The Mindfulness Memo

Question Presented

How can mindfulness practices help one unleash their potential -- in law school and in life.

Answer

Two Jurisight terms are helpful in exploring this question. The first is Liberty. The second is Pain and Suffering.

Liberty:
All of the Institute for Mindfulness Studies exercises involve the hands, see Chapter 9: Learned Hand Exercises, in Mindfulness for Law Students (2009). A simple exercise involve placing your hands in front of you and looking at the joining of thumb and pointer finger in your right hand. What letter do you see formed? The letter “J.” This is a reminder of how often we find ourselves trapped in the “Jail” of our mind -- flooded with mental chatter, judgments, doubts, and worries. Now, stretch your fingers wide apart. Look again at the joining of thumb and pointer, this time in your left hand. What letter do you see now? The letter “L.” This is a reminder of how you can always move from Jail to “Liberty,” and how every moment offers this opportunity. With greater mindful awareness, you learn to make this conscious and deliberate shift. You can use this simple hand exercise -- the movement from “J” to “L” as a mind-body method of expanding your awareness. As you do, breathe and feel the stretch. Bring awareness to your intention. Soften your gaze. Smile.

Pain and Suffering:
As you will learn soon enough as a law student, if you don’t already know, it it is common for a complaint to include a claim for “Pain and Suffering.” People often assume that the more pain, the more suffering. What do you think?

A mindfulness insight you can begin to experiment with is that the more you allow yourself to feel the unpleasant experiences that arise from time to time -- be they unpleasant sensations in the body, unpleasant feelings, or unpleasant thoughts (all a form of pain) -- the less you will suffer. The more you allow yourself to embrace as opposed to distract yourself, the more you will harness the energy arising within you and do something productive -- even courageous.

Because this memo falls on the Fourth of July, let’s take “fireworks” which serve as a reminder of freedom -- a beautiful burst of energy and activity -- and break it into two words: “fire works.”

A poet once said, “If you want to feel the cooling cleansing quality of the water, you must be willing to walk through the fire.”

And so we remind ourselves that “FIRE WORKS.” Whereas you may naturally tend to turn from the pain or unpleasant -- for example delaying receiving news of grades, avoiding interacting with a classmate who you feel did you wrong, soothing yourself with TV or food when you feel the anxiety or worry about an upcoming event, procrastinating on a heavy reading assignment -- experiment with turning into the experience.
This doesn’t mean forcing yourself to receive your grades, engage your classmate, or do the reading. The experience we are talking about it your mental experience -- the resistance arising in your mind.

This means allowing yourself to sit for a few minutes and check in with the thoughts, feelings, and body sensations arising as you consider or your thoughts move in the direction of those experiences and events. You can intend to do this also when these thoughts arise spontaneously.

Often, a deeply held assumption is that we cannot bear doing so. In fact, most of your life’s experiences are quite bearable. And as you deliberately move into the fire of these moments, you emerge transformed as you enjoy the cooling, cleansing quality of the water.

Mindfulness Exercise

Mindfulness Meditation

There are many wonderful approaches to developing and deepening a contemplative practice like mindfulness. To get a taste of this experience, take five minutes and explore/experience what it means to sit in mindful awareness.

• Sit in a comfortable position.
• Keep your back straight but not rigid.
• Rest your hands on your knees, thighs, or in your lap.
• Close or lower your eyes and bring awareness to your breathing.
• Follow your breath for a few moments, observing it with curious interest.
• Move awareness from the breath to your mind, watching the coming and going of thoughts.
• You may notice a busy mind, a restless mind, or a quiet mind.
• Watch your thoughts arise, letting them come and go.
• If your find yourself distracted, or your mind wandering, that’s okay. That is what the mind does. What’s amazing is that you notice it. And that you have a choice what to do next.
• After you notice your mind’s wandering, bring awareness back to your breathing.
• After a few breaths, move awareness to your thoughts and observe your mind.
• At the end of the practice, whether 2 minutes or 20, smile and savor the moment.


Legal Resources

Books

Halpern, C., Making Waves and Riding The Currents: Activism and the Practice of Wisdom (2008).

Krieger, L., The Hidden Sources of Law School Stress (Booklet 2005).

Rogers, S., Mindfulness for Law Students: Using the Power of Mindfulness to Find Balance and Success in law School (2009).

Articles

Riskin, L. Awareness in Lawyering: A Primer on Paying Attention, in The Affective Assistance of Counsel: Practicing law as a Healing Profession, 447-71 (Marjorie Silver, ed., Carolina Academic Press, 2007).

~(originally published July 4, 2009)