Guide: Brushing Your Teeth

Overview

Guide: Brushing Your Teeth
Guide: Brushing Your Teeth
Landmarks	Notice Your Wandering Mind Have Experimented with Witnessing

Guides are a Pathway in The Map of Everyday Enlightenment which are typically articles about a particular time and place for meditative practices. Guides contain Landmarks that highlight examples of how this could work for you, as well as other explanations of how to make use of certain concepts or techniques. The Landmarks in Guides can be reviewed in the context of progress through the Realms of Everyday Enlightenment, and when used in that way, Guides become another way to decide where to go next.

TODO - Longer overview explaining where it fits in, etc.

This is one really great activity to use as a time to work on Skills. It has to be done, maybe multiple times a day, and being in front of a mirror opens up some interesting possibilities.

Landmark: Notice Your Wandering Mind
Beacons	Attention
Realms	Enrollment
Lenses	Presence
Guides	Brushing Your Teeth

The Landmark of Notice Your Wandering Mind asks whether you can notice when your mind tends to wander off in different directions. This Landmark is within the Realm of Enrollment, and is part of the Beacon of Attention, more specifically the Lens of Presence.

Landmark Lookouts:

• Notice Your Wandering Mind: Are you able to notice times when your mind wanders?
  
• A Wandering Mind is Different: Can you feel that a wandering mind is different than a tranquil mind or a focused mind?
  
• It's Possible to Let the Mind Return: When your mind does wander, do you notice the moment when it comes back from that distant thought, and back into The Now?
  

The idea here is to just practice basic Attention and Presence during something you do every day.

• Pick up your toothbrush and squeeze a strip of toothpaste onto it.
• Turn on the tap and wet the brush, your daily dental hygiene routine is now a mindfulness exercise.
• As you start brushing, pay attention to where your thoughts wander off.
• Are you thinking about your meetings? Your grocery list? Or maybe an argument from last night?
• Each time you catch your mind straying, gently guide it back to the sensation of brushing.
• Focus on the taste of the toothpaste, the feel of the bristles against your teeth and gums, the sound of brushing.
• Once you're done brushing, rinse your mouth and your brush.
• Clean up your space, put everything back where it belongs, and stand still for a moment, taking in the quiet.
• Use this small window of time twice a day to practice focusing and reigning in your wandering mind.

Who is Brushing Your Teeth?