So there's a little bit of a misnomer around mindfulness meditation.
There's this idea that when you sit and meditate,
You're trying to attain a state of bliss.
You're trying to get somewhere,
To feel something,
To just be in a state of enlightenment,
So to speak.
And there's this intuition that suggests that,
Okay,
I needed to be silent,
I needed to be calm,
I can't have any physical disturbances,
My mind needs to be clear.
And the problem with that is that it's all really not true.
Not true for mindfulness meditation.
Perhaps that's the path that other forms of practice will take.
They're trying to get you to change your mental state.
Mindfulness is distinctly different.
It is about observing the present moment as it is for what it is right now,
Without judgments,
Without filter.
It's the state of awareness that arises from paying non-judgmental attention to the present moment.
So the reason I'm talking about this is that today,
During my meditation session,
I do live meditation sessions every day on Instagram,
In the morning.
And I basically just meditate in front of the camera so that you,
Anyone,
Everyone can see that it's possible to meditate for 10 minutes every day.
And during that session,
An alarm in my house went off in the background.
And part of me wanted to stop the session and turn off the alarm.
Another part of me got annoyed.
It's like,
Why didn't I recognize that that could happen?
And then another part stepped back and just observed the whole process.
It observed me ruminating on those thoughts.
It observed me,
You know,
Quote unquote,
Worrying about what the viewer on the other side of the camera would be thinking about the alarm.
Would they be agitated?
Would they be annoyed?
Or would instead they handle it appropriately,
Mindfully?
Mindfully.
The alarm went off.
That's okay.
That's just another thing to observe,
Both the physical sound of the alarm,
But also your internal reactions to that alarm.
So then I thought it was important that we just dive into that analogy a little bit and extend it.
We can extend that into everything.
Let's say we're sitting and meditating and our phone rings,
Or we overhear a conversation,
Or our leg feels sore,
Or we're overcome by a particular emotion,
A mood,
A memory,
Whatever.
All of these things are to be handled in the same way.
We sit back,
Detach,
Observe it calmly,
Mindfully,
And then just watch it go.
And if it's something that keeps reoccurring,
We just watch it continually reoccur.
Watch our reaction to it.
So when you're meditating today,
Take a step back and just watch your reaction to things.
Because the fact is that nothing is ever perfect,
And no moment is ever perfect.
So if you find yourself striving to have,
Quote unquote,
The perfect meditation session,
That striving is itself something that you could be observing and stepping back and looking at.
The reality is with mindfulness meditation,
You can actually do it anywhere and everywhere,
With any mental state,
With any physical state,
In response and in the presence of anything.
That's the whole point.
It's accepting reality as it is for what it is.
We're not trying to change.
We're not trying to move.
We're not trying to bliss out.
So the audio is going to go silent for a few minutes,
And we're just going to practice this.
We're going to practice this just total acceptance.
If you hear a sound,
If you hear a noise,
A voice,
If it's too cold,
Your leg's a bit sore,
Whatever it is,
Just accept it.
Now,
The only caveat on this is with physical pain.
If you find that you're sitting and that position is causing you discomfort,
There's only a level that you should accept.
If it's minor and you can manage it and you can deal with it,
Use that pain as an objective meditation.
So turn,
Look,
Observe,
And watch it,
Watch it come and watch it go.
But if you find that you're sort of gritting your teeth and hating life in there,
That's okay.
You're allowed to move.
Just accept the fact that you want to move.
Observe your movement mindfully and then move,
And then observe the changes in your mental state and physical state from that move.
Then return back to the process of meditation.
So I want you to take a seat,
Get comfortable,
Enjoy your attention to your meditation object,
And whatever arises,
Internal or external,
You're just going to observe it and accept it as it is for what it is.
Let's begin.
You you you you you you Okay,
So that was just a three-minute session.
I like to sit every day for 10 minutes because I find that that time works for me in terms of my lifestyle.
You might prefer a longer sit or a shorter sit,
But with any of my sessions,
Feel free to just let them continue at the end and start with that silence again.
And if you want,
You can join me on my live meditations on Instagram at zackpphilips because from there you'll see that it is possible to have a consistent daily meditation practice because in my mind that's the best way to develop our practice is to turn up every day at the same time and do the same thing.
We're developing a ritual.
It's like getting fit in the gym.
It's like learning how to study or practice a craft.
We turn up daily.
We practice.
We get better.
We get better at accepting the present moment.
We get better at accepting annoyances and physical pain and all the things that are going on in our minds.
We learn how to detach.
We learn how to observe it mindfully.
We learn how to see from that stepped back perspective what's going on.
So if you want to,
I invite you to continue that session for as long as you like.
And as always,
Have a great day.
This talk was taken from the book Mindfulness,
A guidebook to the present moment.
