The sweet sound of ding!

Doorbell?

No, not ding-dong doorbell, but the ding from a mindfulness bell.

Before we talk about the mindfulness bell, let’s remind ourselves of what mindfulness is:

“mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way; on purpose, in the present moment, and non judgmentally.”
– Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness is about allowing the moment to be as it is, and observe it, non-judgmentally. Without any attachment, evaluation or thoughts.

And the best way to train our “mindfulness muscle” is to practice meditation, repeatedly.

Which leads us to the mindfulness bell.

“The bell of mindfulness is the voice of the Buddha calling us back to ourselves. We have to respect each sound of the bell, stop our thinking and talking, and get in touch with ourselves, breathing and smiling. This is not a Buddha from the outside. It is our own Buddha calling us home.”
—Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh is a renowned Vietnamese Buddhist monk. In his temple they use temple bells throughout the day to remind the monks to stop what they’re doing and return back to themselves.

You can incorporate this into your own life with the help of one of these tools:

• A small bell (buy one in a shop, or maybe you already have one)
• An meditation or mindfulness app (we recommend the zazn meditation app)
• A recording of a bell (you can download one here)

Then throughout the day you ring the bell (or play the bell sound recording/app), and allow it to remind you to go back to yourself.

You can “remind yourself” with this simple method:

1. Ring the bell
2. Breathe in and focus entirely on your breath
3. Breathe out, still focusing on your breath
4. Smile
5. Repeat as many times as you’d like

After you have done this repeatedly throughout the day, for several days, you will start to automatically be “triggered into meditation” by the bell. It does not get any simpler than that!

What do you think of the mindfulness bell? Comment below…