If You're In the Shower, Be in the Shower

Mindfulness Reveals these Three Life Truths

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Photo by Ginger Hendee on Unsplash

The practice of mindfulness could be summed up in this way:

If you’re in the shower,

don’t be at work.

Be in the shower.

After all, the shower is such a lovely place to be, so steamy and warm. Why not be there one hundred percent instead of only ten percent? Feeling every droplet massaging our skin. Noticing how the steam rises and drifts over the curtain, hearing the water gurgling down the drain.

There will be plenty of time for work tomorrow. Right now, it’s time to be in the shower.

Now, to take our practice a little further:

We are getting better at being totally present to what is happening now, so let’s say a friend comes for a visit. She is going through a terrible divorce and needs someone to talk to.

Imagine being there for her one hundred percent, like we were for the shower. That means really listening to every word, not thinking about how we will reply, or jumping in with our own opinion or advice instead of giving her words and her feelings some space. Just being fully present to her pain. Because that is what she needs now. We are paying one hundred percent attention to our friend.

And to take it further still, let’s say we sit down to meditate, and because we’ve been doing this for a while now, and our teachers have helped us to understand just how much we’ve been running all our lives; running away from the fear of boredom, emptiness, death—distracting ourselves with books and movies and TV and adventure and night clubs and travel and shopping—because of that understanding, and because we are now really, really good at being one hundred percent in the moment, we are able to become very still inside. And from that stillness, we see things that we never saw before.

—We see that we have grown older, and the reason we have grown older is because nothing is permanent.

—We see that all of our striving throughout our lives—for security and happiness, for wealth and personal fulfillment, for a nice car and the perfect relationship—have not been fully realized.

(Okay, maybe we got a nice car, but it got old and broke down, or we replaced it as soon as the newer model came out—the one with the back-up cameras and heated seats. And it turns out the new car is not as reliable as the old one. We wish we could have the old one back. And okay, perhaps we found the “perfect” spouse, but now they are starting to grate on us. We wish they would not do such-and-such—it’s so embarrassing/frustrating/disrespectful/careless.)

And the reason all this striving has not brought us satisfaction is because ultimately, nothing is satisfying.

—And finally, we see by looking inward and searching for the true source of what we consider to be self, that there is nothing there. There is no entity that we can find in our bodies or our minds that is permanent and can be labeled “me.” And that is when we understand the Buddhist teaching on no-self. We understand that self is a concept we have created and reinforced through our thoughts and experiences, our influences and conditioning. In actuality, we are something that is happening, not something that is.

And when we understand that all phenomena are impermanent, unsatisfying, and non-self*, there is a lightness that comes about. Fear of insecurity, poverty, loneliness, of not reaching our goals or fulfilling our purpose, fear of death even, subside and become somewhat irrelevant concerns. And we are calmer, steadier, more peaceful. And we are more understanding of others, too, because we understand how suffering comes about, even the suffering that causes someone to be mean or arrogant or violent.

We are awake now to the true nature of reality, and living in a state of peaceful equanimity, or at least closer to it. Living our life at one hundred percent instead of only ten percent.

And all because we took a nice, hot shower. 🙂

(I posted the first four lines of this essay as a Substack Note, not expecting it to be quite so popular; it received over 300 likes and garnered Shy Guy Meets the Buddha at least 45 new subscribers! Welcome, first-time readers, and thank you for being here!)

*According to Buddhist teachings, the Three Characteristics of Existence are impermanence (anicca), unsatisfactoriness (dukkha), and non-self (annata).

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