Bell of Mindfulness
On your arrival you might hear a bell sound and suddenly people around you stop talking and stop moving. It might be the telephone ringing or the clock chiming, or the monastery bell sounding. These are our bells of mindfulness. When we hear the sound of the bell, we relax our body and become aware of our breathing. We do that naturally, with enjoyment, and without solemnity or being stiffed.
When we hear one of these mindfulness bells ring, we stop all of our
conversations and whatever we are doing and bring our awareness to our
breathing. The ringing bell has called out to us:
Listen, listen,
this wonderful sound brings me back to
my true home.
By
stopping to breathe and to restore our calm and our peace, we become free;
our work becomes more enjoyable and the friend in front of us becomes
more real. Back home we can use the ringing of our telephone, the local
church bells, the cry of a baby, or even the sound of fire engines and
ambulances as our bells of mindfulness. With just three conscious
breaths we can release the tensions in our body and mind and return to
a cool and clear state of being.
