The practice of meditation invites us to investigate the flux of arising and passing events. When we get the hang of it, we can begin to see how each artifact of the mind is raised and lowered to view, like so many flash cards. But we can also glimpse, once in a while, the sleight-of-hand shuffling the cards and pulling them of the deck. Behind the objects lies a process. Self is a process. Self is a verb.
Andrew Olendzki, Unlimiting Mind
When confronted with a difficult experience, the untrained mind wants to be anywhere but in the present moment, where it perceives acute unpleasantness. The mind becomes anxious whenever it’s uncertain and reacts as if one’s survival is at stake. So rather than staying with the experience and determining the best possible way to relate to it, the mind jumps to creating a story that involves worrying about the future or judging oneself or others based on past experiences. This pattern of resistance to staying present in experience is an automatic response arising from the limbic brain as it detects threats. Ironically, the story imparts a false sense fo knowing what’s going on, and therefore can seem temporarily soothing.
Philipp Moffitt, Emotional Chaos to Clarity
[Once] the Buddha asked a musician how he tuned his instrument before playing. The musician said “If I tune the strings too tight they break. If I tune them too loose, no sound will come out. So not too tight and not too loose works best” To which the Buddha replied “This is how you should hold your mind in meditation”. It works the same way with fear. If we immediately begin busying ourselves with explanations, solutions and rationalizations, then we haven’ t allowed space for perspective to develop – we’ve responded with too much tightness. If we fail to look at what frightens us, if we blow it off or continually procrastinate about acknowledging our fears, we’re missing an opportunity for self-knowledge and skilful action. This is too loose. Fear invariably makes us do one of two things in response to this uncertainty and unpredictability: Either we tighten up around it too quickly, and begin imposing structure and rules on something not as yet fully defined, or we pretend that what frightens us is no big deal. We stop paying attention and space out.
Susan Piver, How not to be Afraid of your Life
Tuning into the sensations in the body is the first foundation of mindfulness. This is a crucial practice because normally whatever we experience — our feelings, emotions, thoughts and perceptions — also arise as sensations in our body. It is also the case that previous experiences – good and bad – can be stored almost in the cells of the body, and can be a better signal of what is going on than our interpretation of it. When we practice mindfulness of the body, we train in being open to a changing stream of sensations without pushing away or holding on, and this practice becomes our refuge when faced with emotional storms.
The teaching of the actual body is the harbour and the weir.
This is the most important thing in the world.
Dogen
There is one thing that, when cultivated and regularly practiced, leads to peace, to mindfulness and clear comprehension, to vision and knowledge, to a happy life here and now, and to the culmination of wisdom and awakening. And what is that one thing? It is mindfulness centered on the body.
The Buddha, Anguttara Nikaya
In meditation practice, you work directly with your confused mind-states, without waging crusades against any aspect of your experience. You let all your tendencies arise, without trying to screen anything out, manipulate experience in any way, or measure up to any ideal standard. Allowing yourself the space to be as you are — letting whatever arises arise, without fixation on it, and coming back to simple presence — this is perhaps the most loving and compassionate way you can treat yourself. It helps you make friends with the whole range of your experience.
As you simplify in this way, you start to feel your very presence as wholesome in and of itself. You don’t have to prove that you are good. You discover a self-existing sanity that lies deeper than all thought or feeling. You appreciate the beauty of just being awake, responsive, and open to life. Appreciating this basic, underlying sense of goodness is the birth of maitri — unconditional friendliness toward yourself.
John Welwood, The Practice Of Love
Mindfulness is first of all the ability to recognize what is happening in the present moment. It is a simple recognition – without judgment or criticism, without suppression or attachment. I breathe in and I am aware that the in-breath is here. I breathe out, and I am aware that the outbreath is here. There is no criticism or struggle. There is no effort to reject anything or grab on to it.
Thich Nhat Hahn, You are Here
