Hello,
And welcome to mindfulness live.
This week we're talking about meditation,
Which is not the same thing as mindfulness.
The two are compatible,
And they may overlap,
Or they may be completely separate.
It's a good thing to understand the difference.
So,
First of all,
Make yourselves comfortable.
Take a nice breath.
And let go.
And when you breathe in,
Bring your attention in.
And when you breathe out,
You follow the breath just as far as your nose,
So you don't leave your body.
You wait for the next in-breath.
And you just watch the breath coming and going all by itself.
There's no need to control it.
And if your breath is uncomfortable,
Then just make a note of that.
Uncomfortable.
Don't try to fix it.
Just watch it.
You watch it come in,
And you watch it leave,
So that each breath,
That combination of in-breath and pause,
Out-breath and pause,
So that that's one cycle.
And you feel the cycle,
From moment to moment.
Feeling your chest open and close.
Feeling your body fill with fresh air and empty again.
And be aware of not only your breath,
But your entire body.
Notice how you're constantly adjusting your posture,
Your sitting position,
Your head and neck,
Your shoulders.
And be aware of your body as a whole.
This complete organism,
Flesh and bone,
And blood and organs and brains and nerves,
All this thing that is you.
And see how you can take a step back from that,
As if you're looking from a distance,
Watching your body sit and adjust and breathe.
And this is how you are today,
At this moment.
You are here and now,
Awake,
Conscious,
Particularly conscious.
And just watching,
Watching the body,
Watching your feelings.
There's the sensory feeling of your body,
Touch,
Taste,
Smell,
Hearing,
Sight.
And there's the emotional feeling of yourself,
Whether this is pleasant or not,
Whether it's interesting or not.
What your mood is like.
And noticing if there's any resistance to sitting still,
Or to simply watching the breath,
Or to the whole idea of being here.
And feeling through your body,
Or any tension,
Often stored in the stomach,
Or shoulders,
Or neck,
Or even your face,
In expressions.
And staying with breath.
And now taking three more breaths,
Open your eyes.
So this week we're talking about meditation,
And I'd like to clarify,
Or maybe be a little more precise,
About something we discussed the other day,
About guided meditation and meditating on your own.
So guided meditation,
Where you're listening to somebody else's instructions,
Are easier.
And sometimes it can be a little bit of a job to find somebody whose voice you like,
Whose style you like,
But once you get there,
And there are many people,
There are many teachers,
And it's helpful.
It reminds you of what you're trying to do,
And it maybe leads you into places that you wouldn't think of yourself.
But there's also something passive about listening to somebody else's instructions.
You don't have to take the initiative,
And because you don't have to do that,
You don't have to think it through,
That does give you more concentration,
It makes it easier to follow,
And more pleasant usually as well.
It's much more relaxing.
When you meditate by yourself,
Then everything's up to you.
You have to give yourself the instructions,
And you have to follow the instructions,
And it can be a little confusing,
And you're not sure if you're doing it right,
And your mind is more busy,
Because you've got more to think about.
And I know we're all trying to let go of our thoughts,
But the fact is that we have this brain,
Which is a thought-making machine,
And it doesn't like stopping.
So the idea of calming the mind in the short term is much easier when you're guided.
In the long term,
What you're looking for is the mental strength in order to do that at any time,
Especially at those special moments when you really need it,
When things are becoming unstable,
When you're not sure,
When it's stressful,
When there's a threat,
For whatever reason.
So practicing by yourself,
Although it's much harder,
Also gives you more.
It gives you more practice,
More versatility,
More strength.
It also on the way gives you more frustration,
Because it's much easier to get lost.
And if you decide to meditate for 10 minutes,
Then your actual meditation may not last more than 10 or 15 seconds,
And then sometimes you're just off,
You're gone,
You're just thinking about something.
And then the gong goes,
Or the end of your period comes,
And you realize,
I didn't do it.
And it seems like a waste of time,
But it's not.
It's not the best time spent perhaps,
But it's never a waste of time,
Because if nothing else,
You're telling yourself that these 10 minutes are important,
And that they're necessary,
And that you value them,
And so that each time you sit down for those 10 minutes,
And you just take them seriously,
That by itself begins to increase your focus and your concentration.
That taking it seriously,
Taking it to heart,
It's a motivation.
And in order to really fix your concentration,
Something you need,
You need motivation.
You need a strong single point to focus on.
So thinking of these guided meditations as being a short-term benefit,
And the teaching is sort of a little longer term,
But ultimately the long-term benefit for you,
Your ability to deal with stress and overwhelm and all that stuff,
It really depends on the strength of your own mind.
I encourage you very much to follow the guided meditation,
But also to take time,
As little as two minutes.
Just take two minutes on the other days,
Tuesdays and Thursdays,
On the weekends,
Or in the afternoon,
Anytime you think of,
Anytime you can,
Take two minutes to just close your eyes,
Watch the breath,
And just practice.
Just practice.
Now the other thing I wanted to mention today was,
Yeah,
Contemplative and concentrative meditation.
People are quite surprised at how much there is to say about meditation,
Because most people,
When you say you're putting on a meditation course,
They assume that they're going to come along and they're going to sit there in silence for an hour.
And that doesn't happen.
I don't do it that way anyway.
There's plenty to think about and plenty to talk about,
And I know we all want to stop thinking,
But again,
The mind does think,
And part of the process is moving from chaotic thinking to clear thinking.
Once you've got,
Once your thoughts are clear,
And once they're manageable,
In other words not too many and not too fast,
Once they become manageable,
Then you really can start to let them go.
