Category: Be fully present

Keep it simple

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Here Ajahn Chah, one of the most influential teachers of the last Century, gives beautiful, simple instructions for mindfulness of the breath, the foundational practice for all meditation. We can see that it is normal for the mind to wander and how we should accept this gently. This simple exercise can be done formally today, or informally between meetings, waiting in a queue, while taking a break:

Keep your attention on the breath. Perhaps other thoughts will enter the mind. It will take up other themes and distract you. Don’t be concerned. Just take up the breathing again as the object of attention

Ajahn Chah, Bodhinyana

The present is where we need to focus

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If we take eternity to mean not an infinite temporal duration,

but timelessness,

then eternal life is theirs who live in the present

Wittgenstein

Bring your heart to each moment today

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The Chinese character for “mindfulness” is nian. It is a combination of two separate characters,  each with its own meaning. The top part of the character means “now” and the bottom part of the character means “heart” or “mind”. Literally, the combined character means the act of experiencing the present moment with your heart. So mindfulness is the moment-to-moment awareness of what is occurring in and around us. By being present and mindful of the present moment, we can accept what is at that moment as it is, allowing change to happen naturally, without struggle, without the usual resistance and judgment that cause us to suffer more.

Thich Nhat Hahn and Dr Lilian Cheung, Savor

Finding the gap

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In our ordinary mind we perceive the stream of thoughts as continuous, but in reality this is not the case. You will discover for yourself that there is a gap between each thought. When the past thought is past, and the future thought has not yet arisen, you will find a gap in which the nature of the mind is revealed: so the work of meditation is to slow down, to make that gap become more and more apparent.

Sogyal Rinpoche,  Glimpse after Glimpse

The Secret of health

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The secret of health for both mind and body is

not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles,

but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.

Buddha

Bring a steady attention to all

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The foundation practice for mindfulness is the development of a steady concentration which is able to then hold all things in awareness, both pleasant and unpleasant, without necessarily identifying with them:

The practice of concentration (samadhi) trains the mind’s capacity for being present in the moment,

thus augmenting our ability to bring wise attention to bear as much as possible on the experience.

Andrew Olendzki.