Life Is Your Meditation

by His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa, Jigme Pema Wangchen

In 2012, I was invited to visit the Oxford Mindfulness Centre and while there I met Mark Williams, who does great work on mindfulness and its modern-day applications. He is doing an amazing job of bringing an ancient practice into the mainstream. One thing in particular that Mark said which caught my immediate attention was that while most people have a map, they don’t walk the journey. This is a great truth! We are all equipped with all sorts of information – in fact, I think we are actually ‘overdosed’ with information – but we don’t experientially understand it. So we learn about things through books or classes, but we don’t take the next step of living them.

Life is the best teacher of all, so the more attentive we are to how we are actually going through it and experiencing it, the more chance we have of learning about and developing ourselves. So if we want to bring more joy into life, all we need to do is look a little more closely at it; and if we want to find the meaning of life, all we need to do is let ourselves really live it, to embrace our fears and our uncertainties and jump in.

Some people have the perception that if we concern ourselves with the minute details of our day – say, the enjoyment of a cup of tea or doing the washing up – then we might miss out on the bigger picture or greater opportunities for happiness. But from my point of view, it is being aware enough to take delight in a cup of tea that opens us up to the possibilities of life – we will enjoy the journey, rather than allow ourselves only a glimpse of happiness once we reach the destination. We will become better watchers of ourselves and our minds so that we will begin to understand where unhappiness and mental sufferings come from, the roots of our impatience, jealousies and our anger. We will discover that we have a great deal more time in the day than we realised, but at the same time remember that life is short, so why not be happy?

The following chapters contain the tools that will help you to cultivate a happy state of mind; to uncover and embrace your true inner nature – one that is beautiful, confident, active, engaged and in the flow of life. There are ‘mindful meditations’ throughout that you can put into practice to help you create habits of happiness. They remind you to be grateful for everything you already have in your life, to be friendly with all your emotions, so that you may be less attached to them, to share your happiness and to be present, so that you may reconnect with yourself, with those around you and with the world.