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you’ll notice that each and every breath is actually quite unique. The same can be said of the thoughts that pass through the mind (even if sometimes it feels as though it’s the same one coming back time and again), and even physical sensations that arise in the body.
It’s perhaps the way in which you might quietly crouch behind a tree while watching a wild animal. Because you’re so captivated and engaged, you’re 100 percent focused on what you’re watching. You are aware of the immediacy of the moment, free from impatience, not wanting the animal to do something, but content to watch it just as it
Try to do it without any judgment or analysis, but more with a sense of just building up a picture of how the body feels right now.
people who practice mindfulness techniques experience negative emotions less intensely than those who do not. They found that by “labeling” these emotions and thereby becoming more aware of them, the intensity was significantly reduced.
intention to remain focused, relaxed, and with that natural quality of awareness
“the intention to rest in the moment.”
relies on at least one of two essential components: concentration (usually the calming aspect) and clarity (usually the insight aspect).
order to get the very most from meditation, you’ll probably want to integrate it with your everyday life. And in order to do that, you’ll need to add the second component—clarity. This way you get to see what’s causing the tension in the first place,
the quieter the mind, the greater the clarity.
So maybe it’s more useful to think about clarity in terms of a steady unfolding of the mind, an increasingly direct insight into what’s happening.
it was the way in which I’d been spoken to that ignited the anger. But from there on in, it was entirely my own work. That doesn’t defend the attitude of the monk, but allowed me to take responsibility for the part I played in the continuation of that anger.
“If you’re distracted, then it’s not meditation. Only if you’re undistracted is it meditation. There’s no such thing as good and bad meditation, there is only distracted or undistracted, aware or unaware.”
When you sit to meditate it’s a little like watching this play. The images and voices are not you, in the same way that the play or the film is not you. It’s an unfolding story that you’re watching, observing and witnessing.
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?
actually very rare that the body and mind are together at the same place and the same time.
As I say, this entire process of checking-in should take about five minutes to begin with, and if you only have five minutes to spare, then only do this part of the exercise—that’s how important it is. Without going through this process, there’s very little benefit to jumping ahead and focusing on the breath.
There are no prizes for making it to 10 (I’m sorry to say) and so it doesn’t matter whether you start again at 1 or not. In fact, it can be quite funny in how difficult it is to make it to 10 each time, and it’s okay to laugh if you feel like laughing. For some reason meditation can look very serious and it can be tempting to start treating it like “serious work.” But the more you can bring a sense of humor to it, a sense of play, the easier and more enjoyable you’ll find it.
The scientists found that the areas of the brain which regulate pain and emotion were significantly thicker in meditators compared to non-meditators. This is important, because the thicker the region, the lower the pain sensitivity.
the first question the teacher would ask me each day was “Did you awake on the in-breath or the out-breath this morning?”
in being 100 percent present with the process of walking, with the physical sensation itself, I wasn’t experiencing any thoughts. If I was truly present with one thing, then I couldn’t be present with another at the same time. So,
best to think of insight as drips of water filling a bucket, rather than any great thunderbolt that might transform your life instantaneously.
Again, mindfulness means to be present, aware of what you’re doing and where you are. You don’t have to do anything differently from how you would normally do it. The only thing you need to do is be aware. And the easiest way of doing that is to have a point of focus.
makes me laugh, because it suggests that normally we’re so focused on the words, feelings and sensitivities of others that we couldn’t possibly have time to focus on anything else. Needless to say, this is rarely the
point of training the mind is to become more aware. You have the same amount of time to do this whether you’re sitting in the temple with your eyes closed or whether you’re sweeping the courtyard with your eyes open!”
But mind training is so much more flexible than that. The practice of mindfulness shows us how we can apply the same quality of mind to everything we
The one thing that remains the same throughout the day is that your thinking dictates the way you feel. In the absence of awareness, the realm of thought takes over.
the line representing your sense of awareness (and therefore your emotional stability) throughout the day, then this is obviously very good news.
The implication of this is that it’s simply no longer possible to think about where you’d rather be, what you’d rather be doing, or wishing that things were different from the way they are (all the types of thinking that usually leave you feeling stressed out), because you’ll be present with whatever you’re doing instead.
With a genuine sense of remorse he said, “Where have I been all my life?”
However, the reverse is also true. What good is meditation if it doesn’t change the way you feel and behave in life? Remember, the point of getting more headspace is to make your own life and the lives of the people around you more comfortable.
I found that the direct experience of the food was quite different to my idea of it. Similarly, foods that I’d once enjoyed as an idea, but were probably not all that good for me, became less of an obsession.
actually started paying close attention to how the food made me feel,
If we step out of thoughts for long enough to notice and appreciate the richness of life around us, then undoubtedly that’s going to feel quite vivid compared to our usual dull state when we are lost in thought.
Notice how the mind habitually wants to create a story out of each of the smells, how it reminds you of somewhere, something or someone.
When you get to the end of that street, start again, as though it’s a new exercise each time. This can make it feel much more manageable.
It’s a focus that is perfectly balanced between an awareness of their own physicality and movement, and the changing environment around them.
sustained naturalness in which they appear to move gracefully and effortlessly. It’s as though they are putting in much less effort than anyone else, and yet performing that much better.
The body and mind are not separate. When we have presence of mind we have presence of body, when we possess mental focus we possess physical focus, and when we have an ease of mind we have an ease of body.
These changes seemed to coincide with me focusing less on the result, and more on simply being in the moment with each and every movement.
And the only reason for this is the tendency to go inward, to become lost in thought. So remember that idea of gentle curiosity, not frantically trying to notice
Because you’re more present and more aware, it’s quite likely that the way you think when you run (your mental habits) will also become more apparent. Do you have a tendency to be hard or kind to yourself when you’re running?
Where does the mind instinctively go? Is it inward toward
thinking, or outward toward sensation...
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exercise. You can also notice when the body begins to respond to the running process, when it releases the endorphins, when you start to feel invincible,
Rather than try to “get away” from physical discomfort, see what happens when you rest your attention with the feeling. Try doing it as if you and the pain are not really separate, so less of “me and my pain” and more of the simple, direct experience of “pain.” The results might surprise you.
see what happens when you rest your attention with the feeling. Try doing it as if you and the pain are not really separate, so less of “me and my pain” and more of the simple, direct experience of “pain.”
When you first notice the pain, the instinctive reaction will be to resist it, to get rid of it, which will usually involve either stopping or beginning a long mental battle to try to forcibly overcome it, ignore it, or suppress it in some way.
action when necessary. However, if you feel you can continue without doing any lasting damage, then try moving even closer to the discomfort, as if you are sinking down into that feeling and experiencing it in a very direct way.
of your run, simply monitoring the amount of effort being applied.
I often hear this process being described as insomnia (because we like to give labels to things), but if it only happens every so often, then it’s perhaps more accurate to describe it as being human.
