Tag: Awareness

Stopping for breath

Karl Duffy1 Comment

The difficulty most of us face is that we’re afraid of our humanity. We don’t know how to give our humanity space. We don’t know how to give it love. We don’t know how to offer our appreciation. We seize upon whenever difficult  emotions or painful thoughts arise – in large part because we have been taught from a very early age that life is a serious business. We’re taught that we have to accomplish so many things and excel at so many things because we have to compete for a limited amount of resources. We develop such high expectations for ourselves and others, and we develop high expectations of life. Such a competitive, goal-orientated approach to life makes us very speedy inside. We become so tight physically, mentally  and emotionally as we rush through each day, each moment, that many of us forget – often quite literally – to breathe.

Tsoknyi Rinpoche, Upgrading our Practice

Just the seen

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You should train yourself like this:

Whenever you see a form, simply see; whenever you hear a sound, simply hear;

Whenever you smell an aroma, simply smell; whenever you taste a flavour, simply taste;

Whenever you feel a sensation, simply feel; whenever a thought arises, let it just be a thought.

The Buddha, Sutta on Bahiya

….. staying with what is here

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When we encounter things during the day, they can frequently spark off a rush of thoughts and emotions. Or sometimes even deeper reflections upon the direction we are going or how we have gotten to this point. Occasionally these are useful but at other times they can easily lead into self-judgment and doubt. Most of our daily practice is just staying with the awareness of how things are now, in this moment, and not the thoughts about this moment. And it is still the same practice if strong emotions have been triggered automatically – often before we can even notice – by some of the things we meet. So, instead of going too far into the thoughts provoked, we try to stay with the sensations in the body, holding a space around them. Staying with what is here, not thinking ourselves into what is not here.

Who was the first man to see the moon on the river bank?  In what year did the moon first shine on man?

Human lives ceaselessly come and go, generation after generation, but the moon and the river stay constant year after year.

I don’t know who the moon and the river are waiting for, I only see the waters of the Yangtze flowing away.

Zhnag Ruoxu, Tang Dynasty poet.

The eye of the storm

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One reason why people  meditate is to remain calm and focused in the face of the storms and pressures which face they encounter each day.  Here Ajahn Sumedho breaks down how to do that, in practical terms.  The simple ability to be aware – which we all have –  is the key.  Awareness is the calm place from which we can observe and notice those things that  change – moods, good and bad, thoughts, positive and negative – without trying to hold on to them, or becoming identified with them. This is how we can remain at the eye of the storm and not get blown by the winds. We are aware of what we are feeling emotionally, but do not get caught up in it by analyzing it, judging it, or becoming it.

The stillpoint, the centredness, that’s awareness. When I cannot notice it and go out into the turning world, I become a person and get caught in my habits, my loves and hates, my likes and dislikes.  But if I am centered at this point, it’s like the island you cannot go beyond, or the stillpoint of the turning world, the eye of the storm. And then the world revolves around it. The mood you are in is not the stillness. The mood comes and goes. It changes, revolves; it’s happy, sad, elated, depressed, inspired, bored, loving, hateful, and on and on like this….It’s so easy to say “I’m in a bad mood” or “I’m in a good mood” Our langauge is like that, so we become the mood – “I feel happy today, everything’s fine” or “Today is one of my bad days”. That’s why I encourage this investigation of thought, so that you are not creating yourself, endlessly reinforcing the sense of self through your proliferating thoughts.

Ajahn Sumedho, The Sound of Silence

Elephants and fleas

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Sometimes when our thoughts are like little fleas that jump off our noses, we just see the little flickers of thought, like ripples, which might have a very liberating quality. For the first time you might feel ” My goodness! There’s so much space, and it’s always been here.”   Another time it might feel like that elephant is sitting on you. It’s important to realize that meditation doesn’t prefer the flea to the elephant, or vice versa. It is simply a process of seeing what is, noticing that, accepting that, and then going on with life, which, in terms of the technique, is coming back to the simplicity of nowness, the simplicity of the out-breath. Whether you are completely caught up in discursive thought for the entire sitting period, or whether you feel that enormous sense of space, you can regard either one with gentleness and a sense of being awake and alive to who you are. Either way, you can respect that. So taming teaches that meditation is developing a nonaggressive attitude to whatever occurs in your mind. It teaches that meditation is not considering yourself an obstacle to yourself; in fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Pema Chodron

No need to go far today

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I often suggest that my students ask themselves the simple question: Do I know how to live? Do I know how to eat?  How much to sleep? How to take care of my body? How to relate to other people?….Life is the real teacher and the curriculum is all set up. The question is: Are there any students?

Larry Rosenberg, Breath by Breath