Three Short Talks On Mindfulness

Talk 1: Ensure you get the most from your mindfulness practice by incorporating all five of these essential elements. Talk 2: How the principles of T'ai Chi can be applied to our thoughts in a mindfulness practice. Talk 3: An approach to mindfulness that can lead to profoundly deep experiences as we explore what lies behind our practice.

Check out my course on Insight Timer, Exploring the breadth and depth of mindfulness, to discover more.

Transcript

The five essential elements of mindfulness meditation.

Number one,

Don't have any expectations.

Don't expect that you'll become relaxed.

Don't expect that you'll slow and quieten your thoughts.

Mindfulness meditation is about being open to change and being aware of it if and when it happens.

But don't expect change.

Expecting will limit possibilities and can set oneself up for disappointment.

Number two,

Don't try to become mindful or relaxed.

Mindfulness and relaxation are best seen as spontaneous or even accidental byproducts of meditation.

If they happen,

It is because you have moved into a state of being and have let go of the mindset of becoming.

If you try and make effort to become relaxed or mindful,

You are using the energy of becoming and that cannot create the experience of being.

Number three,

Accept everything internally and externally.

To experience relaxation and the sense of being of mindfulness,

All one has to do is accept whatever is happening in each moment.

It's the simplest thing we could possibly do,

But for the fact we have a deep habit of wanting things to be different.

The desire for change and improvement is of course a good thing generally.

It is just the case that it doesn't work for meditation.

What does work in meditation is accepting whatever is happening externally in your immediate environment and,

Equally importantly,

Accepting whatever is happening internally in your mind and body.

Number four,

Allowing things to flow.

Awareness of the present is not a static thing.

Each and every moment is unique and everything is constantly changing and in a state of flux.

To be with this continuous flow of the present,

Our awareness and our attention must be free to move and flow too.

To this end,

Concentrating can be counter-productive to meditation and mindfulness.

Whilst it is useful initially to practice focusing on one thing,

Such as sounds or thoughts or sensations in the body or the breath,

There comes a point where we have to let our attention break free from concentrating on any particular thing.

We have to allow our awareness to flow freely from one experience of the present moment to the next.

Number five,

Be aware of your awareness.

The most natural and effortless experience of mindfulness is when we are simply noticing where our awareness happens to be in each moment.

In this experience we realize that it is impossible not to be present,

As every experience that we could possibly have can only happen here and now.

This is an effortless state of being where we feel we could remain in this experience forever.

But remember not to have expectations that this will or should happen,

Which takes us back to point one.

Mindfulness,

Relaxation and tai chi of the mind.

Mindfulness is,

In essence,

Nothing more complicated than relaxing the mind.

But first take a moment now to relax a part of the body,

Maybe an arm or a leg.

What was the process you went through to do that?

Initially,

I imagine,

You turned your attention towards your arm or leg.

You then perhaps became more aware of the sensations in that part of the body.

And then the critical action to relax would have been some kind of release and letting go,

Maybe preceded by a tensing of the muscles to exaggerate that feeling of release.

Mindfulness is more or less the same process of relaxation,

But focused on the mind rather than the body.

The similarities are so strong that by just relaxing the body,

For example,

With a body scan,

We can find that we have also ended up with a much more relaxed mind.

Relaxing the body isn't always an easy,

Instant and straightforward thing to do.

If there is agitation,

Pain or restlessness in the body,

Then it will take more time to initiate a state of relaxation.

Relaxation of the mind can seem to be more difficult to achieve than relaxing the body,

Because our minds are often in such a state of habitual restless agitation.

Relaxation of the mind,

Therefore,

Takes time and requires patience.

And because we don't always get results as quickly as we would expect or hope for,

We can be tempted to think the relaxation process that seems to work well for the body,

Isn't going to work for the mind.

We can then give up and abandon the simple approach of relaxation and search instead for a more sophisticated,

Complicated or esoteric system of meditation or spiritual practice,

Or decide that true,

Lasting mental relaxation is only for a special few monks and gurus and just not a realistic goal for someone leading a busy life.

The challenge of relaxing the mind is to be patient and allow time for the effects to slowly percolate into our inner experience.

Mindfulness starts the instant we have the intent to be more aware in the present moment,

But the effects of relaxation that this brings can take much longer.

At the beginning of a mindfulness session,

It can be quite frustrating,

As we see how much our mind wonders,

But by the end,

More often than not,

We are experiencing the mental relaxation that mindfulness brings.

So at the start of a session,

Be particularly patient and don't expect immediate results.

Surrender to the fact that a good portion of time at the beginning may well be just noticing how much our mind is wondering.

This is not wasting time or doing it wrong,

It is a necessary part of the process of gradually and gently allowing the relaxation response to manifest in the mind.

And remember having no thoughts is never the aim of mindfulness.

Relaxation and stillness are not synonymous.

We can be tense or relaxed when we are still,

And we can be tense or relaxed in motion.

To be relaxed mentally does not require us to be still or silent in the mind,

Just as physical relaxation doesn't require us to be perfectly immobile.

Tai Chi is mindful,

Aware and attentive movement.

