Category: Meditation

On how to turn the mind into a friend

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Learning to be present for the moment is the beginning. By sitting still and training the mind to be with the breath, we begin to relax our discursiveness. We see how the mind creates our solid sense of self and begin to discover the mind’s natural state of being. With this experience we can being to cultivate our garden. The flowers of love compassion and wisdom gradually take over, and the weeds of anger,  jealousy and self-involvement have less and less room to grow. In peaceful abiding we become familiar with the ground of basic goodness. This is how we turn the mind into an ally.

Sakyong Mipham,  Turning the Mind into an Ally

Sheltered from the wind

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Experience follows intention. Wherever we are, whatever we do, all we need to do is recognize our thoughts, feelings, perceptions as something natural. Neither rejecting or accepting, we simply acknowledge the experience and let it pass. If we keep this up, we’ll eventually find ourselves becoming able to manage situations we once found painful, scary or sad. We’ll discover a sense of confidence that isn’t rooted in arrogance or pride. We’ll realize that we are always sheltered, always safe and always home.

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living

The solution is within

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When we’re disappointed or frustrated, when we’re in pain or when our day’s not going well, our tendency is to search for an object of blame. Our mantra becomes, “If only something were different, I wouldn’t be having this problem.” Blame is tricky. By trying to find someone else who’s at fault, we’re failing to deal with our own mind. Instead of looking inward, or taking a big view and seeing the transparency of the whole situation, we vent. “If only the driver in front of me had been going faster, I wouldn’t be late for work.” “If only someone else had cleaned the kitchen, I would be watching my favorite TV show instead of mopping this floor.” Even if we find someone we can logically blame for our pain, conducting our life in this way does not provide genuine relief. Blaming just lays the ground for further suffering and discontent.

From a meditator’s point of view, as long as we’re looking for someone to blame, our mind is unable to settle. Blame is a form of aggression.  The meditation path encourages us to be bigger, more openminded, more mature. It’s suggesting that we take responsibility for our behavior. This means that one day we will simply have to stop blaming the world. By blaming others when the world doesn’t move the way we want, we’re creating narrow parameters into which everything must fit. We become dead-set on what will solve our problem; nothing else will do. Blame ties us to the past and reduces who we are. Our possibilities become confined to one small situation. What is that path of blame going to accomplish?

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, End Blame

Deepening your Practice 1: Let things be

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Try to be mindful, and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool.  All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things. You will see many strange & wonderful things come and go, but you will be still.

Ajahn Chah

Deepening your Practice 2:Become an observer

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Sit where it is quiet and close your eyes: the natural inclination to make contact will bring up mental images characterized by feelings. These will most likely be taken as aspects of yourself and you’ll find various reactions occurring and you will get busy,  sitting still. However, the practice of sitting quietly with your eyes closed in meditation is useful in that, with steady attention, you can realize that all of this mental stuff is something that can be watched, and that it is therefore a series of objects – not the subject, the self. You only experience contact because of feelings and perceiving something. And since what is felt or perceived must always be an object, how can you ever contact a true subject, or self? This understanding in itself takes some of the drama out of the show, and the mind stops feeding on contact, it steps back into balance and quiets down.

Ajahn Sucitto, Turning the Wheel of Truth

A Traveller’s tale: Starting out in mindfulness

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Beth Parks Aronson has been in touch, letting me know that she is starting an MBSR Course shortly and is writing a blog documenting her thoughts and experiences.   It’s called, appropriately, Beginner’s Mind, and will follow her journey as she develops a mindfulness practice. In a real sense we all start anew every day. So why don’t you check it out, and give some encouragement.

http://betharonson.wordpress.com/