#577 Awareness or "Ordinary Mind" - Choosing Wisely

     Mindfulness training reduces stress by letting us function at a higher level of consciousness.
     Our "ordinary mind", is very useful when assigned certain specific tasks eg solve a math problem. But let loose, it tends to grind out an awful lot of unhelpful, to agonizingly disruptive material (wallowing, catastrophizing, daydreaming, anxiety, confusion).
     Awareness, on the other hand, is marked by clarity, silence, stillness, peace, timelessness, kindness, and joy. Note the absence of struggle, stress and suffering. This level of consciousness is our birthright as human beings - homo sapiens sapiens. Over thousands of years, we've been gradually evolving to inhabit this level of consciousness with increasing stability. Mindfulness practices are designed to help us get there in THIS lifetime.
     We're so conditioned to identifying with (instead of simply using) "ordinary mind", that it's our default mode of consciousness AND way of being. Stressed out, struggling, inefficient is how we see ourselves! Even while taking an 8-week Mindfulness course, some participants drop out when their academic / work stresses rise! These folks trust ordinary mind when what they need is the more efficient, more effective, stress-free, higher level of consciousness. This, like other aspects of our conditioning, needs to be deeply examined and questioned. See: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2014/10/576-practicality-of-prioritizing-quality.html

     Very closely related to trusting the old grit your teeth & grunt approach to work over a more mindful approach, is ignoring self-care and trusting that putting everything directly into one's work is the answer (to what ?). See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2014/10/quality-of-life-for-one-for-all.html

     A funny, yet very serious aspect of "trust" to examine deeply, in one's own life: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2014/02/492-mindfulness-practice-real-world.html

IraE   www.dpreview.com

#425 Arising Urges to Be a Squirrel

     I'm quietly working on something, then suddenly an urge arises to do something else. One moment I'm peacefully engaged in an activity, the next moment I'm slightly anxious - an emotion, then the urge to act by going off mentally and or physically. The actual nature of the "something else" could be anything at all & doesn't really matter - it could be planning a vacation, work on another project, what's for dinner?, need to urinate, what time is it?, desire for coffee ... 
     This is precisely what keeps happening - and we see it so much more clearly - during sitting meditation! We're sitting still, engaged in the act of observing the breath, then suddenly the focus of our attention slips off target, onto another topic. Why does this happen? The longer we remain on the new topic(s), the more momentum (energy) the stories we tell ourselves gather. This weaving of stories is mental activity, which in turn may prompt physical activity eg getting up & doing something, or it may remain in an intermediate stage of planning to do something. In sitting meditation, we train to let go of this "anxious quiver of being", and gently return to being peacefully engaged with what we've decided was appropriate activity for this set period of time ie properly engage with the process of meditation for the predetermined time period.
     Why are we anxious being peacefully engaged in appropriate activity? Why do we trust primitive squirrel-like random thinking/doing activity (analogous to randomly trying different number sequences to open a found combination lock) more than deliberate peaceful action arising from the much more evolved aspects of ourselves? Could it simply be that we're so used to using the old primitive part of the brain that we don't yet fully trust this newfangled prefrontal cortex?

     See "Trust": http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/04/119-trust-quality-5.html

Samer AIR   www.dpreview.com

#424 Strive for the "Sure Thing" - OR - Trust Open-Hearted Engagement?

     It makes sense to put more care, time & effort into a project, so it will turn out closer to what we hope for. Of course it's easy to go overboard, only to (re)discover that no matter how hard we try, we can't perfectly control things. "The hurrier I goes, the behinder I gets!"
     Interestingly, mindfulness advises focusing on the process itself, rather than the goal. In fact, (excessively) focusing on the goal is considered a major impediment to reaching it. Excessive goal-orientation is "driven" by greed, fear, anxiety or some combination of these unhealthy emotions, which virtually block one's ability to pay attention to the journey - the actual path to the goal.
     We optimally attend to what we're doing when we're fully engaged - our mind-heart-body is open to the actual process eg taking care of a little child or pet. Our focus of attention is almost exclusively experiential, with minimal narrative focus. There seems to be a direct connection of some sort between the silent depths of ourselves and that of the person, animal or activity. There's a sense of love, kindness or perhaps a primal recognition. It feels very still, peaceful, timeless and right - radically different from greed, fear or anxiety. 
     One may even say that open-hearted engagement is the antidote for greed, fear & anxiety. We know both ends of this spectrum, but perhaps have more experience with the latter. Can we trust the former to guide our lives? Our moment-by-moment way of being holds the answer. Can we observe what guides (or drives) our behavior & the quality of life that naturally arises?

Bob Kaune   www.dpreview.com

#420 From Anxiety to Peace

     At some point when we're learning to swim, we stop flailing wildly & hyperventilating, - and we begin to relax in the water, breathing slowly, deeply - both our strokes and breathing becoming infinitely more efficient and effective. We're no longer struggling against water, but instead, we're savoring the process of swimming. It's a huge experiential shift when fear mysteriously drops away, and we're embracing the whole experience - suddenly, we know everything's OK.

