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How can i make meditation more of an active ingredient in the stew of life?
Or rather, how can i bring mindfulness out of the shadows, so that it isn’t merely reflective of what happens, but a primary constituent of it?
Meditation is something that belongs to sitting up straight and being still in body.
Mindfulness is something that exists in the stream of life, as living, as flowing.
As fluid awareness. Something online and ongoing. Something switched on, continuous, receptive, responsive.
Mindfulness doe not require soft cushions.
In the inbox. Pinging in all day long. All these unwarranted messages.
Where have they come from? From which part of the brain have they originated? They seem to be being delivered up into consciousness by an invisible underground “dump”.
A dump deep in the brain that – by default - has to be constantly transmitting these thought messages.
The mind inbox in continual receipt of yet another message, and yet more mail.
All this mind-mail spamming on through.
Hopefully Mindfulness will be switched to “on”; so as to filter the spam into the box marked “junk”.
“Ping” goes each spam thought. “Click” goes the filter. Deleted into the junk box goes the spam.
But my Mindfulness filter wasn’t working too well this morning, not deleting properly. I got clogged up with spam, reading every thought that came through.
Perspective. Everything seems to depend on from which direction or angle you look.
You can look small into the moment, going into its particulars.
You can look big into the moment, dissolving those particulars into spaciousness.
Seeing figure before ground. Seeing figure against ground. Seeing form disappear – and become as one with ground.
Perspective shifting is a quality of Mindfulness i get to find invaluable.
I’m still continuing this “questioning” focus.
Yesterday i was asking “Why me”? Last week i was asking “What is this?”
What could i ask this morning?
What about “Why is this “Monday”?
So i asked “Why is this Monday”?
And of course, on a deep fundamental level – it isn’t. Monday doesn’t exist.
Mindfulness doesn’t do Monday. Mindfulness extinguishes Monday.
Great! Lol
Suffering.
That’s what most people consider Buddhist meditation to be about.
Diving, and delving, into suffering. An unhealthy preoccupation with the unhappy stuff of life. Digging in all the dirt. Dwelling on the dark depressing material of the psyche.
Negative. Cus all you ever hear is: “Life is suffering” (the First Noble Truth)
Nihilistic. Cus there’s no God to give meaning or divine purpose to all this suffering.
And yet.
Why is it that meditating, and being mindful, produces in me such non-negative, non-suffering – contentment?
To suffer is not the be-all and end all of this mindfulness project.
Or even to be ok with suffering. (although that’s kind of ok)
Its to be free of and from suffering.
I catch myself this morning. In the mirror of my mindfulness.
I recognise myself: “Yes, that’s me”.
I don’t distort. Don’t zoom in on the warts. Don’t squeeze the pimples of my personality for pus.
I’m just looking. Clearly.
Facing up to – not who – but how i am.
And on the inside of my face is a smile beginning to smile.
The smile is feeling like the mirrors shining.
A skillful means. A hands on crafting and shaping of whatever is alive into awareness – by using Awareness.
I understand that meditation isn’t about having “mind-blowing” experiences, or going after Big Enlightenment. It’s not about tripping out on transcendence. It’s not about collecting miraculous moments.
It’s not about leaving the ordinary. Or losing the ordinary.
It’s about returning to ordinary. It’s about refreshing ordinary.
With skillful attentive alertness. With intentional focus. With energized interest. With spacious ease.
With a calm sense of rightful contentment.
With Awareness.
It’s not about reordering or repackaging the mind into neat bundles, so as to keep life floatable and flowable.
Or is it?
I don’t know. Maybe it is. Maybe that’s my Mindfulness motivation right there: to prevent my life from sinking, drowning.
My Mindful is about keeping Mind – and Head – above the water, and out of the water.
So that i can better see what’s going on.
In a way Mindfulness is going “against the flow” – setting up a counterstream.
To stream opposite to the “going with the flow” norm of habituated usualness and driftalong unawakened sameness.
This counterstream is subversive, even disruptive.
Or it can be.
It’s a calm counterstream. A steadfast counterstream.
Actually, “opposing” is probably not right. It’s not in opposition or resistance, or going against anything.
It’s a parallel stream, that flows alongside of.
Shining clarity, light, illumination, into the water.
Extraordinarily cold in the last few days. Sub zero temperatures. Too cold to get out of bed and immediately begin sitting, shivering on the cushion. Need to unfreeze up a bit first.
So sitting later on when will is warm enough.
Sat with the orange blanket wrapped tight around me. Such a faithful friend this orange blanket. I disappear into it. Withdraw willingly into its warm, comforting, folds.
Have an “at one” with blanket moment. I become blanket-like. I am blanketted.
And my mind becomes a blanket too. Kind of blank. Not an emptiness of mind blank. But a blanket blank.
A blanketty blank. Lol.
