All created beings are involved in sorrow; those who realize this are freed from suffering. This is the path that leads to pure wisdom. – Gautama Buddha

Many of us, having realized the inevitability of suffering, take our attitudes in reacting to it for granted. When finding ourselves in the midst of an agitating situation, we fight our distress and the circumstances that induced it, all the while yearning for a time when life is restored to some semblance of stability. There exists, however, an ancient practice that promises to deliver a profound sense of acceptance and equanimity amid such situations, and to its effectiveness I can attest.

We interact with the world through the prism of the mind. Our moods and the manners in which we respond to experience dictates everything from the kind of romantic partners we are to the success we achieve in our careers. The practice – called mindfulness meditation – trains one’s focus so that they can better explore the nature of the mind. It is through a growing understanding and clearer awareness of consciousness that one is able to cope with negative states such as anxiety, anger, or pain. Incidentally, meditation has a deep effect on character. As the meditator becomes familiar with his inner-life, the vices and weaknesses he notices can be overcome by virtue of their very discovery.

The idea of the practice is simple. You sit down with your eyes closed and focus on a sensation in your body. It could be the sensation in your hands, for example, or you could go for the breath, which happens to be the more popular choice. Whenever attention wanders – you may begin to reflect on a recent argument you had or perhaps the dishes you still have to do before going to bed – gently bring it back to the breath. Advanced practitioners are encouraged to open their field of awareness to all contents of consciousness: moods, emotions, sensations in the body, sounds, and even thoughts.

To the uninitiated, this may give the appearance of being too simple to be able accomplish what it proposes and of conforming to that class of fraudulent claims peddled by spiritual charlatans with the exploits of whom the world has grown all too familiar. Though the inclination to consider meditation and the insights it yields esoteric has some merit, the reasoning behind it is simple and does not require a history of spiritual misadventures to be understood. You must begin with an open mind and a keen interest in its possibilities.

Our experience is often dictated by what, after having the actual organ mutilated by a barbaric tribe, the unnamed narrator in Albert Camus’ short story The Renegade referred to as “another tongue”. We are especially susceptible to be captured by this voice in the mind. The elevated awareness the practice trains allows you to recognize the contents of this ceaseless utterance so that when negative thoughts arise, you can simply decide to observe them until they pass, which, upon being discovered by a quiet and impartial observer, they quickly do. Peace can be found even in the midst of unpleasant sensations. By paying close attention to pain, for example, and thus stripping it of the thoughts that define it, you can genuinely accept its sensations with calm and composure.

Say you have encountered a major misfortune. Perhaps the death of a loved one, often a deeply painful experience. There is nothing fundamentally different about the nature of your mind in these circumstances than in the rest of your life. All that is present is consciousness and its contents. By paying attention to your thoughts and the sensations in your body while genuinely being interested in the way they manifest themselves, you can let go of the sorrow. It will come back, but if you can do this often, the emotions will become less frequent. The difference in surrendering to the currents of your thoughts like most people and in experiencing these thoughts for a few moments before recognizing them and breaking their spell is profound.

The claim that we inadvertently prolong our suffering might not be easy to accept. But a lot of what mindfulness reveals about the workings of the mind is similarly of a counter-intuitive nature, and for this reason, it is susceptible to rejection unless discovered for oneself. Hence, the heavy emphasis laid on the student’s practice in spiritual circles. The onus to understand yourself is on you.

A friend of mine once complained that whenever she attempts to meditate, she ends up getting bored and quits. I did not have the experience then to tell her how much she was missing the point. Boredom can be just as good an object of mindfulness as any other feeling. Instead of identifying with it, the practitioner must merely observe it as a pattern of energy.

But this is easier said than done. Mindfulness requires training. For those starting out, I would recommend getting an instructor. It is understandable how the cult-like dynamics of some notorious self-proclaiming spiritual organizations can cause one to hesitate. However, it is important to recognize that mindfulness meditation does not require subscribing to any dogmatic system of belief and that it can be – and I would argue, must be – practiced in a secular context. The practice pertains to your subjective experience alone. Any instructor who claims that it can help you in contacting a deity or in gaining knowledge into the origins of the cosmos must be avoided. Since I do not have experience with any organization involved with meditation, I cannot recommend one.

Most of my training comes from an app I highly recommend called Waking Up. Signing up, you get access to an introductory course with a total of twenty-eight sessions. It is a great primer on the different mindfulness techniques. After completing it, you can do a Daily Meditation every day. In addition to several other practice series, there are conversations with numerous researchers, practitioners, and teachers as well as the neatly-curated Theory section that explores different topics related to the mind. The principal instructor is the neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris, who has extensive experience in meditation studying with various teachers. The app is by no means expensive, and I recommend paying for it. But in case you cannot afford it, thanks to their generosity, a free subscription can be requested from the management. The app website says no questions are asked and all requests are granted.

Mindfulness meditation is an incredibly powerful tool, but despite its growing popularity, it is widely misunderstood as a technique for mere temporary relaxation. Though I have mostly covered its therapeutic aspects and tried to give a more accurate portrayal of that, meditation is much more profound, having the potential of revealing the wonders of a vast inner landscape. I hope my humble attempt to shed light at it will at least encourage you to give it a try. The practice, with all its rewards, certainly makes the possibility of being someone like the Buddha, rarely succumbing to hatred or anxiety, seem more real.