation. In tandem with a regular meditation practice on the cushion, I started using Guerilla Meditation, also known as micro-meditation to fill in my mindless gaps with more mindfulness. This is the practice of taking small, bite-sized moments throughout your day to bring yourself into a state of mindfulness. It's a way to infuse your daily routine with moments of peace and stillness, even when life is at its most chaotic.
Soon you’ll start to see the compounding benefits of meditation unfold in real-time. You start to pause before reacting to an email, or step back in a conflict with a friend or partner, or even chill out when there’s a long line at the grocery store and you have somewhere ‘important’ to be. As David Foster Wallace said, you realize you’re the “fish in water” and develop meta-cognitive powers. In other words, you gain the ability to choose your reaction.
Here are a few ideas to get you started. Try at least one of these for a week and see what happens:
Guerrilla meditation #1: Breath Break
Set a reminder on your phone or computer to take a deep breath every hour. Close your eyes and take three slow, deep breaths, focusing on the sensation of the air moving in and out of your body. Personally I used to stick post-it notes on my computer to remind me to breathe.
In particular, whenever I felt really “convinced” I should respond immediately to a frustrating email, I would remind myself to breathe and go back to the email in a few hours. The times I sent an email too quickly, almost 100% of the time I regretted sending it. When you’re in an emotionally charged state it’s hard to be compassionate. Breathe, get some space, and the more you repeat this the more it becomes a habit.
As Ram Dass once said,
"The quieter you become, the more you can hear."
Compassion and wisdom — the two wings of mindfulness — naturally arise with the practice of slowing down and the process of making mistakes and learning from them.
Guerilla meditation #2: Mindful moments
Throughout your day, choose a task that you do regularly and use it as a cue to bring yourself into the present moment. It could be washing your hands, taking a sip of water, or even opening a door. As you do the task, bring your attention to the sensations in your body and the environment around you.
I was staying at an eco lodge and Commune in Nagano and had a chance to chat with a few long-term residents. After dinner one evening I was in the kitchen with Ryo, who must have been in his 20s, as he cut apples and washed dishes. I asked him if he needed help and he said, “No, no, this is my favorite part. I really love just focusing on this one task.” This was in stark contrast to my life in Tokyo, and it’s hard to imagine many stressed-out Tokyoites soaking up the present moment during dish-washing.
Jack Kornfield reminds us,
"Mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening right now without wishing it were different."
That last part is really tough, since most of the time we’re judging and criticizing. Try going one day without labeling something as “good” or “bad.” Or, try going one week, or one day even, without complaining or wishing for something to be different. You can even make it into a challenge with a friend or partner.
By practicing these mindful moments, whether it’s cooking or cleaning or talking, we can learn to accept the present moment as it is, rather than constantly striving for something else. And that can start to seep into everything else in our lives, in turn raising our baseline happiness.
Guerilla meditation #3: Gratitude practice
Take a few moments each day to reflect on what you're grateful for. It could be as simple as the sunshine on your face, the taste of your morning coffee, or the smile of a loved one. As Tara Brach says, "Gratitude is a gracious acknowledgment of all that sustains us." By cultivating gratitude, we shift our focus from what's lacking to what's abundant in our lives.
For example, you can keep a gratitude journal, or even reach out to someone every week to thank them for something they did. This could take the form of simply saying “thank you” to a friend, or to writing an unsolicited LinkedIn recommendation for a coworker. With your partner, you could schedule a time once a week to tell them something you appreciate about them.
Another type of gratitude practice is forgiveness meditation, where you take time to forgive yourself (repeat the phrase: I forgive myself for not understanding multiple times) or forgiving others for something they did in the past. This allows you to let go of some of the emotional baggage you’re holding, whether it’s recent or far in the past.
Guerilla meditation #4: Walking Meditation
Next time you're out for a walk, try incorporating a walking meditation. Focus on the sensation of your feet touching the ground, the movement of your body, and the sights and sounds around you. This is much easier to do if you’re barefoot, so next time you’re on a hike why not take your shoes off for a few minutes? The benefits of grounding are well-studied.
Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us,
“Walking meditation is not a means to an end; it is an end in itself. We walk simply to enjoy walking."
He brings up a good point. We’re often trying to “get somewhere,” whereas meditation is about finding contentment in the here and now. It’s harder to do when we’re striving for a goal or have an expectation that we should achieve a certain state in meditation.
By letting go of your attachment to these expectations, you can start to find freedom in the simplest activities - sitting, walking, breathing. If you can incorporate guerilla micro-meditations to connect with yourself at these times, you’ll make it a lot more likely to make meditation in everything you do more automatic.
Guerilla meditation #5: Naked Meditation
For centuries, spiritual teachers and saints used nakedness to get closer to God and with the “bare awareness” of their bodies' reality (I wrote about that here). In one Buddhist story, the teacher instructed the student to look at themselves naked in the mirror. When they did, they became enlightened.
Your awakening to 5D living may not come that fast, but there’s something freeing about shedding our clothes. It’s as if your clothes take on the worries and concerns of your life, and by removing them you can get greater clarity, space and freedom.
That could mean walking around naked in your home, going to an onsen, or even doing a sitting meditation naked. What emotions do you feel? Is there shame? Anxiety? Is there a sense of freedom? Can you bring a sense of non-judgmental awareness to these emotions?
Personally I find that being naked especially in the outdoors is a great way to meditate. Feeling the breeze of the air on my skin and the ground beneath my feet, it becomes easier to feel all the sensations of my body and connect with the present moment.
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