Opening The Heart And Mind: Meeting Our Life Where It Is

Mindfulness can open the heart and mind. This meditation and talk explore mindfulness of the movements of the heart and mind that help shape our lives and the gentle awareness within which these movements arise and pass away.

Transcript

You can start by settling in,

Seeing any tension in your hips down,

Directing attention to what's happening right now.

Letting go of sorting out either the past or the future.

What's happening right now with the feelings of the body sitting here.

Aware of the sitting posture,

The contact between the body and the clothes and the clothes in the body and the chair.

Feeling that you have arms where they're resting,

That you have legs and how they're positioned.

Feeling where your body ends at the feet with the contact with the floor.

Aware of the body functioning,

Breathing in the cool air,

Chest rising with each breath.

And just noting whether your experience right now is mildly pleasant,

Something that's mostly pleasant or somewhat neutral.

Or maybe due to some ache or irritation,

Mildly unpleasant,

Whatever it is,

Just note that right now.

Now inquire into the state of your heart mind right now.

Is it generally at ease?

Or maybe somewhat at ease with a bit of restlessness?

It's okay.

And as you notice a bit of restlessness,

A bit of restlessness,

Maybe see the restlessness disappear.

Or maybe not.

Maybe the mind feels a bit jumbled or confused.

Whatever it is,

Just pause and ask yourself,

What's that like?

A feeling of ease or feeling of being confused or searching?

What's that like right now?

You can try speaking to yourself in the third person for me.

How is Tim doing right now?

Just assess for yourself.

It could be monkey mind jumping from one thing to another,

And you can respond by saying,

Oh,

I see the mind is distracted.

This is what it's like to have a distracted mind.

Without feeling disappointed,

That the mind is not more concentrated or not trying to force it to change.

Feel the relief in not having to change anything about the heart,

Mind,

And the natural relaxation that comes when you don't have to ask anything to change.

You can say,

Hello,

My agitated mind.

I'm going to sit with you for a while.

Go ahead and be as crazy as you want right now.

This is a safe,

Open space.

Just assure your mind that I'll just be here.

Where what's going on with the heart mind is as wild and untamed as it may be.

Sensing how it feels in the body as the heart mind just does its thing.

It's very fresh,

Awake experience of being in the heart.

It's a sense of simply being with the heart,

Mind without trying to change anything,

Making no demands on it.

Just,

Just here for whatever is happening.

It's open,

Awake consciousness.

When you're ready,

Your own time,

You can come gently back.

Open the eyes if they've been closed.

And as always,

If you feel comfortable turning your camera on,

That's nice for me to see you.

I don't need to if you don't want to.

Okay.

Throughout this year,

We have been exploring some of these building blocks of meditation,

Starting with the concept of mindfulness,

Which is such a rich and deep and varied experience and looking at some of the different forms of mindfulness that we can develop.

Beginning with mindfulness of the breath and body.

And then from there,

We spoke about the mindfulness of the,

Of the tone or the quality or the valence of experience,

Whether that initial contact with experience,

You get a charge of either pleasant or unpleasant or neither,

Just neutral.

Today we'll look at another dimension,

Which is this mindfulness of the mind.

It's usually called,

And the clarification here is that when we say mind,

It's usually the translation of this word chitta,

Which really means the heart mind and Eastern thought.

There was no division between heart and mind like we have today.

Very interesting point,

Which we can explore at some other time.

But just to make things easy today,

I'll just say mind.

But when I say mind,

You can think of both.

You might wonder why we don't pay more attention to this mindfulness of the mind,

How the mind operates.

I almost feel like we're all born into this world with these minds and without any kind of instruction manual as to how they actually work.

You can get very far in life without anybody really asking that question.

It's almost like somebody gives you a new car and gives you the keys and you go in to drive the car and you don't know how any of the buttons work.

It's sort of like that with the mind.

What is the instruction manual exactly?

It's even more remarkable because the mind is just the center of so much that happens in life.

So how do we figure out how these minds work?

Joseph Goldstein says,

If you want to understand the mind,

Sit and observe the mind.

The first step for mindfulness of the mind is just this very basic point that we all have mind states.

Meaning that depending on the conditions,

The state of our mind can be vastly different.

Sometimes we get the idea that the mind should be just one way or there could be a should,

Like my mind should be one way.

And when it's not,

Then that's upsetting.

There's a song by the group called The Mind of the Mind,

A group of fish that's called My Mind Has a Mind of Its Own.

And it starts this way.

My mind's got a mind of its own.

It takes me out a walking when I'd rather stay at home and it takes me out to parties when I'd rather be alone.

My mind's got a mind of its own.

This is a universal experience that the mind is going to do what the mind wants to do regardless of what we want it to do or what we think it should do.

This first step then is just to recognize that sometimes the mind is confused and conflicted.

Sometimes the mind is open and serene and clear.

Sometimes it's grasping,

Sometimes relaxed,

Disagreeable,

Doesn't like anything or just open and accepting everything and not bothered.

So this is the mindfulness of the mind is first this recognition of like,

Wow,

Depending on the conditions,

It's who knows what's going to be going on up there,

You know,

Regardless of any of the shoulds.

And the second thing is to realize that these mind states with such great variety that they come and go depending,

As I say,

On the conditions.

And so that's not to say that at the same time we should not spend time and effort developing wholesome mind states.

And indeed we,

You know,

We talk a lot about that in meditation about how to develop wholesome mind states.

