Mindfulness Alert

If you let it, your phone will alert you for everything. Not only when your friend messages you, or when a package is delivered, but when there’s a chance of rain, when your store has a new coupon, or when someone you don’t even know has a new photo on Instagram. You can turn off most of these alerts, which I keep thinking I have done until an unfamiliar alarm asks me to review the livestream yoga class I just left. Sigh.

Usually, when the alert sounds, I am doing something else. The sound of the alert disrupts my train of thought and sometimes I have trouble getting back on track. But sometimes it disrupts something that really needed disrupting, like playing one more round of that game I can’t put down. One day a meaningless alert came while I was meditating, which made me grumpy, until I realized my mind had wandered far from my meditation, and needed to be brought back anyway. It made me wonder if there was a way I could get those alerts to work for me. Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh was one of the teachers to introduce Americans to the idea of Mindfulness back in the 1970s, suggested that whenever we hear a bell, we might use that as a reminder to come back to mindfulness, to notice where our attention is and bring it back where we want it to be. I very rarely hear a bell in my daily life, but my life is full of “alerts.” What if all those alerts could be used as part of a mindfulness practice?

Neuroscience is proving today what Buddhism has long taught- that there are psychological, mental and physical benefits from practicing mindfulness, the practice of non-judgmental compassionate awareness to the present moment. Benefits range from increased focus and decreased stress, to such surprising outcomes as more satisfaction with relationships and reduced inflammation.  Mindfulness is also an ancient spiritual practice that helps us connect with the One and with our true Self. When we can bring our hearts, minds and spirits to focus on whatever or whoever needs our attention in this present moment, it brings power, wisdom and a vividness to whatever arises.

The mind naturally wanders, and needs help coming back home. Why not use the many alerts our technology happily provides to bring us back? If we are doing some task when the alert goes off, we could use that as an invitation to bring our full attention back to what we are doing; if we are washing the dishes, then the alert invites us to do the dishes mindfully, to really bring our full attention to the feeling of the water and the soap and the plate in our hands. Or we could use the alert as an invitation to bring our attention back to our breath, to just notice the breath as it moves in and out of our body. Alternately, if we have a prayer practice, we could use the alert as an invitation to prayer, to bring our attention to the spiritual dimension of life, to offer a blessing or a prayer wherever we are, right in the middle of whatever we are doing when the alert goes off.

I’ve playfully adopted this practice for about a month now. I’ll admit I often forget, but each time I remember to hear the alert as an invitation I ask “what was it I meant to be doing with my attention right now?” The usually annoying alert can become a welcome disruption to the chattering distracted mind and an invitation to come home to the body, the breath and the spirit.