Sober Synthesis

1. Non-Judging 
   Mindfulness is cultivated by assuming the stance of an impartial witness to your own experience. To do this requires that you become aware of the constant stream of judging and reacting to inner and outer experiences that we are all normally caught up in, and learn to step back from it.
2. Patience 
   Patience is a form of wisdom. It demonstrates that we understand and accept the fact that sometimes things must unfold in their own time.
3. Beginners Mind 
   Zen teacher Suzuki: “Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind”
   “In the mind of the expert there are few possibilities. In the mind of the beginner there are infinite possibilities.”
   Too often we let our thinking and our beliefs about what we “know” prevent us from seeing things as they really are. We tend to take ordinary for granted and fail to grasp the extra-ordinariness of the ordinary.
4. Trust 
   Developing a basic trust in yourself and your feelings is an integral part of meditation training.
5. Non-Striving 
   Almost everything we do is for a purpose, to get something or somewhere. But in the attitudes of mindfulness, this striving attitude can be a real obstacle. Ultimately meditation is non-doing.  It has no goal except for you to be yourself. The irony is that you already are.
6. Acceptance 
   Acceptance means seeing things as they actually are in the present. Sooner or later we have to come to terms with things as they are and accept them. Often acceptance is only reached after we have gone through very emotion-filled periods of denial and then anger.
7. Letting Go 
   Cultivating the attitude of letting go, or non-attachment is fundamental to the practice of attitudes for mindfulness. When we start paying attention to our inner experience. We rapidly discover that there are certain thoughts and feelings and situations that our mind seems to want to hold on to.
8. Gratitude 
   There is a complex relationship between thoughts, moods, brain chemistry, endocrine function, and functioning of other physiological systems in our bodies. Our thoughts can actually trigger physiological changes in our body that affect our mental and physical health. If you increase positive thoughts, like gratitude, you can increase your subjective sense of well-being
9. Generosity 
   Foundation for mindful­ness practice and cultivating self-awareness. Explore generosity as an inquiry as well as an exercise in giving. A good place to start is with yourself. See if you can give yourself real gifts, such as self-acceptance, or some time each day with no purpose. Practice this with the feeling of being deserving enough to accept these gifts without obligation. To simply receive from yourself, and from the universe.

Source: Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., pages 33-40