Tag: Awareness

New to Mindfulness Practice 7: Drop the commentary

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When we practice meditation, we express confidence in the simple yet powerful gesture of opening to whatever arises during our meditation session.  We discover that the practice requires that we sit still on the cushion, letting go of our internal dialogue, opening to our world — very simply, very directly.

When we examine this experience of opening, we find that we are expressing a part of ourselves that we may tend to overlook: we are expressing our ability to trust ourselves completely. In order to open — in meditation and in life in general — we must let go of our familiar thoughts and emotions, we must step out from behind the safe curtain of our inner rehearsals and onto the stage of reality, even if it’s for just a brief moment. When we open on the cushion, we renounce our attachment to our emotional security blanket, over and over again. We drop our pretense and our story lines and stand naked in the midst of uncertainty — the very essence of confidence itself.

Michael Carroll,  Bringing Spiritual Confidence to the Workplace

New to Mindfulness Practice 6: Notice the breath

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As you start the practice, you have a sense of your body and a sense of where you are, and then you begin to notice the breathing. The whole feeling of the breath is very important. The breath should not be forced, obviously; you are breathing naturally. The breath is going in and out, in and out. With each breath you become relaxed.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

Stopping for breath

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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