Tag: mindfulness

A common pitfall: “I know, it’s obvious”

moe Leave a comment

I once listened to a podcast where one of the hosts – who is typically quite intellectual and takes pride in it – talked about his experience with mindfulness. He had taken a course and said he didn’t get much out of it. Why? Because the instructor said things he already knew and were obvious, for instance that “we are not our thoughts”.

Knowing about versus direct noticing

Yes, we all know we are not our thoughts, at least intellectually and from our own understanding of what it means. But that’s not what it’s about. It’s about exploring it for ourselves. When we look, what do we find? What do we find in our immediate experience, outside of thought? That’s very different from knowing something intellectually.

Memory versus direct noticing

At some point, we may have a direct experience of how we are not our thoughts. This may be reflected in our thoughts. (We think about it, talk about it with ourselves.) And after, we may know it through memory. And that too is very different from noticing it here and now. Whatever the memory points to will be new, fresh, and different as we explore it here and now.

We can discover more when we set aside the idea that “I know”

In this case, with the “we are not our thoughts” pointer, it may also be that he would discover something surprising had he only set aside his “knowing mind” and explored it for himself with some receptivity and curiosity.

Perhaps he thought he was this human self, and not his thoughts? Perhaps he would have found that he instead is capacity for the world as it appears to him, including this human self? Perhaps he would have discovered that what he is, is what all his experience – including this human self, thoughts, and the world as it appears to him – happens within and as?

Perhaps he would have discovered that when we are identified with something, for instance this human self, it’s actually an identification with or as the viewpoint of a thought? On the surface, it may seem silly to say “we are not our thoughts” if we think we are this human self. But, in reality, our identifications are with thoughts – including the thought of being this human self. We assume we are the the thoughts, although we may not always notice it.

Wherever we are in the process, and however much we have discovered, there is a world of difference between the memory and thought and the immediate noticing, and there is always more to discover. If we explore something with sincerity and receptivity, we may find that we surprise ourselves.

The terrain is different from the map

As many have pointed out, this is the difference between the map and the terrain. Or reading a menu and eating the food. Or hearing about a place and being there.

I may know a lot about a place through second hand information. I may be able to talk about it as if I have been there. But that’s very different from actually being there. And even if I am personally very familiar with a place, there is always more and new things to discover.

The terrain is always more than and different from any map. The maps are different in nature from the terrain. And even within their realm of ideas, the maps all come from a certain limited point of view, reflect a certain limited worldview, and highlight certain limited aspects of the terrain. No matter how familiar we are with the terrain, they also reflect a very limited experience.

In real life: often a combination

When I write here, I notice there is often a combination. I notice something in immediacy and I write partly from memory (phrases, points) and partly from immediate noticing. They go hand-in-hand.

And it’s good to set aside the pointers for a while, even if it’s just a little while, and be with the immediacy of what it points to. It will be fresh and new, and we may discover something we hadn’t discovered before.

tagged: meditation, mindfulness, pitfalls, receptivity   

Quote: I have decided to stop being self-aware

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I have decided to stop being self-aware…. what I do is none of my business

– I’m baby on social media

Although this can seem like a joke, there is more to it. I’ll look at each of the two main parts of the quote.

What I do is none of my business

When we find ourselves as capacity for all content of experience – the world as it appears to us and everything to do with this human self – we also see that it all lives its own life. The world and this human self doesn’t need an additional layer of “I am this human”, “I am doing this”, “I chose to do that” to function. It already functions well independent of it.

In a very real sense, what I do is none of my business.

Of course, as a human being in the world, I am responsible for my actions and how I chose to relate to my thoughts, emotions, and circumstances.

And as capacity for all of it, I find that it’s all living its own life.

The two complement each other and are two sides of the same coin.

I have decided to stop being self-aware

Mindfulness with “shoulds” added to it can become tight and stressful.

Find a lighter touch. See how it is to notice that allowing and noticing is already here. It’s inherent in what we are. No great extra effort is needed.

This easy noticing is, in a sense, the end of trying to be self-aware. It’s just a noticing that it’s already here and inherent in what we are.

Getting to that easy noticing sometimes does involve some effort and struggle. At first, the apparently unnecessary effort and struggle may be just what’s needed.

tagged: mindfulness, quote, who and what we are   

How we relate to our thoughts

moe Leave a comment

One of the benefits of exploring how our mind functions – through mindfulness, inquiry and so on – is that it changes our relationship with our thoughts.

