Some Reflections on my Mindfulness Bells

Okay, so looking through these journals, I realize that I haven’t really spoke to my experiences with the micro-practices with the “bells of mindfulness”. I was using the DING from my computer whenever I got an email and the submarine-like BONG whenever I got a text message. For the first week when these DINGS and BONGS were going off, I actually started to feel resentment towards having to take a breath and remember where I was. It felt a little like a random “time-out” for not doing anything wrong. I was actually feeling like I was being punished...and I knew that this wasn’t the point, so I wondered if I needed to choose a mindfulness bell that was a little less random - which may go against the idea behind the bells, but it didn’t really feel like a good way to begin this kind of practice (I should at least start with a bell that felt sort of pleasant, and then work towards dealing with feeling angry at getting interrupted from what I was doing in life, I thought). So I switched it to a visual mindfulness bell, getting a red-light. I had been driving every morning to get to Mysore (the practice) and I would hit a few red-lights during the 5:45am drive. This actually felt more productive. Normally I would feel annoyance arising when I was confronted with a red light, but now, coming back to the breath, remembering this was a good moment, and using the moment to actually be AWARE when driving (novel idea, I know) felt really productive and not like a time out at all. So lately, on days when I am not driving, I still use the DINGS and BONGS, but I have been feeling more benefits from my visual bell, my sparring partner, the red light.