I had the opportunity to go on a ten day meditation retreat several years back. It wasn’t what you think–no cult, no deity worship, no fasting, no saints, no sinners, just a secular exploration of the vast expanse that is this human mind. Ten days, it turned out, without making eye contact, without speaking, without even acknowledging fellow meditators sitting right next to you. The idea was that you strictly had to be with your own thoughts and those thoughts alone for ten days straight. No television, no books, no magazines near the toilet, no diversions what-so-ever to take your attention away from what it was that was going on inside your head.

Prior to the course, I thought I knew what it was to be mindful, paying attention to my thoughts and actions. As it turns out, I knew nothing. We spent the first three days focusing on the air moving in and out of our nostrils, concentrating on how that felt. At first, minutes would go by where my mind was elsewhere, daydreaming, and then I’d remember what I’m supposed to be doing and be back focusing on my breath, in and out, in and out, then I’d be gone again for several more minutes as my mind wandered once more. My mind a chaotic ride on Boston’s T. Thoughts were everywhere, in, out, and jostling my attention like a train full of commuters.

By the third day however, I could stay focused on my breath for a whole sixty minutes without interruption pretty easily. If a thought came up and threatened to pull my attention away into a daydream, it was acknowledged and allowed to move on, no dwelling on it. The busy subway car of my mind was beginning to quiet down.

After the third day we began focusing our attention to other parts of the body one bit at a time. We were trying to establish a flow of attention that began on the head and moved down the trunk to the tips of the toes then back again. This was pretty hard as some parts were easier to put my attention than were others, parts of my back in particular proved a challenge, who pays that much attention to their back? There were brief, though amazing, moments however where my whole body was the object of my focus at one time. Heavenly, really.

During the times I wasn’t formally meditating, my ability to pay attention to things around me was in such a heightened state that, for instance, when I would walk to meals in the dining hall the crunch of gravel underfoot was absolutely palpable as were individual pebbles pushing unevenly on the thin soles of my shoes. Walking had slowed because that’s what I was doing, just walking, my attention was there in the act without a mind full of the future, of the past. I could eat an entire meal literally savoring every bite, feeling the meal mash around in my mouth, flavors mixing, pushed around by my tongue, feeling the mouthful of good home cooking slide slowly down my throat.

At the end of the class, I was not the same person that walked in to the facility ten days prior. I had become an observing machine. The five hour drive home was amazing and done sans radio; I didn’t need the diversion it would have provided, driving was plenty. I was driving with an awareness not seen since I was sixteen and my mother handed me the keys for the first time, drivers permit in hand.

Arriving home, things that bothered me before the class, like the sound, believe it or not, of my dog licking his paws, didn’t anymore. Again, I had become very objective, it was just a sound and I was just an observer. If a thought popped into my head about the sound of dog tongue on dog paws it wasn’t about how irritating it was, it was more about the qualities of the sound itself and the fact that was just what the dog does, lick his paws. I was okay with that.

Today, having not kept up in my practice of mindfulness, the ability is all but gone. I hate that sound again and almost always shush my dog when I hear it. But the idea of mindfulness remains, the idea and the knowledge that such laser-like attention to my own thoughts is possible and the experience of how those thoughts affect my emotions and mood remains foundational to who I am today.

Mindfulness takes practice.

Keep practicing.