After speaking about the subtle Buddhist practices in which a meditator discerns, analyzes, and contemplates the ultimate realities of phenomena, a student asked me how she could apply the teaching during daily life practice. Although it can be challenging to consistently see the subtleties of mind and matter during active daily life, you can certainly carry much of what you have learned through intensive meditation into your awareness of activities, choices, emotions, thoughts, and events.

Suggestion: Each week choose an activity to examine, for example, bathing. Bring mindful attention to the mind and body engaged in that pursuit. Each time that you bathe, contemplate the impermanent, unsatisfactory, not-self, or repulsive qualities to whatever elements you may perceive. It could be as simple as observing the material element of temperature changing during the duration of your bath.