Muscles are engaged that are needed to produce the movement,

But the rest of the body is relaxed and the movement is graceful and flowing.

A sense of poise and effortlessness accompanies the movement.

So too with our thoughts within a mindful state.

The movement of thoughts is still welcome,

And with awareness and attention of these thoughts,

They too can become graceful and flowing and take place within a mind that is relaxed and at ease.

So be patient with the mind.

Relaxation will come,

And it will come through the simple practice of mindfulness.

Don't expect quick results,

And don't try to empty,

Quiet nor still the mind.

Be attentive to your thoughts,

Welcome them,

Allow them to flow,

And in time notice how the quality of your thoughts gradually changes and becomes more graceful,

More effortless,

More creative,

And enjoy the flowing movement of your thoughts through a relaxed and contented mind.

The foreground and the background of mindfulness.

During a mindfulness meditation,

We bring our attention to a variety of things,

Thoughts,

Sounds,

The breath,

Sensations in the body,

Emotions.

We hold these things in the foreground of our awareness.

It is important during mindfulness practice to not create a tension between what we are holding in the foreground of our attention and everything else that is happening.

The idea of allowing all other activity,

Internal and external,

To be there in the background is a useful one.

We do not try to exclude,

For example,

Sounds from our awareness whilst we try to focus on our breath.

To do so would be counterproductive,

In that it would add tension to the mind rather than be relaxing,

And it would be an attempt to deny the present moment by trying to exclude part of it from our awareness,

When mindfulness is about embracing the present moment and everything that is occurring from moment to moment.

There is a further use of this idea of a background to our awareness.

Whilst holding sounds in the foreground of our awareness,

For example,

We can,

After a while,

Begin to notice that there is a particular background to sounds that we can also begin to get a sense of.

This background to sounds is a quietness,

A silence,

Out of which the sounds in the foreground of our awareness come from and go back to.

This world is a world of opposites,

And sound cannot exist without its opposite of silence.

When we become acutely attentive to sounds,

We will simultaneously begin to be more aware of its opposite,

Silence.

If we become completely and wholly aware of something,

We can no longer be within it,

We must be outside of it.

When we are inside a room,

We can only see one wall or one corner at a time.

We must turn to look at the opposite side of the room,

And then the first side is no longer within our field of vision.

Our view is always partial.

If we step outside of,

Above and beyond the room,

And adopt a bird's eye view of the room,

Then we can see the entire space,

All four walls and corners.

We are outside the room,

And so can be aware of its totality.

Similarly,

If we can become totally aware of sounds,

Completely attentive to each and every sound,

As it comes and goes through our awareness,

Then we must no longer be within sounds,

We have stepped beyond sound,

Without any effort being made to do so.

By being fully aware of sound,

We begin to notice we are somewhere else.

We are listening to sounds from a place where there is no sound,

From within an experience of silence.

We can then shift our awareness slightly,

So the sounds start to become the background of our awareness,

And the silence moves into the foreground.

We can begin to allow ourselves to be absorbed by silence.

The same can be experienced with our thoughts.

If we have our thoughts in the foreground of our awareness,

Being extraordinarily attentive to,

And welcoming of each and every thought that arises and passes through our mind,

We can begin to get a sense of the opposite of thought existing in the background,

That is an immense inner spaciousness,

Out of which thoughts arise and fall,

An emptiness that leaves us feeling utterly free and entirely complete.

Next,

The sense of sight.

Hold the objects,

Including your body,

And the limits of space around us in the foreground of your awareness.

Everything we see,

The limited objects and spaces,

Are all held by an unlimited background that we can bring into the foreground of our awareness,

An unlimited non-physical consciousness that contains all limited physicality.

Hold all the sensations of the moment in the foreground of your awareness,

From moment to moment.

Get a sense of how change is the one constant thing as time passes by.

Become totally aware of the process of things changing.

Sounds,

Thoughts,

Sensations continually influx,

Never remaining still.

Begin then to get a sense of the background to this foreground attention on the changing nature of all experience.

This background is the opposite of change.

It is changelessness,

It is timelessness,

It is permanence,

The unchanging fundamental ground of experience and consciousness that is beyond all the senses and beyond all thoughts and beyond all limits.

This background unifies and brings a feeling of great connectedness and wholeness as it is beyond any sense of separateness.

This is how the simple act of becoming mindful of whatever is in the foreground of your awareness can lead to deep and transformative meditative experiences of the absolute background of all experience.

Reviews

This is astonishingly profound, yet explained so skilfully that it feels like common sense. It helps enormously to hear it today, after practicing for a while, listening to other teachers, following other guidance. It makes complete sense and is just beautiful.

Such helpful reminders of the foundation of practice 🙏🏻

I noted what you said in my journal. Thank you for the great talk. Happy days

Very informative and much easier to understand now. T hank you.

I wish I had listeneded to this sooner. Excellent guide to understand how meditation works, stillness (or movement) as part of meditation and mindfulness. The practical examples and images are very apt. Can recommend this talk most highly.

Very very helpful. I have to drop concentration first.

Very helpful information about meditation. I found it inspiring. Thank you.

Clear, concise and practical.

Informative and helpful guidance and perspective on mindful meditation will listen to again and again