From believing our thoughts we may realize that they offer questions about the world, hold no final or absolute truth, and it works better if we find the grace to hold them lightly.

Instead of fighting with out thoughts, we may realize that it’s easier to examine them and find what’s more true.

Instead of fearing certain thoughts, we may find that by examining them and finding what’s more true, we also find peace.

Instead of thinking we control – or should control – our thoughts, we may find they come and go and live their own life and that’s completely OK.

Instead of thinking we can “chose” to believe a thought or not, we may find that all we can do is examine them and through that magic sometimes happen.

Notes: I saw a very brief article about meta-cognitive therapy which seems to be one of the new hot things today. Apparently, it has to do with how we think about our thoughts so I thought I would write a brief post about what comes up for me around it.

Because of that article, I wrote “how we think about our thoughts” as the initial title, partly because I thought it sounded more snappy. But I changed it since how we think about our thoughts is not so important. It’s how we relate to our thoughts that matters, and that’s far more than just thinking.

tagged: beliefs, inquiry, mindfulness, thoughts   

Changing our relationship to our thoughts

moe Leave a comment

It’s very important for me to “not think.” I do enough thinking. You can just “be.”

– Ringo Starr in Parade Magazine

I am surprised a long-time mediator talks about it this way. If course, he can be misquoted and it may be taken out of context, and he may have more to say about it if asked.

Basic meditation and mindfulness is not about not thinking or getting rid of thoughts, at least not as we conventionally understand it.

In one sense, it’s about noticing thoughts and anything else here, anything happening in our sense fields. Notice and allow. (And to be fair to Ringo Starr, that may be just what he means which means the wording in the interview is misleading.)

In another sense, it’s about thoughts – usually gradually and over time – losing their charge. When they have a charge, they seem true, important, and something we need to pay attention to (i.e. go into as if they are true and keep spinning and elaborating the story). As they lose the charge, it’s easier to notice they are thoughts – perhaps with a charge — passing through. We don’t need to pay much attention to them or elaborate or act on them unless they inform us about something practical we need to take care of.

This tends to happen over time with regular mindfulness practice. And it can be greatly helped and speeded up through inquiry, for instance, traditional Buddhist inquiry, its modern variety Living Inquiries, or even The Work of Byron Katie or some forms of cognitive therapy.

So basic meditation is about changing our relationship to our thoughts and not getting rid of them. As someone said, the mind creates thoughts just like a flower creates smells. It’s the natural function of the mind, and essential for our survival and functioning in the world.

Over time, we may find we appreciate our thoughts as we appreciate the smell of flowers. We may even find we appreciate the apparently stressful ones, at least sometimes and perhaps more often.

tagged: beliefs, inquiry, meditation, mindfulness, thoughts   

Mindfulness for relaxation?

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As the modern exploration of practices from various spiritual traditions matures, so does our awareness of the upsides and downsides of these practices, and useful precautions.

For instance, it’s a bit naive to promote mindfulness for relaxation. These practices were evolved for awakening, not relaxation. Relaxation may be an initial pleasant side-effect. But mindfulness practices are liable to eventually take the lid off unprocessed psychological material, and that can be surprising (if nobody told us), frightening, and overwhelming (especially if we don’t have guidance from someone familiar with the process).

This can happen early on, in rare cases even in our initial experience with meditation. And it’s reasonably likely to happen, to some extent and at some point, if we stick with a mindfulness practice over time. This depends a bit on what type of mindfulness practice we engage in, but it can happen with even the most watered-down versions.

So what are some precautions? Participants in mindfulness courses should be informed about what may happen. (“Mindfulness” here can mean yoga, tai chi, chi gong, and various types of meditation.) The instructor should be trained in recognizing it when it happens and either know how to help people through it or send the person to someone qualified to guide them through it. And if someone has a history of trauma, including developmental trauma, they need to know that it’s more likely to happen in their case, they should be encouraged to get help to heal from the trauma, and if they still want to continue with the mindfulness practice, to take it slowly.

Why does it tend to happen? One way to see it is that mindfulness (or awakening) practices aim at opening the mind to what we are, and that tends to also open the mind to whatever in us is not yet processed. Also, mindfulness tends to invite in a healing of the mind, and that includes meeting what in us is previously unmet. Awakening tends to go into unawakening when a wounded part of us is triggered, and bringing these to the surface gives them a chance to be healed. And an intrinsic part of the awakening path is embodiment, and embodiment – living from whatever clarity, kindness, and wisdom is here – can only take place to the extent we are healed psychologically.

