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April 30 - April 30, 2020
Traditionally, meditation students were taught first how to approach the technique, then how to practise it, before finally learning how to integrate the techniques into their everyday lives.
and yet the wellbeing of the mind tends to take a back seat.
Meditation is not just another fluffy concept, or philosophical idea; rather, it’s a direct experience of the present moment.
In the same way that it’s up to you to define the purpose of meditation, it’s also up to you to define the experience of meditation.
Meditation isn’t about becoming a different person, a new person, or even a better person. It’s about training in awareness and understanding how and why you think and feel the way you do, and getting a healthy sense of perspective in the process.
but multiple studies have shown that the structure of the brain itself can change, in a process known as neuroplasticity.
Mindfulness means to be present, in the moment, undistracted. It implies resting the mind in its natural state of awareness, which is free of any bias or judgment.
So mindfulness means to be present. It means being ‘in the moment’, experiencing life directly as it unfolds, rather than being distracted, caught up and lost in thought. It’s not a contrived or temporary state of mind that you need to somehow create and maintain. On the contrary, it’s a way of stepping back and resting the mind in its natural state, free from the usual chaos.
By changing the way in which you see the world, you effectively change the world around you.
Exercise 1: not doing Try it now. Without moving from where you’re sitting, just close the book and place it in your lap. You don’t need to sit in any particular way, but just gently close your eyes and sit for a minute or two. It’s no problem if lots of thoughts pop up, you can let them come and go for now, but see what it feels like to sit still, not doing anything, for just a minute or two.
Exercise 2: the senses Take another two minutes to do this short exercise. As before, stay sitting exactly as you are right now. After putting the book down in your lap, gently focus on one of the physical senses, preferably sound or sight at this stage. I’d recommend using background sounds and closing your eyes, but as sounds can be a little unpredictable at times, you might prefer to keep your eyes open and gaze at a particular object in the room instead, or perhaps a point on the wall. Whichever sense you choose, try focusing on it for as long as possible, but in a very light and easy way.
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Mindfulness is about learning how to change your experience of that lifestyle.
It’s safe to assume that if you’re in a better place because you’re practising mindfulness and doing your meditation each day, then you’re going to interact with others in a more positive way as well.
By focusing less on your own worries and more on the potential happiness of others you actually create more headspace for yourself.
Maybe it’s rush hour and the road’s full of cars, or maybe it’s the middle of the night and there are very few cars at all. It doesn’t really matter which it is. The point is to get used to “holding your seat” on the side of the road and watching the traffic go by.’
meditation, within a mindful context, was not about stopping thoughts and controlling the mind. It was a process of giving up control, of stepping back, learning how to focus the attention in a passive way, while simply resting the mind in its own natural awareness.
As it turns out, though, it is in not doing that those moments arise. It is stepping back and allowing the mind to unwind in its own time and its own way that you will find a genuine sense of headspace.
In fact, think back to the last time you felt very happy and relaxed and it’s probably not so very difficult to imagine.’
‘Well then,’ he said, ‘you’ll know that if you get in a plane and fly up through the clouds, there’s nothing but blue sky on the other side. Even when it appears as though there’s nothing but big, dark, heavy clouds, there’s always blue sky there.’
It was this idea that the underlying essence of the mind, like the blue sky, is unchanging, no matter how we feel.
Exercise 3: physical sensations Put the book down for another couple of minutes and try this short exercise. We return here to the idea of being at peace with whatever is on your mind. Whereas last time you were focusing on sounds or visual objects, this time try focusing on a physical sensation. It can be the sensation of the body pressing down on the chair beneath you, the soles of the feet against the floor, or even the sensation of your hands resting on the book. The advantage of focusing on the physical sensation of touch like this is that it’s very tangible, but you may well find that
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Allow the horse to come to a natural place of rest, where it feels happy, confident and relaxed staying in one place. Sometimes it might struggle at first, but that’s fine, just loosen the rope again slightly, and gently repeat the process. If you meditate in this way then your mind will be very happy,’
‘Happiness is just happiness,’ he went on, ‘no big deal. It comes and it goes. Sadness is just sadness, no big deal. It comes and it goes. If you can give up your desire to always experience pleasant things, at the same time as giving up your fear of experiencing unpleasant things, then you’ll have a quiet mind.’
