Bells of Mindfulness

There are so many bells of mindfulness…car alarms, honking horns, the  Tuesday noon “emergency siren,” church bells, stop lights anything can be a reminder for us to come back to ourselves, come back to our breath and to check in.  We might even STOP (Stop, Take a breath or three, Observe how we are doing and what is surrounding us, Proceed).
There are also free computer programs that offer mindfulness bells to help increase concentration as well as physical and emotional comfort.

These three applications have helped me, by offering bells of mindfulness while plugging away on the computer.  The first bell I used was based on the bells from Plum Village, Thich Nhat Hanh’s Monastery in Southern France.  It offers options for both the big bell and the small bell – you can choose the interval manually or have it sound at random.
Then I spent some time enjoying the awareness bell as recommended by Eran Globen, personal coach at More Fully Human. But, although I liked the quality of the sound I found it interfered with other applications I was running.
The inspiration for the newest mindfulness bell, is once again Plum Village (any by that I mean all the Thich Nhat Hanh Monasteries).  This sounds the Westminster chimes on the hour or every 15 minutes, as you like.  At all the TNH Monasteries there are clocks in the dining halls that sound Westminster Chimes every 15 minutes.  It’s a beautiful reminder to come back to ourselves.  Everyone stops whatever they are doing and together we all return our awareness to the simple and delightful, life giving act of breathing.
Give one of these three mindfulness bells a try and see how it improves the quality of the time you spend in front of a screen typing away.