Yo, Joan! Finding peace with the many pieces of the mind

We’ve all heard the phrase, “I’m going to give him a piece of my mind.” Usually, that “piece” isn’t very pleasant. So it’s understandable that a term like mindfulness might seem confusing – especially when we know how crowded, noisy and not always congenial the mind can be.

I’ve been teaching meditation for many years, and I remember when the word “mindfulness” first entered mainstream conversation. It was around the time Jon Kabat-Zinn published his bestselling book, “Wherever You Go, There You Are” in 1994. Back then, I was on the Physical Education faculty of College of DuPage, teaching yoga and meditation.

At the time, my own books were still just twinkles in my eyes. They began appearing in 1998 – “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Yoga” and “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Meditation.” Remarkably, both became bestsellers as well. Years later, they continue to appear in new editions, translations and audio formats. Audible didn’t exist back then. Who would have imagined? Someone obviously did.

I share this to say that while books, teachers and technologies evolve, meditation itself long predates them all – by centuries, even millennia. The Indian Vedas (1500–1200 BCE), for example, speak of “the Observer” or “the Seer.” These ancient texts influenced countless thinkers across time, including physicist Erwin Schrödinger, who co-invented quantum theory and credited Vedantic philosophy – especially the Upanishads – with shaping his view of reality.

So what is mindfulness? It is the practice of coming into direct contact with the present moment – the very reality from which the many “pieces” of our mind can so easily pull us away.

Perhaps the clearest way to understand it is not through explanation, but through experience. Let me offer you a simple practice so you can discover it for yourself. After all, the deepest understanding is always the lived one.