Meditation of the week

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Meditation of the week from http://www.interluderetreat.com/

 

Notice Your Focus

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" Understanding does not arise as a result of thinking. It is a result

of the long process of conscious awareness. "

Thich Nhat Hanh

 

Our minds are working all the time. We are sensing, perceiving,

remembering, interpreting, regulating body processes, refocusing

attention, planning, willing, and acting moment by moment. As we go

about our activities, we tend to be unaware of most of our mental

activity. Generally, that's OK, because living is a complex process,

and its best that we focus that sliver of brain activity we call

consciousness on the most urgent business at hand. If things are going

well, that inner director of consciousness will focus our awareness on

what is important. We will then make appropriate choices and feel

productive. Life will seem meaningful and worthwhile.

 

Sometimes life throws too much at us, and the part of our mind that

directs our focus becomes overwhelmed. We may find ourselves attending

exclusively to the practical matters of survival, and losing touch with

the more subtle experiences of our inner thoughts and emotions.

Sometimes that inner director works as a censor or guard and directs

attention away from areas of mental activity that seem too dangerous or

painful. Big hunks of life activity can fall out of our awareness,

because the focusing or directing component of consciousness has

decided we're not going to deal with that.

 

When we have been wounded, our mind will have developed a strategy for

managing situations where we might be wounded again. It may tell us

that when this kind of danger arises, we're going to run away, either

literally or by taking away awareness. It may decide that anger is the

best defense, or maybe humor or seductiveness or being a bully will

make things safe. Sometimes we don't really have much of a strategy for

dealing with our hurts, so we just become confused.

 

We may have learned the strategy of thinking through problems, and we

try to apply that to problems where we don't have all the data, perhaps

because the problem is still in the future. So we worry. Not being able

to solve the problem, but sticking to our strategy, we worry some more.

We can keep this up for a long time. Some people never stop. The price

worriers pay is that their mental resources are focused on problems

without solutions, and they don't have much left for the rest of life.

Being productive and enjoying the experience of living are sacrificed

to the obligation to fret.

 

None of us wants to be the victim of misdirected awareness or of a

faulty strategy for allocating mental resources. We'd rather be

effective in our thinking and doing. We'd rather have emotions that fit

circumstances now, than emotions that reflect past experience that may

be similar, but different in some key way. When our emotions are fresh

and authentic and our thinking is flexible, our behavior is more

spontaneous, and our experience is rich.

 

Practice:

 

Mindfulness is a practice that helps us expand the scope of awareness.

It allows awareness to stay with us in the now. When we are mindful we

are more likely to respond genuinely to circumstances. We are more

aware of emotions and can interpret them more accurately. Meditation is

a primary tool for developing the skill of mindfulness. Another tool is

writing down your stream of consciousness.

 

Try this:

 

Sit at the computer with a blank word processing document, or if you

prefer, use a pencil and paper. Center yourself. Take a few slow,

deeper than usual, relaxing breaths. Scan your body for tension, and

tell yourself to let it go. Tell yourself to relax. You body is looking

for direction from your mind, so reassure your body that it is

perfectly safe now, you can relax. Sit comfortably upright, so that

your body is balanced.

 

Write down:

 

Sensations

Awarenesses

Thoughts

 

You can get started by using the phrases:

 

I notice. . .

I am aware that. . .

I feel. . .

I have the thought that. . .

 

Don't get lost in analysis. Just notice what your mind it doing. If you

drift off into a chain of thoughts, consciously let it go, and come

back to what you are doing right now. This sequence of awarenesses

doesn't have to lead to any conclusion. The only goal is clarity of

awareness.

 

When you finish, you can read over your impressions, or you can throw

them away. The product is the moment of awareness, not the document

you've created.

 

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An excellent book on Mindfulness is John Kabat-Zinn’s " Wherever You Go

There You Are. "