The biggest obstacle to establishing a meditation practice is the erroneous idea that meditation should calm and focus the mind. Better to assume the attitude that meditation is what you do when you meditate.
There is no doing it right or wrong.
Norman Fischer
The habit of judging our experience locks us into mechanical reactions that we are not even aware of and that often have no objective basis at all. These judgments tend to dominate our minds making it difficult to find any peace wihin ourselves.
It is as if the mind were a yo-yo going up and down on the string of our own judging thoughts all day long.
Jon Kabat Zinn
One way of developing a more conscious approach to life is to create gaps during the day, short moments where we pause and pay more deliberate attention to what we are doing. This “informal mindulness” practice reduces the mind’s tendency to over-analyze and compliments the formal practice we do when we are in sitting meditation.
A number of acticvities can be chosen to practice with. It is best to choose a repetitive simple task which you perform on a regular basis. One possibilitiy is taking a shower. While having the shower practice bringing your full attention to the sensations of what you are doing – touch, taste, smell, sound, sight – and stay close to being fully present at that level.
So. for example, you can attend to the sound of the water, as it comes out from the shower, or the touch of it as it hits your body, the temperature of the water. You can be aware of the smell of the soap or shampoo, and the sight of the water drops on the walls or as it goes down the drain. You can focus on the steam rising. Finally, you can be as fully present as piossoible with the movement of the body and the arms.
As in formal practices, thoughts will arise. you simply touch them gently, without judging, and let them go, coming back to practice a greater awatreness of sensations, strengthening your capacity to distinguish between a sensation and a thought.
Peace is something that we can bring about if we can actually learn to wake up a bit more as individuals and a lot more as a species; if we can learn to be fully what we actually already are; to reside in the inherent potential of what is possible for us, being human.
Jon Kabat-Zinn
We don’t think our way into a new way of living,
We live our way into a new way of thinking.
Richard Rohr
Me
ditation, whatever method you are using, is simply getting to know your mind. It is not about meditating ‘on’ something or getting into a zone where you are blissfully removed from your mind’s contents.
Instead, the actual meaning of meditation is more like getting used to being with your own mind.
Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche
Autumn is a “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” according to Keats. The last few days have certainly been misty, with low cloud obscuring the changing colours on the trees. Traditionally, mist has signified a difficulty in seeing and distortion in our understanding of the reality of things. Over the weekend I have being aware of some people who are coping with the descent of mist, fog and darkness in their lives. And like driving in real fog, working with the fog of confusion and loss can be dangerous in our mental life, because I find it hard to keep an awareness of both aspects which Keats writes about, the presence of mist and the reality of fruitfulness. Often when the fog of my emotions are strong, I tense around them, and lose the sense of my direction and goodness underneath them. I cannot see my way, believing the truth of the story connected with the emotion and not the fact of my own inner goodness. I find it hard to connect with my heart and see the fruits produced by its simple acts of kindness. I always demand brighter, bigger truths in times of darkness. I try to strengthen and protect my sense of self.
However, some times we have to accept the passing of low clouds. They obscure but do not take away the reality underneath. Just as the trees and the vines give up their fruit under the mist, we too may be at our most fruitful. We see these thoughts for what they are, self-judging thoughts which keep us obsessed with ourselves. Have you ever noticed that we prefer to give our experience labels like “I am falling apart“, “I am a mess” rather than just staying with the experience? It seems to comfort us somewhat. Our practice is to stay with the experience as felt in the body, without adding to it. The fog is just fog. It comes and goes. Then there will be sun. Neither of them are the essence of the tree. We work with seeing the fog as a mind state which can be held in our awareness. When we do this we can see depression and suspicion, paranoia and fear as nothing more than changing weather systems in the mind. They do not belong to me and affect who I truly am in any way.
Can we realize that thoughts about myself—I’m good or bad, I’m liked or disliked—are nothing but thoughts, and that thoughts do not tell us the truth about what we really are? A thought is a thought, and it triggers instant physical reactions, pleasures and pains throughout the bodymind. Physical reactions generate further thoughts and feelings about myself—”I’m suffering,” “I’m happy,” “I’m not as bright, as good-looking as the others.” That feedback implies that all this is me, that I have gotten hurt, or feel good about myself, or that I need to defend myself or get more approval and love from others.
In using our common language the implication is constantly created that there is someone real who is protecting and someone real who needs protection. Is there someone real to be protected from words and gestures, or are we merely living in ideas and stories about me and you, all of it happening in the ongoing audio/video drama of ourselves? Can there be some awareness of defenses arising, fear and anger forming, or withdrawal taking place, all accompanied by some kind of story-line? Can the whole drama become increasingly transparent? And in becoming increasingly transparent, can it be thoroughly questioned? What is it that is being protected? What is it that gets hurt or flattered? Me? What is me? Is it images, ideas, memories?
Toni Packer, What is this me? Shambala Sun
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