Meditation (it’s long)
When you notice your mind wandering what is your thought about it?
Do you get upset, like you’ll never be able to stay focused, like training an alligator would be easier than controlling your own attention?
Do the judgments come with assumptions:
I’ll never be able to have a blank mind!
I’m wasting my time!
This practice is too hard!
When is this hour over so I can go back to thinking?
Or
Are you gentle and compassionate?
“Ah mind, you’ve gotten distracted again, how about we take this opportunity to come back to the (breath, mantra, or whatever the chosen focus for this meditation)
Are you soft and encouraging, do you appreciate the chance to show yourself patience?
The act of noticing, acknowledging, then redirecting one’s attention back to the focus,
That is the heart of meditation,
That is the ‘muscle’ or skill you’re conditioning so,
What is the mood of your dojo?
Learning to observe the process that happens almost instantaneously:
1. sensation
2. Comparisons to how things ‘should be’
3. Asking ‘WHY?’ Questions
4. Jumping to past and future thoughts.
All this can happen so fast, it’s easy to miss and then get distracted with the emotions that come with the judgement,
‘I’m bad at this’
‘I’ll never get a blank mind’
Etc.
Releasing those judgments and then gently returning the attention to the focus of the meditation is the
Rumination is in a sense, an unintentional meditation, so what happens when we give our ruminations our full attention?
What happens when we invite in, disturbance, frustration even rage or morning…
Life if full of peaks and valleys and if avoidance ensures this negative experience will remain dormant and likely return when we least want it, what happens when if instead of pushing it away, we give it our full attention?
This upsetting thought is… making me feel these emotions:
which emotions-
how many can I listI list?
Which are the most accurate to describe what I’m feeling?
Which are close but not as accurate as possible?
How many different emotions and I experiencing from this rumination?
What happens when we give our attention to the body?
If we accept that we’re upset, what are those feelings causing internally?
Is it tightness in the chest?
What about the neck and shoulders?
Is there a frog in the throat?
Pinching between the eye brows?
Once we find the feelings, what happens when we just acknowledge them?
What happens when we just honor and allow, whatever is, the space and attention it needs, just to exist in this moment?
Am I upset? Yes…
Where do I feel it?
My heart feels heavy, it’s hard to breathe and my chest and diaphragm are really tense making it painful to breathe…
Where else am i experiencing a sensation?
Are my eyes heavy, does my forehead hurt because I’m pinching my eyebrows together?
If it’s here, what happens when I, instead of getting more upset and say, this ‘should’ be that…!
What happens if instead I just say, what’s here now, is exactly what I’m experiencing, which is completely ok because this is my experience…
This is exactly how I feel about what’s going on in my life…
Now what happens to those spots of tension when I actually speak those feelings aloud?
What happens if I repeated speak them aloud?
Does the pain and discomfort grow?
Or does the acknowledgement of the discomfort do something else?
If avoiding and suppressing ensure that which was avoided will surely return…
What happens if instead, I give it my best shot to accept all of the ways and things, to experience and express all the emotions in currently experiencing…
What happens inside me when I instead…
honor what it is that, to the best of my ability, to gently and lovingly allow me to feel, everything and anything that is currently here