     Somewhat analogously in meditation, at some point - inevitably if we persevere in our practice - we stop relying on frantic mental / physical activity "to keep on top of things", and instead, begin to relax, trusting inner stillness & silence - innate wisdom. Wonderful.

katarina   www.dpreview.com

#413 Patiently Learning to Tolerate Ambiguity

     We sit down to meditate, setting our timer to 50 minutes. Our intention is to let go of thoughts, let go of all our concerns of the day, concerns for tomorrow, concerns from yesterday. Just this is enough - just sitting. And then interesting thoughts come up, one after the other.
     We notice the thought, gently accept it, gently let go, returning to kindly embracing just this sitting. Just this sitting is enough. Allowing the physical feel of the present moment to fill our perceptions. We don't interpret or make a story out of these physical sensations - we perceive them directly as simple, constantly-changing physical sensations. We feel simply & directly (experiential attention), we don't interpose stories (narrative attention) between the sensations and our bodies. Another interesting thought, we notice, gently accept, let go, returning to just sitting.
     We repeat this process tens, hundreds, thousands of times per sitting, becoming increasingly patient, tolerant and persistent. Our patience, tolerance and persistence establishes new circuitry in our brains, like water wears a new channel in rocks - gentle, but relentless, unstoppable. Yes our brains secrete thoughts AND yes our awareness becomes increasingly more stable, still and calm. Thoughts & self-talk become quieter & quieter, less & less intrusive.
     Persistent intelligent training invariably, inevitably, undoubtedly enhances mindfulness.

#143 Wound of the Heart - Part 1

         "If we take an honest look within, we may notice a certain guardedness around our heart. For some people, this is a thick, impenetrable barricade. For others, it is a thinner, subtler protective shield or contraction that only emerges under threatening conditions. And nothing triggers this sense of threat so strongly as the suspicion … that we are not truly loved or accepted as we are. Numbing or shutting down the heart is an attempt to deflect pain of that.

         Not knowing that we can be loved for who we are prevents us from trusting in love itself, and this in turn causes us to turn away from life and doubt its benevolence. We may tell ourselves that love is not really available. But the deeper truth is that we don’t entirely trust it, and therefore have a hard time fully opening to it or letting it all the way into us. This disconnection from love most often grows out of not feeling fully embraced or accepted in our family or origin – whether through neglect, lack of attunement, or outright abuse. Not feeling securely held in the arms of love, we fall into the grip of fear. Inadequate love and nurturance directly impact the child’s sensitive nervous system, resulting in a certain degree of shock or trauma that will affect us for the rest of our life."

     John Welwood. "Perfect love, imperfect relationships. Healing the wound of the heart." Trumpeter, 2006.

Photo: Nitin Gera   http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/weekly-wrapper

#119 Trust (Quality 5)

     "Trust = Trusting both oneself, one’s body, intuition, emotions, as well as trusting that life is unfolding as it is supposed to."

       Cardaciotto L. Assessing Mindfulness: The Development of a Bi-Dimensional Measure of Awareness and Acceptance. PhD Thesis, Drexel University, 2005.

dspace.library.drexel.edu/retrieve/4264/Cardaciotto_LeeAnn.pdf

     We put a huge amount of unwarranted trust, time and energy into, and stake our happiness on, spinning stories about our past and future. Mindfulness practice suggests we reallocate these precious resources - this trust - to engaging directly with reality - right here, right now.

#114 Qualities or Attitudes of Mindfulness

     Jon Kabat-Zinn highlighted 7 mindfulness qualities - how one attends to information during mindfulness. 
     Shauna Shapiro et al added 5 affective qualities, yielding a total of 12:

nonjudging, http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/04/115-nonjudging-quality-1.html

nonstriving, http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/04/116-nonstriving-quality-2.html

acceptance, http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/04/117-acceptance-quality-3.html

patience, http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/04/118-patience-quality-4.html

trust, http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/04/119-trust-quality-5.html

openness, http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/04/120-openness-quality-6.html

letting go, http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/04/121-letting-go-quality-7.html

gentleness, http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/05/122-gentleness-quality-8.html

generosity, http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/05/123-generosity-quality-9.html

empathy, http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/05/124-empathy-quality-10.html

gratitude, http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/05/125-gratitude-quality-11.html
and 

loving kindness. http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/05/126-loving-kindness-quality-12.html

       Cardaciotto L. Assessing Mindfulness: The Development of a Bi-Dimensional Measure of Awareness and Acceptance. PhD Thesis, Drexel University, 2005.

dspace.library.drexel.edu/retrieve/4264/Cardaciotto_LeeAnn.pdf

  

     These overlapping, interdependent, characteristic qualities or attitudes are cultivated by, & naturally arise from, mindfulness practice - much like physical strength, aerobic fitness, perseverance, etc arise for athletes from their training regimen.