The Mindfulness Edge

10The Wisdom of True Excellence

Practicing mindfulness of emotions, as we discussed in the last chapter, allows us to be free from the grip of unpleasant emotions as they're occurring in the present moment. Step 4 of the practice also helps us begin the work of removing the deeper causes of unpleasant emotions. In the next two chapters, we'll explore some very special wisdom that can gradually remove the root cause of all unpleasant emotions.

This special wisdom also helps us remove the root cause of our habitual tendency to constantly veer from being mindfully self-aware toward being our thinking mind and the ego it creates. To develop this special wisdom, it is very, very helpful to practice mindfulness training while sitting still. This wisdom does not arise without stable inner awareness.

To develop the wisdom that is the foundation of leadership and personal excellence, we need to apply the stable and powerful awareness we develop in our daily practice toward the effort to investigate what we experience. When we investigate our experience with stable awareness, we discover the root cause of our habitual tendency to become the thinking mind and its ego. That root cause is a slight misunderstanding about how our world exists and how we operate in it.

Things Aren't as They Seem ...