Gary Gach - Pause, Breathe, Smile: Awakening Mindfulness When Meditation Is Not Enough

Acknowledgments

I sincerely thank my publisher, Tami Simon, for following her dream and awakening millions thereby; my editor, Caroline Pincus, down-to-earth, with a well-tuned ear for my writing voice, plus a high-quality person to boot; Nancy Owen Barton, catalytic literary agent, canny editor, and fellow wayfarer; Leslie Brown, still point in a revolving world and always full of cheer; Chlo Prusiewicz and Lindsey Kennedy, both really wonderful and top-notch at marketing and publicity; Beth Skelley and Rachael Murray, no mere artists and designers but rather something more magical and alchemical; Jill Rogers, for an eagle eye and a steel-trap mind; Denise Nguyen, for her singing hand and silent joy; Charylu Roberts, O.Ruby Productions, for music engraving; and Ronny Schiff, for music editing.

Thank you to my dear siblings in the Plum Village Engaged Buddhism tradition; East Bay Meditation Center; Dragons Leap Meditation Center; the Honorable Frederick T. Courtright, for more than permissions; Mangalam Research Center, Ed Ng, Ron Purser, and Zachary Walsh for the retreat on Socially Engaged Mindfulness Interventions and the Promise of Making Refuge; Rich Fernandez, Brandon Rennels, and Linda A. Curtis for the Search Inside Yourself training; Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn for the Kanbar Lecture at UCSF; Oscar Bermeo; Gillian Coote, Sydney Zen Centre; Amy Rennert; Nancy Fish, Parallax Press; Lim Kooi Fong, Buddhist Channel; Heidi Geyer, Browser Books; Peter Levitt; Patrick Marks, Green Arcade Books; John Nguyen; Mark Nguyen; Steve Silberman; Swas Tan; Larry Ward; advance readers Marc Allen, John Bell, Steven R. Berger, Ben Carrall, Patti Deuter, Eduardo Drot de Gourville, Judih Weinstein Haggai, Rick Hanson, Rev. Ronald Kobata, Raymond Lipovsky, Gaetano Maida, Ted Meissner, Mitchell Rattner, Larry Yang, True Garden of Cypress (Chan Bach Uyen); the science experts, word experts, and writers community at Well.com, with special thanks to David Finacom and Jane Hirshfield.

To the Noble Eightfold Path, of which Pause Breathe Smile is a shorthand abridgement; The Mindfulness Education Group, with whom we happen to share the same three-word program title, Pause Breathe Smile, and an aspiration for a world where generosity, good will, and trust are viewed as the bedrock of peaceful, nurturing relations; Elizabeth Gilbert, who launched the three-word book title into perpetuity; Bill Murray, for his advice to his brother, echoed in the opening of The Rest Is Up to You; Shunryu Suzuki, who introduced the idea of our already being perfect and standing a bit of improvement; Alan Watts, who coined the phrase skin-encapsulated ego; John Welwood, transpersonal psychologist who coined the phrase spiritual bypassing; Shohaku Okumura, author of the expression living by vow; Ted Nelson, pioneer of computer networking, who developed intertwingularity; and Thich Nhat Hanh, who coined interbeing, Radio Non-Stop Talking, keeping our appointment with life, No mud, no lotus, and Go as a river.

also from gary gach

AS AUTHOR

The Complete Idiots Guide to Understanding Buddhism

Writers.net: Every Writers Guide to Essential Resources and Opportunities

Pocket Guide to the Internet: The No-Sweat Guide to the Information Superhighway

Preparing the Ground: Poems 19601970

AS EDITOR

What Book!?: Buddha Poems from Beat to Hiphop

AS TRANSLATOR OF KO UN,

with Brother Anthony of Taiz and Young-Moo Kim

Flowers of a Moment

Songs for Tomorrow

Ten Thousand Lives

About the Author

Gary Gachs lifelong career is as a freelance writer and freelance mystic. That is, hes been writing formally since he was ten and meditating since he was eight. He teaches in the Plum Village tradition of Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh and has been facilitating a weekly practice group, Mindfulness Fellowship, in San Francisco for over ten years. A dynamic speaker, hes well regarded for keynotes and panels and for training and coaching individuals and groups.

With ten books to his name, his work has also been published in over one hundred periodicals, including the Christian Science Monitor, Harvard Divinity Bulletin, the Huffington Post, the New Yorker, Lions Roar, Patheos, Tricycle, and Yoga Journal, and over a dozen anthologies such as A Book of Luminous Things; Chicken Soup for the American Soul; Language for a New Century; Technicians of the Sacred; and Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace. Hes been honored with an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, a Nautilus Book Award, and a Northern California Book Award, and has been a recipient of grants from the Korean Literature Translation Institute and Lannan Foundation. He enjoys live music, haiku, and swimming the Bay. Visit him at GaryGach.com.

About Sounds True

Sounds True is a multimedia publisher whose mission is to inspire and support personal transformation and spiritual awakening. Founded in 1985 and located in Boulder, Colorado, we work with many of the leading spiritual teachers, thinkers, healers, and visionary artists of our time. We strive with every title to preserve the essential living wisdom of the author or artist. It is our goal to create products that not only provide information to a reader or listener, but that also embody the quality of a wisdom transmission.

For those seeking genuine transformation, Sounds True is your trusted partner. At SoundsTrue.com you will find a wealth of free resources to support your journey, including exclusive weekly audio interviews, free downloads, interactive learning tools, and other special savings on all our titles.

To learn more, please visit SoundsTrue.com/freegifts or call us toll-free at 800.333.9185.

COMMENTARY

L ET OUR TITLE BE YOUR GUIDE . Pause Breathe Smile (PBS) is an invitation you can always remember and practice anytime, anywhere. Even right now. Its also the outline for this manual of awakening mindfulness. But flexibly so. Please use your creativity and intuition to explore and play with pausing, breathing, and smiling, and discover their varied dimensions for yourself.

In the front third of this book, I introduce a key component of mindfulness not to be skimmed over. Call it moral values in action. Such intentional, conscious conduct is meditation too. Its crucially needed in the world we share. However, it doesnt just fall from the skies. We need to awaken it within ourselves before we can offer it to others too. Then, at the center of the book are teachings on full awareness, with breath as a natural guide. In the back third, I survey three elemental aspects of the Great Way of Reality, for opening your wisdom eye.

Pause Breathe Smiles three parts are like booklets that can be read in any order. (I insist on your freedom.) As they come together in your one, unrepeatable, precious life, they can interconnect as a marvelous, integral whole.

The time is ripe. Forty years ago, Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanhtime since yoga. As mindfulness continues to evolve in the West, I hope this simple, threefold approach to its complete scope might help deepen and extend its meaning and potential. It is my experience that anyone can engage it in their lives as a healing and transformative practice, as they wish.

As with a cookbook, this book is not meant to be just read, its to be performed, tried out, played with. If youre relatively new to mindfulness, here are various recipes for a nourishing, wholesome diet. If youve already danced with it a bit, this simple handbook offers a comprehensive view, as a top-level reference, with a few possible additions to your repertoire. And old hands might enjoy seeing already familiar basics in possibly new ways.