There Is Always More To Discover

In this session, we practice 'Mindful Object Focusing'.

Choose an object (e.g., a pen, cup, or rock). Focus your attention upon it. If you notice your mind wandering or lost in thought, gently and lovingly return it to the breath.

Focus with the curiosity of someone who has never seen it before. What does it feel, look, sound, and smell like?

Discover as much as you can about your object.

This practice will help you to see the truth of the reality of the object, not just your preconceived notions of the object. See it for what it is, not what your mind says it is!

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the session, I invite you to take a seat or lie down and get yourself comfortable, For today's session we're going to keep our eyes open and we're going to be using a object as a point of mindful focus, So if you haven't already grab yourself something to hold, Something small in your hand, It could be a significant item, Something special, Just something as simple and ubiquitous as a pen, Holding onto that object and just settling into the session, Just beginning by slowing down the breath, In through the nose, Low into the belly and slow, As you begin to slow down the breath just take hold of your meditation object and just feel it, Mindfulness is the awareness that arises from purposely paying non-judgmental attention to the present moment, Traditionally we focus upon the breath, The mind wanders and we bring it back, Sensations of the breath at the nose, But we can pick any point of focus for our mindful attention, So in today's session we're going to be mindfully focusing on our object, So what I want you to do to begin is just feel it, You can look at it but really we're focusing just on the physical sensations, If it helps to close the eyes for this section you can, Or you can just touch the object, Run your fingers across it and feel it, Feel it with the curiosity and focus of a young child or a scientist or someone who's discovered something that has never been felt before, Feeling every part of the object, The points of smoothness, The points of roughness, The contours, The lines, The shapes, Feeling the weight of the object in your hands, For the next minute simply feel, Feel the object and if your mind wanders, Gets lost in thought, Memory, Perhaps triggered by the sensations of the object, Gently, Lovingly return your focus to it, Let's try mindfully feeling our object now, Now with your object, Take a look at it, Really observe it closely, Rather than glazing over the surface, Look at this object like it's the first time you've ever seen it, Look for any markings, Any imprints, Any points of deviation or similarity, Look at the coloring, Look at the craftsmanship, Look at the way the light reflects off it, Look at your object as if you've never seen it before, With curiosity, With attention, Really focus upon it and for the next minute if your mind wanders, You catch it wandering, Gently, Lovingly return it back to focusing on what you can see, Focusing upon the object, Now engaging your other senses, Does your object have a smell or if you move it does it have a sound, Really taking in the entirety of the object, One more minute, Feeling, Looking, Noticing, With your object mindfully focusing all of your attention upon it, Your mind wanders, That's okay, Gently and lovingly bring it back to the point of focus on whatever object you are working with today, Try it now, Okay, So in this session we used an object as a point of mindful focus, Picking an object, Really focusing our attention upon it and when our mind wanders we bring it back, A couple of things to point out with this practice, Number one, There is so much more depth to everyday objects that you can discover when you pay mindful attention, There's always more, I'm using a pen, Pen that I use, Type of pen that I use everyday and I realise in this activity I've never really looked at it, I've held the idea of the pen in my mind, I think pen, I grab pen, I use the pen as it should be used but I've not paid attention to this sort of pen, There's lines, There's shapes, There's colours, There's indentations, There's little markings from the manufacturer and this pen particularly has been a bit damaged, A bit moved, A bit broken and so on and so forth, What this activity teaches you if you practice it on objects in your life is that most of the time you're operating on the idea of something, Not the actual experience of that something and there's a clear distinction to be made there, We tend to save mental space, To save processing power, Our brain just chunks things in and once we get the idea of something that's what we operate off, That's useful, It's helpful but it's not the truth, So I encourage you to explore this practice in your everyday life, Just take a moment to actually observe things that you're doing, When you go to drive to work or you know go somewhere, Just look at the door handles, Really pay attention to what's actually happening in front of you, You pick up your phone, Take a look at it, Like actually look at the actual object you're holding and you'll realise that there's a conception versus a reality and to even go deeper with that, There's a relationship based thing here, We tend to similarly chunk or view people as their summary, You know this is my partner, My mother, My child, Whatever, My boss and we put them into a box, So it helps us to operate but when we pay mindful attention to the person in front of us, We'll see who they are in this moment and that's their reality, Does that make sense? So mindful focus on an object can help us to see it for what it is and realise our internal conceptions, So it's a bit of an advanced practice but one that I encourage you to explore both with things in your life and potentially with people, Take in what they're giving you in this moment and maybe that will transform your view of that person, I've discovered significantly more about my pen and perhaps I can do so with the people that I'm going to meet today, So thank you for joining me and I'll see you in the next session but if you like we can sit and meditate for 10 minutes, You can continue exploring your object, Finding a new object to mindfully explore or perhaps returning your focus back to the breath or any other practice you'd like, Let's begin So if you'd like to maintain the meditation you're more than welcome to do so but for everyone else just gently returning, Returning back to the session, Back to their bodies, Back to the day, In today's session we practice mindfully focusing on an object, The idea being is that we pick an anchor, The feelings, The sensations, The weight or the totality of an object, Focus our attention upon it, When our mind wanders we bring it back, That's the practice, When doing this with an object or with the breath or with anything we try and be as curious and open as possible, As attentive as possible, Almost as if this is the first time we've ever seen this object and what this does is that it helps us to see it for what it truly is rather than our preconceived notions of it our mind to save energy conceptualizes things and then we operate on the conception as opposed to the reality, There is simply too much information to see everything fully for what it is, So our brain does shortcuts, It chunks, It helps us to go with the flow but when we mindfully pay attention to an object or a meditation anchor, Perhaps even a person in our life, We see it for what it truly is, We see through the illusion that our mind is throwing up and perhaps we'll discover far more depth, So I encourage you to explore this practice, Thank you for joining me and I'll see you in the next session, Catch ya