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tagged: mindfulness, taking the lid off, trauma, unprocessed psychological material   

Basic forms of meditation: attention, notice, insights, heart, body

moe Leave a comment

Here are a few basic forms of meditation. All of them are reasonably universal and they are – in their essential form – found in several different traditions. As with any skill, it’s helpful to be guided by someone who are experienced, and our own skills and understanding will develop with experience.

Training a more stable attention. This is helpful for just about anything in life, whether it’s work, studying, hobbies, relationships, or any inner or spiritual practice. It helps us bring our attention to something in a more stable way and for as long as we wish. It makes our attention a more useful and pliable tool for us. As a bonus, a more stable attention tends to bring in a sense of well being and grounding.

The easiest way of training this is to bring attention to the sensations of the breath (chest, nose, tip of nose), notice when it goes to something else, and then gently bring it back to the sensations. We can also use other objects: sounds, imagined or visual imagery etc.

This practice also gives us some insights into how the mind works. We notice that attention tends to go somewhere else, almost always to thoughts that have a charge, and it seems to go there on its own. We can also notice which thoughts attention tends to go to, notice the charge and that there may be something unresolved around it, and then explore it through inquiry or a healing approach, perhaps allowing it to resolve and the charge goes out of it. In a small way, this may give a greater sense of well being, allow us to function better in life, and make it easier for attention to stably rest on whatever we intend.

Notice and allow. The basic form is to notice and allow. Notice what’s here in the sense fields (sight, sound, sensations, smell, taste, thoughts). Allow it to be as it is.

Again, this can give us some simple insights. We may notice that what’s here is already allowed – by life, mind, space – to be here as is, and that it’s more restful to notice this. As before, we may notice attention going to thoughts with a charge. We can also explore noticing the space it all happens within and as.

We may notice the effects of this noticing and allowing. We may notice that it creates a sense of space around whatever happens. Attention may not be immediately caught up and drawn into thoughts with a charge. And that this becomes easier and more of a habit the more we do it.

As with training a more stable attention, we may also find that this noticing and allowing helps us in everyday life and that it brings with it a sense of well-being and grounding. (When attention is less caught up in charged thoughts, there is often a sense of well being and grounding.)

Insights. Insights can come as a byproduct of any of these explorations. When we over time notice how we function, insights are almost inevitable. Insights can also come through inquiry, and especially through more structured forms of inquiry such as The Work, Living Inquiries, or just noticing what’s happening in the sense fields (including thoughts).

These structured forms of inquiry are like training wheels, and although we may never outgrow them (or wish to do so), becoming familiar with them tends to lead to more spontaneous helpful noticing and simple forms on inquiry in everyday situations.

The main insights we may get from these inquiries is how thoughts combine with sensations, so sensations lend a sense of solidity, reality, and truth to the thoughts, and the thoughts lend a sense of meaning to the sensations. This is how thoughts get a charge, and how beliefs, identifications, reactivity, compulsions, and more are created.

Heart-centered. Heart-centered practices help us change our relationship to ourselves, others, the world, life, situations, and parts of ourselves. They help us shift from seeing (some of) them as a problem, mistake, or something that needs to go away, to genuinely befriending them. As with the explorations above, this tends to bring in a greater sense of well-being, ease, and grounding. And as my old Zen teacher used to say, we tend to become less of a nuisance to others….!

Some of my favorites here are tonglen (from Tibetan Buddhism), ho’oponopono (Hawaii), and all-inclusive gratitude practices. (See other articles for more on these.)

Continuous prayer. I’ll add this since it’s found in many traditions and can be a powerful and transformative practice. Say a brief prayer along with the in- and out-breath and the heart beats. Do it as often as you remember, and set aside time to do this exclusively. Over time, this will become a continuous prayer. You will even have a sense of it happening while you sleep.

The Christian version is the Jesus prayer or heart prayer: Lord Jesus Christ (on in-breath), have mercy on me (on outbreath). And synchronize the words with the heart beat (for instance, one heart beat for the three first words, then another, then one on “have mercy”, another for “on”, and then one on “me”).

Body-centered. These are the familiar ones, including yoga, chi gong, tai chi, Breema, and many others. Ordinary forms of physical activity can also be included here, if we bring our noticing and allowing to the sensations and movements of the body.

I won’t say too much about these since they are reasonably well known in our society today. We bring our noticing to the sensations and movements of the body, and what’s described above under training attention and noticing applies here too. And these explorations too tend to bring in a deeper sense of well-being and grounding, and we may also experience ourselves – at a human level – more as a whole.