But before you get there,
You have to go through that initial process of sorting them out and saying,
Well,
You know,
What is a useful thought,
What is not a useful thought,
What is a pace of thought that I can cope with,
And how can I bring my mind down to that level.
So this is all contemplative stuff.
You have to think about it.
You have to use strategy,
You have to use your imagination,
And you have to practice,
And you have to give yourself feedback.
Yeah,
Good job,
Stephen,
You're doing really good,
You know,
You're trying,
Oh,
So you didn't concentrate,
But it's okay.
So you need,
You know,
I'll give it to you too on the other days,
But the days when you are by yourself,
You do it,
You have to be your own guide,
And this is ultimately what we're leading to.
The whole purpose of mindfulness is to gain your own self-reliance,
Your own ability to know what you need to do when you need to do it,
Even though maybe sometimes you don't quite get it right,
You learn,
You grow.
So this contemplative meditation in which there are thoughts going on,
This is not a bad thing,
It's a good thing,
It's a necessary thing.
The concentrative meditation,
Where we're just trying to focus and simply create that mental strength,
That is something that I would do in very small doses,
Because if you try and do it for hours at a time,
And I've done this,
I've done this for days and weeks at a time,
And sitting for hours and hours,
Going through agonizing pain in my knees,
My lower back,
And I think it's,
I hate to say it,
Mine is a waste of time,
It's not practical,
It's not an endurance event,
Okay,
The point of mindfulness is to find a place of calm inside yourself where you can see what's going on.
The calm is just a means to an end,
It's so you can see clearly.
What we want is clarity more than anything else,
So we set ourselves up with contemplative ideas by thinking about it,
By planning how we're going to do it,
We practice concentration on the breath,
And then we practice letting go,
Which is a mindfulness technique,
Just let go of each moment,
Stay with the breath,
Using it as your anchor,
Coming back to it again and again,
And so we develop this whole set of skills,
And these are just the meditative skills,
The skills that we need when we're sitting alone in a quiet room,
As well as that we need skills to deal with people,
To deal with our own moods as we go through the day and we go through our crises and we receive bad news and we try and deal with it,
We need to bring our whole mind together.
It's not like we just take this mental factor of mindfulness and we take this mental factor of concentration and we try and avoid everything else.
You can try,
You can book into a monastery and,
You know,
Lock yourself in a room,
But I guarantee you that other stuff will come up anyway.
Okay,
So we want to expose ourselves to the world,
To other people,
To our own neuroses,
To our own successes,
To all of this,
So it's a whole world process,
This is a lifestyle thing,
And it's important to take a long view.
You don't have to,
You can do it just for the sheer pleasure of sitting quietly,
But there's so much more,
So much more that it can do for you if you want it to and if you are willing to invest in it.
Invest not just your time but your thoughts and your ideas and your experience.
Yeah,
So that's what I wanted to say today,
So now make yourselves comfortable.
Take a nice breath.
Take a nice breath and let go.
Now I want you to bring your attention to your hearing and can you hear the breath?
You can feel it,
And if you're sitting quietly maybe you can hear it.
And when you listen to the breath it becomes particularly obvious that each breath is unique.
You never quite make the same sound,
It's never exactly the same length of in-breath and pause and out-breath.
So you're watching for this difference,
This uniqueness,
And you might even tell yourself a little longer,
A little deeper,
A little more hurried,
Or particularly relaxed.
However it feels,
Your job is to know it,
Not to change it,
Not to fix it,
Not to make a perfect breath.
Your job is to know what your breath is like now,
This one.
And as soon as it's gone,
You bring your attention to the next breath.
It's like greeting people at a door.
You have a small door with just room for one person to pass through and a long line of people outside waiting to get in.
Each one is a new breath and you greet each one differently.
And you notice that each person you meet,
Each breath you take,
Leaves you with a slightly different feeling.
Some are more serious,
Some are more playful,
Some are easier to accept,
Some are harder.
And you adapt.
You adapt to each breath,
To each moment,
Allowing it to be long or short,
Shallow or deep,
Allowing yourself to like it or dislike it,
And watching out for thoughts,
Especially thoughts that interrupt,
That say you're not doing it right,
Or even that you're doing it perfectly.
It doesn't matter what your thoughts say.
You just stay with the breath.
You feel it come and go.
And you know,
Here I am.
Here I am.
This is it.
This is this moment.
And this is me in this moment.
And this is my breath.
This is how it feels.
And here and everywhere there are thoughts,
Thoughts not to be followed,
But to be noted.
Thinking about my next job this afternoon,
Letting it go,
Coming back to the breath,
Remembering something I forgot to do yesterday,
Letting it go,
Coming back to the breath,
Thinking that maybe I'm not doing a very good job at this today,
And letting it go,
Coming back to the breath,
Accepting every mood,
Every sensation,
Every thought,
But always returning to the breath.
The breath is your anchor,
Your point of reference,
When you're overwhelmed,
When you don't know what to feel,
Or how to act,
What to think,
How to decide.
Take a breath.
You come back to this place where you're focused,
Where you know that you can clear your mind,
And let go of that nagging imperative to do something or think something.
You just let go of that thought,
Return to the breath,
And stay aware,
Stay awake,
Stay with the moment,
And you know I'm practicing mindfulness,
Or even better,
I'm cultivating myself,
I'm seeing my reactivity,
Learning to let go,
Becoming different,
Not a different personality or a different character,
But a different experience,
Of not chasing ideas,
Not chasing my story,
Just staying with the breath,
Learning to be,
Learning to accept,
And in this way clarifying your mind.
Sometimes the mind is like a pool of muddy water,
And all you have to do is let it be,
And the mud settles,
And the water becomes clear,
And you can see.
So,
And now taking three more breaths,
Open your eyes.
