Time travelling with mindfulness

StarryEyed

Hi! Some 30 years ago when I started mindfulness meditation and mindful living, I went to my first (and only) mindfulness meditation retreat over a weekend. One of the practices they taught was before eating, we were to consider the history of what laid before us in the present moment. For example, the history of the rice is thousands of years that farmers have grown the rice by tilling the land, planting the seeds, watering the fields, harvesting the rice, then storing the seeds for the next year. Then there are the thousands of years of people who have packaged the rice, distributed the rice, marketed the rice, sold the rice, invented recipes to use the rice, and served the rice. Think of all the people over the generations who have had the rice on their table as they prepared to eat. Perhaps they were at a party, or eating alone, or eating with their family. Or perhaps they were at a campfire.

The idea with this exercise is you are time travelling in the past for what is before you in the here and now. Ironically, by thinking of the past of a present object, you become more present. It is an excellent way to get grounded in the present. It is an excellent exercise in creative thinking. You can do this for any object. You can base your history on reality or fantasy - or a combination of both. Maybe you'd like to try an object of your own? It could be anything - your cat, your Mom, your plant, a towel, an apple, this forum, your wheelchair, your car, your coffee, your mug, your TV, your chair…

Do you want to write about an object?

Rosie_Scope

That sounds really interesting @StarryEyed. I've been doing a little bit of this without thinking about it as mindfulness. If I'm travelling somewhere, I often look at people's shoes or the things they're carrying with them and imagine where the object came from, where they bought it, what decisions they made about it and who they were with, whether it was a present etc.

Or I'll imagine where that person has come from, what led to them being on the same train or bus as me and where they're going next. I love inventing little imaginary worlds for someone that I don't know and probably will never speak to!

I've not thought of doing a similar thing with food before, but it's definitely an intriguing way to think about things ☺️

StarryEyed

Hi @Rosie_Scope

Yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about - looking into the past amplifies the present. So by you imagining the history behind someone's shoes, for example, you are more focused on the details of those shoes than you would be if you weren't trying to imagine the story behind the shoes. So your here and now - your present environment - is amplified. I wonder what kinds of emotions these imaginary histories conjure up in you? My guess is your brain is in a really creative frame of mind, right?

I'm going on a trip soon and surely will have stretches with nothing to do. So I'll try this. Great idea!! Thank you. 🙏🏼😊

66Mustang

I often do this when enjoying a dram of whisky. In a lot of ways, it's the quintessential time to just sit and contemplate. History and tradition is a huge part of whisky, and a lot of it is quite unchanged from the 1700s and often even earlier.

I'll sometimes wonder what kind of person would be drinking it all those years ago, and under what circumstances. In the 1700s it would have likely been distilled – and, if the drinker were a regular person, consumed – illegally, even though the King and a lot of the aristocracy were very into drinking it.

I like to wonder what kind of life the person drinking would have had, what they'd just done that day, and under what circumstances they'd be drinking it. They'd likely not be as lucky as me – savouring it over the course of an hour. More likely they'd, perhaps, got in from a 14 hour day in the fields and were knocking a couple back to ease the physical and mental strain of life before going to bed.