These are all practical approaches to exploring ourselves and our relationship with ourselves and the world. They tend to bring in a sense of well being, ease, and grounding, perhaps first as we engage in these and then more stably in our life in general. They tend to invite in healing and a noticing of what we really are.

An important aspect of any spiritual practice is what it may bring up in us that needs meeting, clarity, or healing.

At times, these practices may rub up against our beliefs, identifications, and habits. So we notice these, and can take them to inquiry, heart practices, or whatever healing work we are doing. This is an important aspect of any spiritual practice, at least if we wish to be thorough.

Healing work in general is an important complement to any of these practices. We will, inevitably, encounter parts of us that needs healing, so it’s helpful we are are familiar with effective forms of healing work, or can go to someone who are.

These practices may also bring up old wounds and trauma. Any good guide or coach will inform about this in advance, keep an eye on our practice to minimize the chances of it happening in a traumatic way, and offer guidance through it should it happen.

The last part is, unfortunately, often overlooked or not mentioned by people offering these practices to the public. I assume there will be a greater understanding of and transparency about it with time as it is an aspect of spiritual practice it’s important to be aware of.

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tagged: heart prayer, heart-centered practice, ho'oponopono, inquiry, jesus prayer, meditation, mindfulness, natural rest, shikantaza, tonglen   

Present with being on autopilot

moe Leave a comment

When we notice what’s here, what do we notice?

Mostly, we notice sensory experiences and this human self doing, feeling, thinking, and so on.

We may notice it’s all happening within and as awareness.

And we may also notice a range of other things. One of these is that this human self is on autopilot in two different ways.

He is on autopilot in that he is doing things on his own. He operates on his own. The more mind has released identification as being this human self, the more he is seen as operating on his own. He is on autopilot. This can be a disconcerning discovery, but as we get used to it it’s a relief.

He is also on autopilot in a more conventional sense. A lot of daily tasks are automated. They don’t require a lot of scrutiny. This is evolution’s way to help us free up resources to the occasional tasks that do require more intention and effort.

We are present with this human self. And this human self is operating on his own. And a lot of daily tasks are automated. So in both of these ways, he is – in the best possible way – on autopilot.

In this context, being on autopilot does not mean being distracted or absent minded. It means being present with this human self while he is on autopilot in these two ways.

Note: How do we discover that this human self is operating on his or her own? How is identification released? It can happen in different ways. Sometimes, glimpses of all as the One helps soften and release identifications. Sometimes, it comes through active investigation and exploration – for instance inquiry, healing work, and energy work.

And a personal note: For me, it was disconcerning to discover that this human self operates on his own. There was a bit of fear coming up. If “nobody is there” to take care of business, how can he function? But he does. He knows very well how to function. Life lives his life. The One lives his life.

It’s always that way, for all of us. Life or the One lives our lives. And the initial noticing may bring up slight worry.

The second form of autopilot is a no-brainer. We need to automate a wide range of tasks in daily life to even be able to function. It’s evolution’s gifts to us.

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tagged: mindfulness, present, who and what we are   

Mindfulness to deal with burnout?

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I usually don’t write about mainstream psychology here since it’s covered well many other places. But the topic of burnout has been on my mind lately as I have helped with a thesis on the topic and it illustrates a more general point.

In the mindfulness world, mindfulness is sometimes promoted as an antidote to burnout. And that’s true enough. It can certainly help individuals to be more resilient and reduce the chances of burnout.

At the same time, mindfulness is an individual solution to a more systemic problem. In most cases of workplace burnout, the problems lies with the structures and the system. It has to do with how the business is organized and operated. It has to do with the owner and management.

And beyond that, it has to do with how we have organized ourselves collectively. It has to do with our current social and economic system, and especially the very obvious downsides to neoliberalism.

Beyond that again, it has to do with our most basic worldview. We currently have a worldview that separates humans from nature, values the material over the immaterial, the human over rest of life, and too often values profit over people.

As individuals we function in a larger social and ecological system, and that’s where most of the causes and solutions to burnout – and a range of other apparently individual problems – lie.

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tagged: burnout, mindfulness, politics, psychology   

Pitfalls of meditation

moe Leave a comment

As different forms of meditation practice become more popular in the west, there is also a growing awareness of the possible pitfalls of meditation.

Here are a few:

We may be guided – either by ourselves or through a teacher – by misguided ideas. This may lead us to inadvertently practice or reinforce something unhelpful.

