“Relax the mind and productivity will follow” — Buddha had it all right. Living a meaningful life and making most of it, is what we endeavour. The best things grow little by little over time. Doing something mindfully is like walking meditation. If our mind is not still calm, not in the moment of our doings, aren’t we missing something out? Yes, of course, we are missing out on life itself.

“Of all ridiculous things,” Kierkegaard — a Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, and religious author, who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher — wrote when contemplating our greatest source of unhappiness, “the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work.”

The act of slowing the mind creates flow. That of course, also applies to a kind of great mental process. When we are engrossed, mediating on a task, and mindful about it, our mind gets in a state of flow — the flow of actions, ideas, and creative power.

In Eastern traditions, it has been done for millennia —  living in the regular rhythm of just being.

But, the core struggle that everyone finds comes from the gulf between “Knowing” and “Doing” — staying aware of -them both- at the same moment. The spiritual teacher and the author of the two books — ‘The Power of Now’ and ‘A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose —  Eckhart Tolle wrote, “In today’s rush, we all think too much, seek too much, want too much and forget about the joy of just being.”

In many cases, to lead a good life, most fast-paced leaders and entrepreneurs believe that slowing down is the key. For greater appreciation for life and a greater level of happiness, slowing down is a deliberate choice, that we have to make every moment, which yield’s better results in one’s life endeavours.

Modern humans are conditioned to overdo, overachieve, and, obviously, that is why most of them are depressed and anxious. This is what the great Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist Sylvia Boorstein talked about in her mindful retreat — “Don’t Just Do Something, Sit There:”

“Slow is not better than fast. It’s just different. Everything changes, regardless of pace, and direct firsthand experience of temporality can happen while you are strolling just as much as while you are stepping deliberately and slowly. The speed-limit guide for mindful walking is to select the speed at which you are most likely to maintain attention. Shift up or down as necessary.”

The father of teachings on mindfulness, Zen Master —Thich Nhat Hanh — a global spiritual leader, poet, and peace activist insist, “Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the world earth revolves–slowly, evenly, without rushing toward the future. Live the actual moment.”

Leading a mindful daily routine, being aware of our every action and reaction, every thought, and every word that we speak can add quality to our everyday life. Zen Master summed it up well when he said: “We have to walk in a way that we only print peace and serenity on the Earth. Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”

 Also, the scientific community believes practising mindfulness daily can give our brains advantages of neuroplasticity — an ability of our brains to change through growth and reorganization. 

Back in the late 19th century William James’s text: The Principles of Psychology, who was one of the first psychologists to address the notion of neuroplasticity said, “The central idea behind neuroplasticity is that our brain can restructure itself based on our perception and experience.”

Slowing down our pace of actions and becoming aware of them doesn’t slow us down from achieving what we desire, in fact, it brings more clarity and a better approach towards it.

A mother, poet, teacher of mindfulness ideology, and a healer, Kaveri Patel describes beautifully in one of her poetry, what it’s like to slow down:

Dear you,
You who always have
so many things to do
so many places to be
your mind spinning like
fan blades at high speed
each moment always a blur
because you’re never still.

I know you’re tired.
I also know it’s not your fault.
The constant brain-buzz is like
a swarm of bees threatening
to sting if you close your eyes.
You’ve forgotten something again.
You need to prepare for that or else.
You should have done that differently.

What if you closed your eyes?
Would the world fall
apart without you?
Or would your mind
become the open sky
flock of thoughts
flying across the sunrise
as you just watched and smiled.

People who are aware of the benefits of slowing down, follow different mindfulness practices at least once during their day. Few like to meditate on every task at their hand, and most just like to be mindful only with the tasks they like to do.

Rebecca Solnit, a Buddhist teacher, writer of ‘Wanderlust: A History of Walking’ says, “I like walking because it is slow, and I suspect that the mind, like the feet, works at about three miles an hour. If this is so, then modern life is moving faster than the speed of thought or thoughtfulness.”  The author argues for the preservation of the time and space in which to walk in an ever more car-dependent and accelerated world.

Walking personifies presence in motion, presence of mind at first with ourselves and then with the world, inner and outer — an active existence of body and mind on the same subject at the same time, which Solnit captures in the opening pages of her book:

“Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord. Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them. It leaves us free to think without being wholly lost in our thoughts.”

Mindful living or slowing down does not mean taking a vacation every now and then. It is something we must do every day. It implies enjoying and being in very thing or whatever we’re doing. Even when doing simple tasks like taking a bath, cleaning, or cooking. It means single-tasking rather than switching between a multitude of tasks and focusing on none of them.