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redirecting it away from repeated fruitless excursions into the past or future or fantasy realms, we are doing something very important: conserving the energy of the mind. It remains fresh and open, ready to respond to whatever appears before it.

This may sound trivial, but it is not. Ordinarily the mind does not rest. Even at night it is active, generating dreams from a mix of anxieties and the events of our life. We know that the body cannot function well without rest, so we give it at least a few hours to lie down and relax each night. We forget, though, that the mind needs rest too. Where it finds rest is in the present moment, where it can lie down and relax into the flow of events.

Although mindfulness is becoming an increasingly popular concept, people may easily misunderstand it. First, they may mistakenly believe that to practice mindfulness means to think hard (or harder) about something. In mindfulness, we use the thinking power of the mind to initiate the practice and to remind us to return to the practice when the mind inevitably wanders during the day. But once we follow the mind’s instructions and begin the task (following the breath and, when the mind wanders, returning to the breath), we can let go of thoughts. The thinking mind naturally quiets down. We are anchored in the body, in awareness.

The second misunderstanding is to think of mindfulness as a program, a series of forty-five-minute exercises that begin and end during periods of seated meditation. Mindfulness is helpful to the extent that it spreads out into the activities of our life, bringing the light of heightened awareness, curiosity, and a sense of discovery to the mundane activities of life: getting up in the morning, brushing our teeth, walking through a door, answering a phone, listening to someone talk.

Anything that we attend to carefully and patiently will open itself up to us. Once we are able to apply the power of a concentrated, focused mind, anything, potentially all things, will reveal their true hearts to us. It is that heart-to-heart connection with ourselves, with our loved ones, and with the world itself that all of us so dearly long for.

For more information on this and other books from Shambhala, please visit www.shambhala.com.