We may open up to various transcendent states and experiences and not know how to navigate them.

We may open up a Pandora’s Box of unprocessed psychological material.

In general, we may enter certain areas of the path or landscape without good guidance. Areas that are not fruitful. Or areas that are confusing, disorienting, and sometimes scary or overwhelming. That’s why it’s important to have access to a guide who understands and knows the terrain well from their own experience. Unfortunately, that’s often not

Unfortunately, many teachers – including many who have a formal training within a certain tradition – have a very limited skillset and experience. If anything slightly out of the ordinary happens, they may not know how to guide the student through it.

And fortunately, there are people out there who have this experience and the necessary skillset. What I have seen is that these are often people who are not bound by any one tradition. They may have training and experience from one or more tradition. But they also know and understand that the terrain we are exploring is far wider than any tradition typically covers, and that the pointers and skills needed to navigate is found in many different traditions and also outside of any tradition.

Of course, I am biased. The previous paragraph describes my own path and background, and the background of those who have guided me, so that’s naturally what I am more familiar with and inclined to see as helpful.

tagged: guidance, meditation, mindfulness, pitfalls, spiritual teachers   

Misunderstanding “living in the moment”

moe Leave a comment

There are several valid criticisms of mindfulness:

  • It’s a very broad term and it’s used in many different ways. That means that, in itself, it doesn’t mean much.
  • It’s only one element of any serious self-exploration. It needs to be combined with a range of other forms of exploration. For instance different forms of inquiry, heart-centered practices, body inclusive practices, attention to how we live our life, psychological healing, relationship work including our relationship to ourselves, others, society, our planet, and life, and a study of other people’s experiences.
  • It can open up a pandora’s box of unprocessed materials and disorienting transpersonal experiences, and not all mindfulness teachers are experienced enough to guide their students through whatever terrain is opened up.

One argument against mindfulness that I sometimes encounter, and most recently this morning, is a straw man argument and not valid. It’s when people say: “We can’t just live in the present. We need to plan ahead and learn from the past. That’s our strength as human beings.”

That’s all true. And mindfulness allows us to use that ability with more skill and avoid some of its inherent pitfalls.

Mindfulness helps us change our relationship to thoughts. It helps us see that our thoughts – including thoughts about the future, past, and present – happen here and now. They, in themselves, are not the future, past, or present. And mindfulness combined with a simple form of inquiry helps us see that thoughts are made up of imaginations (words, images) and sensations. They are not what they appear to represent.

And that, in turn, creates room for us to relate to these thoughts more intentionally. It helps us recognize thoughts as thoughts. It helps us be less caught up in them. It helps us avoid taking them as anything more than thoughts. It helps us hold them more lightly and recognize then for what they are….. questions about the world.

We not only are able to “live in the present” while using thoughts as tools. We do so all of the time. The only difference is whether we are caught up in our thoughts and take them as real and infallible assumptions about the world, or recognize them as thoughts and questions about the world.

In either case, thoughts help us learn from the past, explore possibilities about the future, and form working assumptions about the present. Without mindfulness, it’s easy for us to take thoughts to be more than they are. And with, we can use them more skillfully as very helpful and essential tools.

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tagged: mindfulness, present, thoughts   

Mindful & Mindfull

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I don’t usually use the word mindfulness. Mainly because I prefer the word noticing, and also because I often am more interested in other aspects of the exploration.

The way I understand mindfulness is noticing.

A noticing of content of experience, which can be differentiated into sensory experiences and imagination (mental representations of sensory experiences, words).

A noticing of how sensory experiences (and especially sensations) and imaginations come together to create experiences that seem real, solid, and substantial. A noticing how how this sense of reality dissolves when we do the forms of noticing described here.

A noticing of space outside and inside of this content of experience.

A noticing of all as awareness.

A noticing of the emptiness all of that happens within and as.

And so on.

There is another way of understanding mindfulness which I like. Mind-full = noticing the mind “full” of presence. The whole field of experience is already and always presence. (Or awareness, or awake space, or emptiness allowing all of this.) And as we notice this, the “center of gravity” can shift from being caught in content of experience to this “context” of all experience. We may even notice this presence as what we are. Content of experience is presence. (And there is an emptiness which all this happens within and as, which all also and more fundamentally is.)

tagged: mindfulness, talking about   

Viktor Frankl: In that space is our power to choose our response

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frankl

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

– Viktor Emil Frankl

This is, of course, an essential part of mindfulness.

Notice the stimulus, notice the (automatic) response. Notice how my mind creates its experience of the stimulus. Notice the associations. Notice the response.

