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There I was, an 11 year old boy, so curious about the human body and the complexities of my physical being. It could have been the puberty I was experiencing during that time, but I was feeling an intense internal calling within me around this age. At this point in my life I had heard about the great stories on shaolin monks: how they trained very hard everyday, their incredible physical feats, and their dedication to meditating for hours a day. This truly inspired me to be just like them. I spent days after school exercising at home and meditating in my backyard. It was truly incredible how great I felt and how connected I became to my body and earth. I wanted to feel this great forever!

Then, as quick as they say kids grow, I was a grown adult with a busy life with so many things swirling around in my mind. Before I knew it, I had slowly grown away from my healthy lifestyle and adopted a busy lifestyle dedicated towards school, work, family duties, responsibilities, and personal maintenance. Recently I have rediscovered the importance of this lifestyle I previously supported and how much I need it today— especially since I have been so distracted with the busyness of “doing” and ruminating about countless thoughts in my mind. Since realizing the monkey mind (a Buddhist expression used to describe the inability to quiet our mind when there are many thoughts, ideas, and worries swirling around in our head) that I was harboring, I decided to start the journey of grounding myself through meditation as I once did as a kid. During my journey to ease my mind and become more mindful, I wondered about how my level of mindfulness, once so large, dwindled down to mindlessness, and is currently on the rise again. This got me questioning if there is a way to physically see this decline and progression. What does mindfulness even look like? How can mindfulness be measured?

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SPECIAL SAUCE [Field Work: Participatory Experience]

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SPECIAL SAUCE [Field Work: Participatory Experience]

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For my special sauce I decided to create 2 self questionnaires that measured how mindful I was being. The first questionnaire titled, “Self Questionnaire - After Meditation,” was used to measure my level of mindfulness after practicing meditation. The questions comprised in this questionnaire focused on my experience while being in mindful state. The second questionnaire titled, “Self Questionnaire - Throughout Day,” was used to measure how mindful I was being throughout my day. The questions in this questionnaire focused on feelings and awareness in everyday scenarios. I charted my answers to the questionnaires over the span of 7 days in a spreadsheet to visually see how mindful I was being. Each day had a different time set for me to meditate. I did this to see how changing how long I meditated for would affect my level of mindfulness throughout the day.

Looking at the chart I learned that by meditating for a longer period of time, I was more mindful. The days that I didn’t meditate for a very long time showed that I wasn’t very mindful throughout my day. What I noticed the most was that some questions were more affected than other by how long I meditated for. Mainly the questions that pertained to my emotions and awareness saw more fluctuations. Questions that focused on attention didn’t see, to change as much. For example, Q4 of SQ-TD, didn’t see a lot of change. I believe this is due to the fact that I have recently become more attentive when I drive because I set that intention for myself.

Now I realized that intentions towards being mindful during the scenarios described in the questions play a key role as well. There is one factor to practice mindfulness and there is another factor to be intentional about where you want to be more mindful. It quite a discovery to find out that just practicing meditation alone won’t help you become mindful in areas that you are not intentionally trying to be mindful in.

Understanding that practicing mindfulness and intention go hand in hand, I can begin to see that mindfulness has many factors that need to be measured in order for it to be measured as a whole.

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SPECIAL SAUCE [Field Work: Participatory Experience]

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SPECIAL SAUCE [Field Work: Participatory Experience]

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The poem "Til" describes the importance of mindfulness. The beginning of the poem describes how it's important not to wait on what the future will bring to you. The middle of the poem illustrates what it's like to be here in the now and how great the experiences are. These experiences are a reminder that there is a present moment that is waiting for you to enter. Toward the end of the poem, one is reminded that death awaits and can come very soon. Worrying about the future will only get you faster to dwelling within the past (living with death), so better to be present and mindful so your experiences are made.