What Is Mindfulness

This is a recording of a live talk at "The Meditation Learnig Center" of Mesa AZ. The talk is about what mindfulness is fist the stand point practice of mindfulness in meditation as compared to concentration practices (jhana). Mindfulness is then discribed in terms of how we can use and develope it outside of our formal practice of meditation. Recorded 8-21-2019.

Transcript

Welcome,

Everybody.

I think there's a few new faces here.

So you new people,

Welcome.

And I thought I'd actually talk a little bit about mindfulness this evening.

And most of us,

If we've been practicing meditation,

Probably have been practicing mindfulness-based meditation practice.

Sometimes it's called insight meditation or vipassana,

You know,

Depending on what kind of tradition we're coming from.

Even if we've been practicing something like some of the Zen,

The Zen practices,

You know,

From the Zen or the Chinese Zen tradition,

It's probably mindfulness based.

The alternative to that would be concentration.

And they're both very much related in a way.

If somebody's practicing concentration,

Or practicing meditation,

We couldn't tell by looking at them and watching them meditate.

But with the concentration,

We are exclusively focusing on something with the exclusion of everything else.

So the purpose of concentration meditation is to get more concentrated,

Basically,

And go into these different levels of concentration.

And a good way to look at that is if we are sawing a piece of wood.

You know,

If you ever sawed a piece of wood with a saw,

You know,

You're not watching the saw like this,

Or you're not,

You know,

Looking around or anything like that.

And if you especially if you want to saw a straight line,

Let's say there's a pencil line you're trying to saw.

What you what you generally do is focus right where that that blade of that saw is hitting that wood,

And you're focusing on that.

It would be pretty laborious to follow the saw itself.

I mean,

It's kind of ridiculous.

But it's a good example of single pointed awareness or single single pointed concentration.

That point of focus is very still.

It's not necessarily a still object,

Because everything is impermanent,

You know,

And changing all the time anyway.

But,

But our focus and our concentration is very pinpointed,

We could say.

And so that concentration practice,

We could be using the breath.

And most people do.

The Buddha suggested that we use the breath.

Most of my teachers pointed pointed out that we should be using the breath for concentration.

We bring our attention to wherever we feel the breath and just hold it there.

Without the intention of following anything or allowing it really not trying to keep thoughts away,

But not allowing that any kind of cognitive activity to bubble up or anything.

And,

And it seems almost impossible to do that,

You know,

Because it's,

You know,

It's very natural,

Very human to have these thoughts.

But the more,

The more we practice that in different stages,

You know,

The better we get at it.

And one of the practices,

Often considered a setup practice,

Is to count the breaths,

You know,

Counting the breaths,

Maybe starting at at 100 and counting backwards or something like that.

And when you're counting the breath,

It sounds,

It seems like such a boring activity.

I mean,

You could even count,

You know,

From one up to 500 or whatever it might take.

But that activity is not allowing,

You know,

Necessarily any other thoughts to come into our awareness.

So it's a real good pointer to what concentration is.

And eventually,

That counting itself is too much activity.

So the counting stops,

And we just remain very,

Very still and focusing on the breath in one little,

One single area.

And then with that,

We can go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper into these states of what are called jhana,

But they're concentration state,

Levels of concentration,

We could say.

The more common practice is vipassana,

Or insight meditation,

Or what we would,

Most of us would refer to as a mindfulness based meditation practice.

And with mindfulness,

We're not trying to change anything or stop anything or really look at anything different than our normal way of looking,

Except for we don't want anything to get caused by the breath.

Except for we don't want anything to get caught up in our awareness.

So if something comes into our awareness,

We just let it fall back to where it wants to go.

We're not hanging on to anything.

We're using bare attention,

Attention that is bare of any kind of judgment,

Any kind of decision or any kind of commentary,

Like inner dialogue or anything.

We're just seeing everything and we're not really looking at what it is.

And so one of the keys to that is keeping in mind that it's two completely different things from thinking a thought to being aware of a thought.

So if we have conscious thought happening,

It's more like one thought following another,

Triggers the next one,

Each one follows the next with very little gap in between.

And we feel like these thoughts are very much our identity,

Whether they're good thoughts or bad thoughts.

And it's a very normal conscious thought for us.

And when we're mindful,

We are being aware of the thought itself.

Now,

There's a difference,

But it's a very subtle difference.

When we're aware of a thought,

Watching a thought rather than actually getting caught up in it,

There's usually a gap,

We can see a gap in between the thought itself.

And the thoughts are much more lighter,

But we don't identify with it as being something that we are in charge of that,

You know,

I can change this or you know that I have to do this.

And there are always thoughts of the past and the future,

Almost always.

We can be very,

Very present and still have some thoughts,

But they're so light and so welcome that they don't bother our meditation or anything that we're doing outside of meditation.

And so if we keep this in mind that thinking a thought is different than observing or being aware of a thought,

It's two different things.

And we can do that in meditation or outside of meditation.

So the practice of mindfulness can be a part of our meditation practice itself.

Or we can practice mindfulness outside of meditation.

I've often said that mindfulness is the result of a good meditation practice.

Being mindful is really what the goal of meditation in many ways,

You know,

So that we can,

It almost brings more of a zest to life.

We don't get so bogged down.

It takes the edge off for sure,

You know.

Anytime that we feel like we're flowing through life,

Like life is easy,

Although nothing has really changed,

We are being mindful.

And meditation is a place to practice that.

The key is,

Again,

The bare attention,

That it's bare of any kind of judgment,

Decision or commentary.

And for most of us,

Hopefully most of us,

The opportunity to really get into the practice and understand what we are all about,

And rest in that presence where the mind isn't necessarily going to the past or future,

But we can still observe it.

We can still be aware of the thoughts without having the thoughts really,

Really throw us off guard.

They're really,

You know,

Throw the wrench into the practice,

So to speak.

And the message that I wanted to get across is that mindfulness is,

You know,

The practice in meditation paves the way for our everyday consciousness,

Our everyday living.

And it really does help our lives flow,

You know,

By not allowing things to get sticky,

But maybe perhaps most of all noticing when we are not present.

And we don't have to be present just when we're meditating or work at it just when we're meditating,

But we can work at it at all times.

If meditation,

You know,

Only allowed us to feel good,

And it only worked while we're meditating and doing the practice,

I wouldn't be an advocate of it.

You know,

I wouldn't necessarily encourage people to meditate all the time if it only worked while we're meditating.

You know,

The whole idea is that it helps our lives out outside of the practice as well.

I find meditation very enjoyable.

But I think,

Like a lot of people that,

Perhaps like a lot of people that don't practice meditation,

They don't see the benefit of it outside of the practice.

And I think we do.

We sit in this presence,

And we know that it's healing for us in many different ways.

And it is,

Both physically and mentally.

It makes our lives run a little bit better,

You know,

A little bit smoother,

I guess you could say.

And it works.

Reviews

Thank you 🙏🏼💯

Informative. It made me feel like meditating. Thank you.

Very motivating to start & keep up a meditation practice.