The more noticing and the more noticing of the space its all happening within, the more space there is to relate to both more intentionally.

tagged: mindfulness, noticing, viktor frankl   

Why mindfulness?

moe Leave a comment

Mindfulness is a word that’s currently used to mean a lot of different things.

I tend to understand it as noticing content of experience. The content of experience that’s here now, whether it’s  sensory experiences and imaginations of sensory experiences (aka mental images, sounds and images making up words, sounds, taste, smell, sensations).

Why would we do that? I can find a few different reasons:

I get to notice how sensory experiences and imagination combine. For instance, I get to see how sensations combine with imagination to lend this imagination a sense of solidity and reality, and how imagination gives a sense of meaning to sensations.

It helps me shift from thinking to noticing thought. It helps me shift out from being caught in thinking. More precisely, it helps attention shift out of being caught in the content of stories and instead notice that these are imaginations and stories.

It helps me relate to all this in a more intentional way. For instance, I can more intentionally relate to my own reactivity (velcro, beliefs, identifications). It gives me a little more space to recognize that I can relate to my own experience and reactions in a more intentional way. I don’t have to automatically act on whatever is triggered in me.

It helps me notice that what’s here is already noticed and already allowed. This content of experience is already noticed and allowed, and noticing this helps shift the “center of gravity” to that noticing and allowing already here. It’s already built into experience.

It helps me notice what’s here, so I can take it to inquiry and explore it further.

To me, mindfulness is just one aspect of this exploration. In one way, it’s a helpful stepping stone to further exploration. In another way, it’s an essential element of any exploration of our experience, reality, and who and what we are.

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tagged: inquiry, intention, mindfulness, noticing   

Mindfulness of form, and form as awareness

moe Leave a comment

I went to a talk at Spirit Rock tonight, and the teacher mentioned that it doesn’t matter so much what the attention is on as long as we are aware of what it’s on.

It reminded me of bi-directional attention, which has been interesting to me since the initial opening.

Attention can be on something within content, within form, an image, a word, sensations, taste, smell and so on.

Attention can also be on awareness itself. It can be on content of experience as awareness itself.

It’s not really bi-directional. I notice I wrote that since that’s how I thought of it back then.

Now, it’s more just a noticing of form, and awareness as – or making up, or constituting – that form. I can feel a sensation. Notice the space within and around it. And notice it all as awareness. And the same with an image. A word. A sound. Taste. Smell.

I can also explore what seems the most as “me” or “I”, and notice that too as sensations, images, perhaps words. Feel the sensations. Look at the images, words. Notice the space within and around it. Rest with it. Notice all as awareness. Rest with it.

This is a form of mindfulness that makes sense of me.

tagged: attention, awareness, mindfulness   

Mindfulness?

moe Leave a comment

Mindfulness has been very popular the last few years, both as practice (for a wider audience) and as a topic of research.

I rarely use the word, partly because I don’t know exactly what it refers to, and partly because other terms seem more specific and cover what I wish to talk about.

Taken literally, mindfulness may mean being mindful of – or bring attention to – something, for instance the breath or dynamics of the mind or how we behave in daily life.

To me, it makes more sense to divide it up into (a) training a more stable attention, for instance through bringing attention to the sensations of the breath, or movements, or even an image. (b) Natural rest, shifting attention – or center of gravity, what I take myself to be – to that which already allows and is the field of experience, as it is now. And (d) inquiry, a natural curiosity into immediate experience, whether it’s a belief, trying to find an identity or threat or command, or a separate self, or something else.

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tagged: mindfulness   

Mindfulness, including of doer and observer

moe Leave a comment

Something simple about mindfulness….

In mindfulness practice, I can notice what is happening in the different sense fields. Sensations. Sights. Sounds. Smell. Taste. Mental field activity. 

And included here is noticing the doer and observer. What is it that appears to be doing this practice? What is it that appears to be observing? For me, I find a set of sensations in the head area, and a set of images in the mental field. The doer and observer too is content of awareness, just as any other content of awareness. 

In this way, mindfulness practice shifts into and includes atma vichara, self-inquiry, and becomes even more inclusive and helpful. 

If the doer and observer is left out, mindfulness practice may only reinforce an unconcious (pre-conscious) identification with the doer/observer gestalts. When the doer and observer is included in what is noticed, they may be found to be content of awareness just as anything else, and identification may release out of them. 

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tagged: atma vichara, doer, inquiry, mindfulness, observer, witness