Tag: Awareness

Developing awareness is the key

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The busy mind is who you think you are. It is easier to see, like the face of the person standing right in front of you. For example, the thought you’re thinking right now is more obvious to you than your awareness of that thought. When you get angry, you pay more attention to what you’re angry about than to the actual source of your anger, where your anger is coming from. In other words, you notice what your mind is doing, but you don’t see the mind itself. You identify yourself with the contents of this busy mind –  your thoughts, emotions, ideas – and end up thinking that all of this stuff is “me” and “how I am.” When you do that, it’s like being asleep and dreaming and believing that your dream images are true.

Dzogchen Ponlop, Rebel Buddha

…and be grateful.

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As we have said before, one do not have to wait to be completely satisfied with everything before one can be content. Similarly, everything does not have to be just as you would like it in your life for you to be grateful. One just has to give up the automatic tendency to judge oneself and ones life, fixing on imperfections, and the interpretations of our life which follow that tendency. Noticing small positive things each day, and being grateful for them, is a skill that can be practiced, and it develops our capacity to be just in the present moment.  Being happy for the whole of our lives can start with us appreciating the moments of our life, now. And there are a variety of simple things each day which we can stop to notice and be grateful for – the changing colours on the leaves, a cup of coffee in the morning, a small act of kindness by a colleague, the taste of simple food. Each day presents new opportunities to just notice, no matter what our situation is.

Notice your life, today….

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No one has to master living in the now. It’s impossible to live anywhere else. Just as you can never leave now, no one will ever take away your past or withhold your future. Effortlessly, your past accumulates. Instantly, your future arrives. What matters is that you notice your life while you can still call it “alive”. That’s now.

Karen Maezen Miller, Hand Wash Cold

New to Mindfulness Practice 13: Don’t react

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In the process of focusing on our breathing and watching our thoughts come and go, we learn that they don’t have to react to every thought that comes into our minds, that just because the mind is jumping around and agitated at times doesn’t mean we have to jump with it. With practice, we become more comfortable with silence and sitting still.

Jon Kabat Zinn

Where we place our energies

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The quality in our life is related to where we place our attention. We go of all the things that are cluttering our minds, and free up space and time  to live each moment and each encounter with others more fully. This is true for each moment, but also sets the tone for the values which we choose, the direction we are going.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 6:21

What is important is not what someone is

but what they are waiting for.

Not the events of life, but its possibilities.

Dorothee Solle

New to Mindfulness Practice 10: Just watch

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If you need something to do in meditation , then watch the breathing. This is a very simple process. When you are breathing out, know that you are breathing out. When you breath in, know that you are breathing in, without supplying any kind of extra commentary or internalized mental gossip, but just identifying with the breath.

Sogyal Rinpoche