The Mindful Investor: How a Calm Mind Can Bring You Inner Peace and Financial Security

Chapter 2. An Introduction to Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness is simply noticing the way things are. It's not a technique, it's a skill—the skill of being aware without grasping or denying. Both grasping and denying are created states, they don't occur naturally. Therefore, Mindfulness is the skill of being natural. It enables you to be aware of exactly where and what you are.

It's rooted in a 2,500-year-old science of the mind called Vipassana. Translated, Vipassana means insight meditation or Mindfulness meditation. Although the ancient science of Mindfulness meditation began in Buddhism, it can be taught and practised without religious beliefs, and is applicable to the challenges of modern-day life. Indeed, it's increasingly gaining popularity today, with such high-profile people as Tiger Woods, Phil Jackson, Oprah Winfrey, Richard Gere, Sting, Sheryl Crow, Leonard Cohen, Shania Twain, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Tina Turner, Goldie Hawn, Al Gore, and Bill Ford (of Ford Motors), among many others, all praising the benefits of a meditation practice.

Mindfulness meditation trains us to be attentive and conscious about what's happening in any given moment through the use of specific techniques. It's the method or technique of intentionally becoming natural—it sounds like an oxymoron, but it works. Mindfulness meditation trains the mind to be in the present moment without distractions, and to concentrate on whatever you choose, for as long as you choose.^[4]

As you use Mindfulness ...