Tag: Be fully present

The choice to be still

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Practicing mindfulness meditation is making the choice to be still — to step into the quiet shade instead of running away from difficult thoughts and feelings. We sometimes call meditation non-doing. Instead of being swept away by our usual conditioned reactions, we’re quiet and watchful, fully present with what is, touching it deeply, being touched by it, and seeing what is happening in the simplest and most direct fashion possible. Doing nothing really means not doing many of the things we usually do, like holding on to or hiding from our experience, so that we can get new perspectives, new insights, and new sources of strength.

Sitting quietly and observing mindfully is a particularly productive way of “doing” nothing. Through the regular practice of meditation we discover the real happiness of simplicity, of connection, of presence. We come closer and closer to living each day in accord with this lovely quotation from Wordsworth: “With an eye made quiet by the power of harmony, and the deep power of joy, we see into the life of things.”

Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation

Sunday Quote: What gives us life

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Stay close to any sounds

that make you glad

you are alive.

Hafiz

Recognize the happiness you have

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Mindfulness helps you go home to the present.

And every time you go there
and recognize a condition of happiness that you have, happiness comes.

Thich Nhat Hahn

Not knowing can be good

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In our practice we keep returning to the present moment, trying to pay attention and stay there. Life continually gives occasions for practicing this skill and especially for noticing how many times we are away. The present is really the only time there is and the more we practice with it,  the more we see how each moment is special, and to a certain extent complete. However, in another important sense, our practice allows us see that the present is fluid and incomplete and that being open to this also holds a real richness. It allows us hold a space, between the past and the future, ready for all possibilities, not needing to know the whole picture but rather trusting that it will appear in its own time:

In-between is where humans always are,
thats what we have to welcome,
a story with an uncertain ending.

And this condition is interesting if you inhabit it;
it’s alive.

If I’m facing something that I don’t know what to do,
the “not knowing” is what is true,
and the resources that I have,
deeply ignorant that I am,
will have to be enough.

John Tarrant

Reducing the big picture down to what is in front of us

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It seems that the key to the practice is maintaining vision and focus. Vision keeps an overview of what one is doing and the greater context in mind. Focus is concerned with the specific task at hand. The whole thing is too big to focus on at once but I can start with one simple thing, the floors. I like sweeping the floors. I know how to do it. I don’t feel anxious about it. I find it relaxing. And most days, people haven’t taken away the dust pan and broom so it is actually possible to do. When I’m sweeping the floor, I enjoy it. I relax into the movement, feel my body and breath and focus on the bit of floor I’m sweeping. But I keep the whole floor in mind. So the vision is the whole floor and the focus is the little bit I’m working on.

Ajahn Thanasanti, Maintaining vision, while Focusing

Becoming more awake

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We don’t sit in meditation to become good meditators:

We sit in meditation so that we’ll be more awake in our lives.

Pema Chodron