A Centre: why?
The mindfulness
practice
--

MINDFULNESS (‘consapevolezza’ in Italian, ‘pleine conscience’ in French) is the energy that helps us to recognise and welcome “what is”, in other words, the situation around and inside us in the present moment. Practicing mindfulness creates inner peace, improves our capacity for understanding and enables us, in different circumstances, to act rather than react.
Uniting our bodies and minds through mindfulness allows us to slow the sometimes frenetic rhythm of our individual lives, to rest and therefore have a deeper contact with the wonders of life that are always around and within us: the singing of the birds, moonlight, the bloom of a flower, the eyes of a child, and the capacities of our own eyes and ears that enable us to see and hear all of this.
We also develop the capability to see the seeds of suffering that lie in the depths of our individual consciousness – anger, jealousy, greed, delusion – and of the collective consciousness – hunger, sickness, injustice, oppression: this represents the first step towards being able to understand and transform them.
The practice of mindfulness leads us out of the closed circle of our emotions and thoughts that constantly revolve around our past experiences (regret, remorse, rancour) or possible future (daydreams, anxiety, fear). Actually, we are incessantly immersed in these thoughts without even realizing it, but mindfulness helps us to root ourselves in the present, the here and now, the only moment in which life is really available for us to live.
The practice of mindfulness is made up at the same time of various forms of meditation and of bringing full attention to every moment of our daily lives. This training in mindful living already produces in itself the benefits of calmness, clarity, and the ability to listen and understand; the pleasurable advantages gained provide then encouragement to continue with the practice which, in order to achieve long-lasting benefits, needs to become a customary part of our day.
As mindfulness is a personal and direct experience, it cannot be learned from reading books or attending theoretical lessons. To make mindfulness a part of every aspect of our lives, it is most beneficial to explore and practice it with friends sharing with us this same aspiration, and with teachers whose very presence manifest the simplicity and beauty of this way of living.