‘let go of attachment’ and ‘let go of resistance’, but how? ‘Simple. By becoming more aware,’ he said.
‘When you experience pleasant sensations in your practice, I want you to imagine sharing those feelings with other people,’
‘When you experience discomfort in your meditation, whether it’s the restlessness of a busy mind, physical tension in the body, or a challenging emotion, I want you to imagine it’s the discomfort of the people you care about. It’s as if in an act of extraordinary generosity, you are sitting with their discomfort so they don’t have
do, which means there’s no resistance. And no resistance means no tension.’
maintain the attitude of being less judgmental about the experience of meditation.
Exercise 4: focusing on pleasant or unpleasant sensations Try it right now to see how it feels. Put the book down for a couple of minutes again and use a physical sensation to focus on as you gently close the eyes. Rather than using a neutral sensation as you did last time, focus on either a pleasant or unpleasant feeling in the body. For example, maybe you feel a lightness in your hands or feet, or perhaps you feel some tension in your shoulders. Normally you’d probably try to resist the feeling of discomfort and hold on to the feeling of comfort, but what happens when you reverse it and
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Often our “idea” of a feeling is just that, an idea. When we look a little more closely, we see that the idea is actually not what we thought it was. This makes it very difficult to resist. And with no resistance, there is simply acceptance of the emotion.’
One of the most important was that the emotion itself is often not the problem. It’s the way we react to it that causes the problem.
In the context of meditation this is sometimes discussed in terms of ‘traits’ and ‘states’.
Mindfulness is the willingness to rest in that natural state of awareness, resisting the temptation to judge whatever emotion comes up, and therefore neither opposing or getting carried away with a feeling. Meditation is simply the exercise that is going to give you the best conditions to practise being mindful of these emotions. And headspace is the result of applying this approach. Headspace does not mean being free from emotions, but rather existing in a place where you are at ease with whatever emotion is present.
So we come back to the idea of gentle curiosity: watching, observing and noticing what happens in the body and mind as these emotions come and go. Remember,
It’s how we meet these emotions, how we respond to them that is important.
Another way of putting it might be ‘the intention to rest in the moment’.
It may sound obvious, but for some reason it’s easy to forget this fact. All
meditation, no matter which culture or tradition it comes from, how complicated it might appear, or what its purpose might be, relies on at least one of two essential components: concentration (usually the calming aspect) and clarity (usually the insight aspect).
It’s so hard to live life with a sense of ease and purpose if we’re always in a muddle, confused and unable to direct the mind in a particular way.
Another way of describing meditation is to use the word ‘awareness’.
‘If you’re distracted, then it’s not meditation. Only if you’re undistracted is it meditation.
taking a seat in the audience is by far the best way of watching. And it’s through developing that ability of passive observation that you get to experience the clarity and confidence to make decisions, make changes and live life more fully.
But have you ever stayed with boredom long enough to look at what it is? Is it simply a thought or a feeling of wanting to be somewhere else, of doing something different?
Think about it, how can there ever be a sense of ease resting in the present moment if the mind is hurriedly trying to get to a space and time in the future?
‘Did you awake on the in-breath or the out-breath this morning?’
But if it were that obvious, then surely we’d do it all the time, because it’s only when we’re caught up in all the thoughts that we get stressed. So for me it was the realisation that the mind can only be in one place at one time.
it’s best to think of insight as drips of water filling a bucket, rather than any great thunderbolt that might transform your life instantaneously.
mindfulness means to be present, aware of what you’re doing and where you are.
And the easiest way of doing that is to have a point of focus. Every time you realise the mind has wandered off, you simply bring your attention back to that original focal point.
the important thing is to apply the intention of awareness.
