THE ELEMENTS OF MINDFULNESS
Scott L. Rogers • Mindful Living
Having taught and written extensively on the use of mindfulness in university law programs, Scott Rogers is an expert in bringing meditation to busy people. If seated meditation feels like yet another thing you can’t fit into your day, the method in this book offers an alternative, or complementary, practice. Rogers guides you to pay attention to the present moment by simply reflecting on familiar elements of the natural world over the course of a day. You can take their presence, he suggests, as an invitation to check in with the “elements of mindfulness”: body, breath, thoughts, feelings, and awareness. Catching sight of a tree, for example, reminds you to straighten your posture. Hearing a bird singing encourages you to listen deeply. Feeling or hearing the wind (or the air conditioner in your office), you pay attention to the next breath you take. By making these moments habitual, you can take a wider view—that our selves and our world are not so separate: “While our thoughts come and go, our body is here—always here, now. And our body is very much connected to the earth, borne of the earth,…
