Mindfulness and the Future
Question: Can I practice mindfulness and think about the future?
My Response: This is an important question. It implies a particular interpretation of mindfulness that really needs examining. Does mindfulness require that we only be having thoughts about the present moment?
First of all mindfulness is a meditation technique. It is not a certain state of consciousness or awareness. It is not a desired endpoint or goal state.
To get at what I see as problematic about the idea that mindfulness requires that we be thinking about a particular set of things, I’ll offer a question:
If you are being mindful and a thought about the future crosses your mind, does the thought negate your mindfulness? How about a thought about the past?
Buddhist teachers warn us about living in the future or the past. They instruct us, to be in the present moment. But does the technique of mindfulness forbid thinking about the past or the future?
I’ll pose another question. If you are being mindful, carefully noticing all of the aspects of the present moment, for instance the clouds, the moon, the cool breeze, and so on. Each time you notice, the thought “cloud” arises, then “moon”, then “breeze”. Do these negate your mindfulness? Does their appearance represent a failure to be mindful? I hope not.
A particular quality of a thought should not exclude it from our mindfulness. If we think about blue, let our minds receive it. If we think about the past or the future, let our minds receive it. I don’t think that the quality of the thought that appears in the field of mind is a measure of mindfulness. It is how we receive it, acknowledge it, and so on.
In your opinion, is mindfulness better done when its focus is tangibly in the present moment? In what way would we be able to control these thoughts? For instance by letting awareness be immersed in the body?
