Introducing #MindfulMonday on the blog, where we aim to provide our readers with a little dose of zen to start each week, excerpted from David Schiller’s See Your Way to Mindfulness. This week, try keeping your eyes activated and on the hunt. You’ll be surprised what you start to see everywhere.
Mushroom hunters talk about this all the time, especially when it comes to morels: You can be looking right at a perfectly good specimen and simply not see it. And then it pops into view, as if it just appeared at that moment! Of course it didn’t—you were just ready to see it. After that the hunt is on, because once you spot the first mushroom, you begin to see others. Your eyes are ready; your mind is open. Try it next time you’re in a woodsy area: Look for a mushroom. Then, see if finding more becomes easier. In a sense, this exercise is not about finding one mushroom, but three, or five, or a dozen. In the city, try the same thing with coins or register receipts. The probability of a lot of coins turning up on the street is not as great as for a patch of mushrooms in the woods, but you will begin to see all sorts of wonderful things you never expected.
When you find a mushroom, it’s like a switch goes on. Suddenly you can’t stop searching for them.
About the Book:
Seeing, really seeing, is like meditation. In a world filled with distraction, seeing mindfully is a way to pay attention, to hit pause and find calm by focusing on what’s directly in front of us. See Your Way to Mindfulness is a gift book of inspiration and instruction to help readers open their eyes—and their “I’s.” Written by David Schiller, author of the national bestseller The Little Zen Companion, it’s a collection of quotes, prompts, exercises, meditations—married with photographs and drawings that bring the words to life.
The quotes are from artists, Buddhists, philosophers, poets, and more, all centered on the theme of how “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes” (Marcel Proust). The short, playful exercises and prompts—like Seeing in the Rain, Eye Spy with My Open I, Spend 30 Minutes Taking a Five-Minute Walk, Get Lost—are designed to disrupt routine and inspire readers to see for themselves. Some of the exercises involve drawing, writing, and taking photographs, opening a path to creativity as well as showing how to engage in the moment.
Think of it as the Zen of seeing—a new way to look at the world afresh and rediscover joy in the everyday.
Buy the Book
Amazon | B&N | Indiebound | Workman
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