So today,
Today we're going to continue on to the 16 steps of mindfulness of breathing.
And today is about the activities of the mind.
So some of the activities of the mind are planning,
Creating our lives,
Our vacation plans,
Our imaginings.
Some of the activities are thinking,
Like thinking about things.
Even a simple perception of something,
Like if you look in your space right now and seeing a wall across the room.
You know,
We wouldn't call it an activity,
But it's kind of an activity.
It's an agreed-upon construction that we call the wall,
Right?
So it can be kind of fascinating when we're looking at mental formations and mental constructions.
In the Pali,
They're called sankaras,
Sankaras,
These constructions.
And some things we just take to be as the way things are,
You know.
They're just the,
But it really is like the way things are,
It turns out,
Are just activities of the mind.
An example of that is boredom.
When we're bored,
It can feel like the thing that we're doing is boring.
The event or the situation is boring.
But in fact,
The mind's activity creates the feeling or the sense of boredom.
And with boredom,
It's kind of like we're holding ourselves back or apart from experience.
It's a form of resistance.
So all these things are going on that construct or activate this feeling,
This idea of boredom in the mind.
So the idea that we're constructing and forming or actually making boredom in the mind gives us a very different orientation to boredom than if we're just seeing the situation as boring.
Because if the situation is boring,
Then,
Well,
The situation is to blame,
Right?
So we better just get away from the situation or change it.
So one of the things that we learn through this meditation practice is how to practice with these mental formations,
With boredom,
The activities of the mind.
And we're practicing so that we're not caught in them,
So that they don't pull us around.
We're learning how to settle the mental activities in an effort to become more expansive and free from them,
Even when they're really present.
So with boredom,
One would turn the attention around 180 degrees.
Excuse me.
Excuse me.
So you would turn the attention around 180 degrees to look at the boring situation,
Whatever it might be,
And to have the attention really looking at the boredom itself.
Instead of looking at the situation,
We're looking at boredom itself.
Look right into the eye of being bored and say,
I see you boredom.
And feel it and be with it,
The impatience of it,
The energy of it,
The experience of it.
So learning how to be with,
To see these situations in the mind,
These mental formations,
Learning how to dissipate the boredom,
For example,
Because you see it,
Can be really empowering.
It's really,
It demonstrates and shows us that we don't have to be a victim of our own mental activities.
It's kind of the good news in these teachings.
So much of our suffering is related to the activities in our mind.
And while we can't always change the situation in the world,
We can bring some care and attention to the shifting of the mind's ideas and concepts about the world,
And even ideas about ourselves.
If we have the mindful attention,
The ability to see how this works,
The creation of these mental formations,
It's freeing.
So this calming of activity of the mind is kind of like letting go of this stickiness,
The tightness and the pressure.
And it can't really be done all at once.
So we start small,
You know,
We begin,
We're beginning this process of letting go of the stickiness and settling the mind.
And it's not to say that we're avoiding our problems,
But we're letting go of being caught in them.
I described yesterday,
It's sort of like you're zooming out and looking at situations,
Life's situations,
The mental formations that occur with those situations from a distance.
This idea of relaxing and calming the body.
It's not meant to avoid what's happening.
But we're just relaxing the way in which we hold things,
The way in which we see things,
The way that maybe a situation or a mindset has us knotted up.
So we're kind of unraveling or letting go of the knots.
And what happens when we do that,
When we kind of zoom out,
What we first experience is the feeling of that,
The challenge,
Like we can start to feel what it's like,
The challenges of our life.
And they can begin to move and relax.
In some cases,
They resolve themselves.
Sometimes we don't need to solve our problems.
They actually dissolve.
You know,
Some of the external problems that we have in life,
There are real things that we have to take care of and they don't go away.
But if we put ourselves in a better position and expanding our view with more creativity and intelligence,
And we go through this kind of deepening process of letting go of the stickiness,
The holding on to,
Or the cravings that we have,
Again,
They kind of dissolve.
They don't become so dense and sticky.
You know,
It's kind of a radical idea that mindfulness of breathing doesn't really directly address our challenges,
Our problems.
And it's not because we're ignoring our problems or our challenges.
It's more like the practice is offering a process by which our challenges can be resolved and then dissolve.
What we're doing is we're finding our way without addressing them directly.
And in some level,
I think the mind and the heart want to do that.
So when you find yourself working with challenges as you practice,
Know the practice has a way of kind of addressing and responding to them.
You know,
Instead of getting entangled in your daily presentation,
The challenges of life,
The situations that will arise,
Be content and willing to address them indirectly.
And for some of us,
That's a stretch.
You know,
We've been habituated to fix everything directly.
But rather,
We can just relax,
Settle back,
You know,
And sort of it becomes about trusting the process as we move along this path.
A simple way that was taught to me was,
You know,
Nothing needs to happen right now.
Nothing needs to happen right now.
That phrase has been a great and useful navigation point.
Nothing needs to happen right now.
So thank you for your attention on this topic this morning.
And we'll continue with the mind next week.
But I'd like to hear some of your experiences,
Maybe working directly with the stickiness of the mind.