But we need to recognize again this,

This fundamental notion that mind states are not somehow solid and immovable,

That they appear and then they change and then a whole different mind state will appear.

And it's also not to say that,

You know,

Depending on the mind states,

There could be something very painful or depending something pleasant or ecstatic that's going on,

That they're real in that sense.

But at the same time,

They are impermanent,

That they are changeable.

When I was much younger,

I had a longterm girlfriend who broke up with me and it was extremely painful and fraught and I was desolate.

And I thought to myself,

You know,

What,

What's going to happen to me now?

And as,

As painful as it was at that same moment,

I had this little thought inside my head that,

You know,

Regardless of what's happening right now,

This will pass.

And I mean,

And it's not going to pass today or tomorrow or anytime soon,

But that it will pass.

That this,

That this mind state as difficult as it is,

Is,

Is not forever.

So third step,

That when we realize we first identify what the mind state is,

That we don't completely identify with it.

And that identification,

That noting of what the mind state is,

Which is fundamental to mindfulness,

Just noting what's going on in the present moment has a great way of putting a little bit of separation in there.

That the mind state is not who you are ultimately.

In our language,

This is particularly true in English,

I think we have a way of saying that I am angry to experience this,

The fact that you have an angry mind state,

But the language itself is I am angry,

Which is inaccurate,

Right?

You're much more than,

Than the anger or I am sad or I'm happy.

The meditation teacher,

Temple Smith suggests that you try talking to yourself in the third person.

I tried this during the meditation.

So he says when somebody criticizes him,

He'll think to himself,

Like,

Oh,

Someone is criticizing Temple today.

Or when somebody praises him,

He'll say like,

Oh,

Someone is praising Temple today as creating a little bit of that separation of loosening the grip of these mind states.

So to not believe them unquestionably.

So the last step I can suggest to you is to realize that this mindfulness of the mind as we develop it is uncovering a basic truth that awareness knows the mind states.

This mindfulness you say of mind states is really awareness or you can say consciousness knowing the mind states that exist within this awareness.

The meditation teacher and psychotherapist Locke Kelly recounts working with a client of his who reported to him that there was a person who was in a state of depression.

There was a part of a part of him,

The client that felt like ending his life.

And then there was another part of him that felt like he wanted to continue to go on living.

And so,

So Locke Kelly asked him,

Well,

Who's the one who is listening to both of these people?

The one who wants to end your life and the one that wants to continue living.

And the client reported back like,

Oh,

So,

So like there's a me that's separate from both of these things.

And there are different ways to express this.

You know,

As I say,

You can use the word awareness or you can use the word consciousness.

It's the space regardless into which the mind states come and go.

We say mind states arise and they pass away.

You can say,

Well,

They're arising and passing away where say,

Well,

It's,

It's within this other consciousness or awareness.

So awareness of sadness is not sadness itself.

It's the awareness of the sadness.

Or someone else once said,

A thought about my mother is not my mother.

It's a thought about my mother.

Here's a quote from the Zen teacher,

Alan Watts.

When we make music,

The point of the music is not to reach the end of the composition because then only the fastest players would be the best.

And when we dance,

The point is not to reach a particular point on the floor.

When we dance,

The journey itself is the point as when we play music,

The playing itself is the point.

And this was written during the beat generation to prepare you for the next line.

The point is to dig the present,

To groove with the eternal now.

And the point is to see where it's at.

And the point is to see where it's at here and now.

So just a few pointers on,

On how you can try this out.

When mental states come,

Note them,

Don't think about them or theorize them and feel them.

Note them and feel them.

Another is to recognize in this experience that we all have a being lost in thought.

And then suddenly waking up to the fact that you were gone,

You know,

And that's either in meditation or just in life.

And just recognize that when you wake up and realize what's happening,

That these thoughts that seem so solid suddenly dissipate so quickly.

And the kind of relief that you realize,

Well,

That was just a,

That was just a mind state without being caught in them.

And also I'll just mention the Buddha who,

Who spoke a lot about mindfulness of the mind said that in,

Mindfulness of the mind said that in particular,

When you're noting mind states,

That there were some that you should focus on,

Whether you're confused or not confused,

Whether you're wanting something or not wanting something,

Or whether you're afraid or aversive or not.

Or you can just simply,

The shorthand is whether you feel like you,

You have a clear or an unclear mind at any point.

So why don't we conclude by just going back inside for a moment.

I invite you again,

If you feel comfortable closing your eyes and you can just let go of all the words.

Moment,

Just get back in touch with the body as it rests in the chair.

The experience of the body as having shape and contact with other objects,

The chair,

The feet with the floor,

Functioning of the body,

The rhythm of the breath.

And just imagine not having to change anything about the mind and about any mind state.

Not having any expectation that the mind will be one way instead of another,

Or even that one mind state is better than another.

What does that neutrality feel like?

On the surface,

There may be great turbulence or fluctuations,

But behind them in this consciousness or awareness,

There's a baseline of acceptance,

A kind of acceptance of capacity to be with whatever might happen.

What does that feel like?

And how could you live differently from that understanding?

I'll conclude with this poem from Derek Walcott.

The time will come when with elation,

You will greet yourself,

Arriving at your own door,

In your own mirror,

And each will smile at the other's welcome.

And say,

Sit here.

And again,

The time will come when with elation,

You will greet yourself,

Arriving at your own door,

In your own mirror,

And each will smile at the other's welcome.

And say,

Sit here.

Come gently back in your own time.