Mindfully Transcendent

You may wonder why I’m lying down in the photo. This is my homework for the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction class I started yesterday — a 40-minute body scan meditation. I’m trying to squeeze it in between my 20-minute Transcendental Meditation sessions.

This combination presents an interesting challenge: not mixing the techniques, since they’re basically opposites. TM is passive — letting the mind settle into deep rest. Mindfulness, on the other hand, is active; it cultivates present-moment awareness without judgment.

In theory, I should move smoothly between the two. In practice, I perform a confused hybrid: during TM, I methodically scan my body from toes to head like airport security going through the routine, and during mindfulness, I end up repeating my TM mantra instead of noticing my body, like a traveler quietly checking their phone while walking through the metal detector.

I may have accidentally invented a new form of meditation: Mindfully Transcendent. Its goal is to be both supremely aware and effectively unconscious. It hasn’t brought me enlightenment, but my entire anatomy is uncomfortably self-aware.