Mindfulness in Daily Life:

Shadow

Becoming aware of the interplay of light and shadow is great fun! Whenever you can (whenever you remember!) notice whatever shadows are present in your immediate environment. You may discover a subtle shading of the pepper shaker on your kitchen table or a sharp display of a tree’s limbs on the pavement. This practice encourages you to SEE the spaces in between the objects of our lives. Sunny days are wonderful for this practice, but cloudy orindoor days require a keener eye. As always, notice your judgments (“wow!” or “whatever…”) and come back to simply seeing. Consciously attending to this play of light and shadow opens us up to the extraordinary nature of the ordinary.

HOME PRACTICE GUIDELINES #4

“Mindfulness is often likened to a mirror; it simply reflects what is there.”

~Larry Rosenberg

We are now asking you to sit or walk for 20 minutes a day!

Seated practice
This week we ask you to open your awareness to include a broader spectrum of what shows up on the cushion. While you are still focusing (and returning to) the breath, you are allowing for greater awareness of what draws you away, particularly the feeling tone of what draws you away. Is a sound, sensation or thought pleasant, unpleasant or neutral?

Our emotional world is driven by an interplay of sensations in the body and thoughts in the mind: thoughts trigger sensations, which trigger more thoughts and so on. We are not interested right now in the content of the thoughts so much as our emotional response to whatever is arising (including thoughts) in the moment.

As we begin to open to the complex world of emotions and thoughts, it is helpful to be familiar with what is classically referred to as the “hindrances:”
The Hindrances
1) Restlessness (worrying, remorse, agitation)
2) Sloth & Torpor (sleepiness, boredom)
3) Desire (wanting, attachment)
4) Aversion (anger, frustration, irritation, fear)
5) Doubt

Remember to honor these hindrances as guests—we aren’t denying or pushing them away but we also aren’t letting them decide who we are, take over our house and run the show.

Gatha Walking
Gatha Walking is simply a meditative walking practice in which we use a “gatha” or verse as the focus of our meditation. The gatha we are offering in class is from Thich Nhat Han:

When I walk the mind will wander.
With each sound the mind returns.
With each breath the heart is open.
With each step I touch this earth.

"...to experience the mind thoroughly and fully just as it is, with whatever level of clarity we have. As we do that, we begin to see that mindfulness takes the energy out of our mind states, so that they arise but no longer have so much power to push us around. We no longer act automatically at their commands...We've grown intimate with these mind states, and that changes our relation to them...we are learning to observe these states in a friendly way, instead of identifying with them, resisting them, or rejecting them."

~Larry Rosenberg
Breath by Breath

Ahhh, It's time to sit!

Join Rebecca & Jenn as we dive into
thoughts, emotions, feeling tones!

Meditation this Sunday,
11/7/2010,
630 - 8pm

Mindfulness in Daily Life

Sound

Whenever you can (whenever you remember!) notice whatever sounds are present. Hear the tone quality, the loudness, softness, continuity, sharpness, dullness, roundness, even the silence underneath. Notice the sounds of walking, eating, cooking, breathing, going to the bathroom, computer keys clicking, voices, wind, cars, birds, plumbing, whatever it is. And of course, notice if you have a “relationship” to the sound—a drawing in or a pushing away. How does that relationship, positive or negative, get in the way of hearing the sound just as it is, without judgment? As always, meet whatever shows up with curiosity and acceptance, and then come back to the physical quality of the sound itself. Enjoy!!

Breath

Breath, the mindful breath,
the rhythm, out and in,
the wave that washes
through our days, creating
space for stillness, sorrow,
joy, or exaltation. Full,
then empty, ebb and flow,
breath accompanies each
step into the unknown.
In the breath, the soul
finds an opportunity to
speak. Images or intuition,
poetry or wordless wisdom,
come and go - no effort but
to breathe and listen.

~Danna Faulds

HOME PRACTICE GUIDELINES #3

“Always mindful, the meditator breathes in; mindful, the meditator breathes out.”
~Anapanasati Sutra

This week we ask you to really focus and steady your seated practice on the breath. Choose one specific place in the body where the breath sensation is strong (below the nose, the chest, the belly) to be the “anchor” of your meditation and stick with it. All manner of distractions may arise (sounds, other sensations in the body, thoughts, emotions, etc.) but your intention is to simply notice these distractions and return to your anchor-- over and over again.

If a body sensation other than breath becomes very strong, explore it in the way we’ve been practicing, staying interested in the changes and moving with intention and awareness if need be. As the “pull” of the sensation diminishes, return your attention to the breath.

Instead of increasing the length of your daily sit (which if you are following along with us is now 15 minutes a day) focus this week on strengthening whatever commitment you have made to yourself. This is not a suggestion that we judge ourselves for falling short, but rather that we bring an extra bit of will into the mix and see what happens. You might recall why you made the commitment in the first place. Or, you may identify where your commitment tends to break down and come up with an alternative plan.

If even getting to the cushion seems impossible, make a commitment to simply sit down, notice, and then move on to the next thing. If you happen to feel like noticing a breath or two great, but for many people, the act of simply sitting down with the intention to meditate is a big step.

Supports to concentration

In / Out: Many people find that a soft gentle label (“in” as the breath enters, “out” as the breath exits) supports their ability to stay with the breath. When concentration grows, you can release the label and just be with the direct experience of the breath itself.

Counting: There are many traditional methods of counting to help build concentration. One easy strategy is to count backwards from 10 to 1 for each breath. Whenever the mind wanders, you start back at 10 again. Once you are able to move through a number of full sets without getting distracted, release counting and stay with the direct experience of the breath.

“Breath”/”not breath”: Begin by imagining a blank screen and anchoring your awareness to the breath as we’ve been doing. Then, with as much vigilance as you can muster, notice whenever anything shows up on the screen that is “not-breath.” There is no judgment here!

We are simply learning to identify all those moments where something other than our breath has our attention.

Next class: this Sunday, October 17th, 6:30pm

In our next class (October 17), we will move from the general experience of the whole body to the direct experience of the breath. We will explore this basic life giving force in a myriad of ways while continuing to strengthen our concentration muscles. Why the breath? Aside from being utterly profound (essentially the difference between life & death!), the breath also happens to be a simple and accessible doorway into the present moment, and therefore a very useful tool in developing mindfulness...

Speaking of which, here is a nice reminder of what this mindfulness thing is all about:

"Mindfulness can be described as intentionally paying attention to the present moment without being pulled into the mind’s usual elaborations of judgment, internal dialog and the emotional reactions such elaborations can trigger. It is being with the experience of the moment with gentle compassion and a strong disciplined intention to simply stay present with whatever is happening in the moment, allowing space for the experience to rise and fall away without adding our usual overlay of suffering, frustration or panic." ~John Steven Shealy

Ah yes... staying present without adding our usual overlay of suffering, frustration and panic... sounds like a pretty good idea, no?

See you on Sunday!

Best,
Rebecca (& Jenn)