Tasting mindfulness through speaking and listening

Last Saturday we ran our first mindfulness training drop-in class at ZenYoga in Camberwell. With the increasing general public and media interest in the subject of mindfulness (see the latest cover-story in Time magazine, and some comments on their interesting choice of cover photo), I'm getting more and more requests for a taster class – something where people can come and find out about what mindfulness is without necessarily committing to a longer course and daily practice.

Now I'm a strong advocate of committing to a regular daily practice (whether that be yoga or meditation/mindfulness) but I think there's still something very valuable that can be found even from a single class in mindfulness. Sure, by coming to a drop-in class now and then you probably won't realise the full potential of what mindfulness has been proven to do (e.g. an increased ability to concentrate, having a level of stress resistance, a consistently lowered heart rate and blood pressure, heightened sensory acuity, etc.), but anything that increases our level of mindfulness (even by a small amount) has to be a good thing!

Perhaps we get to see how fragmented our attention is; how difficult it is to keep our attention on one thing without getting distracted or lost in thought. That in itself is a big step forward in understanding ourselves. For some people they get a real 'aha' moment when they realise just how much they breath in their chest, and that relaxing the belly and breathing more abdominally can make them feel so much more relaxed. For others, perhaps a tip like "every time you walk through a door, pause and bring your mind to your breath and notice how it feels" can make a massive difference to their week.

For me, I found the last exercise we did in the class quite extraordinary! It was a practice of mindful speaking and listening, where we all sat in a circle and took turns giving our response to a question that was asked at the beginning. In this instance the question was "do we need to speak less and listen more?". We went round the circle twice, with the instructions: "when listening, listen 100% – don't spend the time planning what you're going to say or worrying that it's almost your turn. When it comes to your turn take at least 5 breaths before speaking, and try to respond to both the question and everything everyone's said so far." You could literally see peoples' awareness and presence increasing as we went round! Whereas to begin with people were answering from their heads, by the end everyone was beginning to look within and answer from their whole beings!

This is a deep practice that works on many levels. It encourages mindful, compassionate listening (do watch this lovely YouTube clip with Thich Nhat Hanh). It helps us notice and let go of our performance anxieties. It helps us speak not from our intellect only, but from our head, heart and belly together. The act of taking the question (and what everyone has said so far) within, and, after allowing some time and space for it to settle, speaking whatever arises as a response is akin to Zen koan meditation.

For me one of the most beautiful effects of this practice was to develop connection. Whereas up to that point everyone was practising pretty much separately, now we were practising together. Everyone got to hear each others voices, and hear their thoughts and responses, and the change in energy was magical! I think this had a lot to do with why everyone stayed for a cup of tea afterwards.

I'm really looking forward to facilitating this again this coming Saturday (10-11am at ZenYoga).