The practice of mindfulness meditation is a practice of coming home. It’s a practice of arriving. If we can’t arrive and meet each moment, then ethics is just good philosophy, or it’s discipline—neither of which is really the heart of what we’re working toward. So let’s say that our practice right now will be creative engagement with each moment as it is.
If you can’t meet what’s going on for you moment to moment to moment, you lose track of yourself—you lose track of your life and you’re unable to hear the oneness of life. This practice is about the loving response that happens naturally when we’re not stressed, or highly reactive, or projecting our suffering onto institutions, politicians, teachers, or our children. Practice sings when we’re able to stay with the truth of what’s happening in our experience. In this way, being mindful day-to-day is inseparable from ethics. I like to call this situational ethics. Situational ethics means having the ability or creativity present, as a wellspring, to meet any situation: to be able to drop your fixed view at any time.
Arriving home in each moment is a skill that’s not so different from learning to play the piano or speak a foreign language. We’re training our brains, our nerves, our breathing, to be able to show up. I don’t think you can separate creativity and mindfulness. I think they both come back to this ability to meet the moment fully without prejudice. When you can really meet conditions as they arise, you are practicing non-harm. You’re practicing creativity.