Week 5- Insight Meditation



Week 6- Insight Meditation

The Basic Practice:

Presence has two interdependent qualities of recognizing, or noticing what is happening, and allowing whatever is experienced without any judgment, resistance or grasping.

Presence, or noticing what is happening, is our deepest nature, and the essence of meditation is to realize and inhabit this whole and lucid awareness. We practice meditation by receiving all the domains of experience with a mindful, open attention.  These domains include

1. breath and sensations;

2. feelings (pleasant, unpleasant and neutral);

3. sense perceptions, thoughts and emotions; and

4. awareness itself.

In the essential practice of meditation there is no attempt to manipulate or control experience.  Natural Presence simply recognizes what is arising (thoughts, feelings, sounds, emotions) and allows life to unfold, just as it is. As long as there is a sense of a self making an effort and doing a practice, there is identification with a separate and limited self.  The open receptivity of Natural Presence dissolves this sense of a self “doing” the meditation.

Because our minds are often so busy and reactive, it is helpful to develop skillful practice that quiet the mind and allow us to settle into the fullness of Natural Presence. These supports for practice help us to notice and relax thoughts and physical tension. Create some time during each sitting when you let go of all “doings” and simply rest in Natural Presence.  Discover what happens when there is no controlling or efforting at all, when you simply let life be just as it is.  Discover who you are, when there is no managing of the meditation. Presence is supported by a calm and collected mind, a mindful awareness and an open heart. 

The following strategies cultivate these capacities:

1. The quality of care or friendliness towards our experience is an essential foundation of mindfulness. Kindness allows us to open, de-conditioning the tendency of our minds to resist and contract away from life. It is helpful to reflect on the intention of relating to experience in a gentle and kind way at the beginning of each sitting (and day!).

2. Rather than seeing sounds as a distraction, some may choose to use them as an anchor. For some people, listening to sounds is a useful alternative to using the breath as an anchor. Open the awareness to include the space within which the sounds arise, and listen without controlling anything. Simply let sounds happen, noticing how they arise, change, dissolve. While you may find it valuable to use sounds as an anchor for attention in this way, it is also important to also learn to concentrate and develop mindfulness around the breath. So after the attention has opened and relaxed, by resting in the awareness of sounds, once again practice by being with the breath.

3. The purpose of meditation practice is to bring a mindful attention to the changing flow of life, without either clinging to experience or resisting what is happening. Let your attention rest mindfully in the breath. When a strong emotion or sensation arises, let go of the breath as a primary area of attention, and open the awareness to include the waves of experience that are arising. Notice what they are like as sensations in the body, feelings in the body/mind… and notice how they change. Let your intention be to neither resist what is painful, or grasp at pleasure. Rather, bring an unconditional caring presence that allows life to unfold without interference.

4. To be truly present means to be aware of thinking, not lost in trains of thought. Typically the mind will contract and move off into thought forms repeatedly. This is natural, and when it occurs, simply recognize that thinking is happening by mentally noting “thinking, thinking”. Without any judgement, open out of thoughts and relax back into the breath.

5. Often our thoughts are repetitive, and strongly driven by emotions. When this happens, rather than returning to the breath, recognize and note the thinking and then open the awareness into the body and heart, to sense what is asking for attention. Often, there is fear or longing that needs to be included in awareness. Until we touch this directly, the mind will keep contracting off into thought forms and disconnecting from the present moment.

6. Remember that we can start our meditation fresh at any moment. Simply take a few conscious breaths, open out of thoughts, relax the body, and come back to rest in the breath or in listening to sounds. (see section below on remindfulness)

A few more tips-

Remindfulness—"coming back" and "being here"

Mindfulness is the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose and non-judgmentally to the unfolding of moment to moment experience. We train in mindfulness by establishing an embodied presence and learning to see clearly and feel fully the changing flow of sensations, feelings (pleasantness and unpleasantness), emotions and sounds.

Your attention is conditioned to leave presence, move out among the thoughts and get caught up in one thought after another. Plans for dinner segue into a disturbing conversation, a self-judgment, a song of the radio, a backache, the feeling of fear. Or your attention gets lost in obsessive thinking circling endlessly around stories and feelings about what is wrong somewhere in your life.

Training in mindfulness allows us to return to the present moment and live our moments with full awareness. Through the practice of "coming back" we notice when we have drifted and become lost in thought, and we recall our attention back to a sensory based presence. This important capacity is developed through the following steps:

• Set your intention to awaken from thoughts—mental commentary, memories, plans, evaluations, stories—and rest in non-conceptual presence.

• Gently bring attention to your primary anchor, letting it be in the foreground while still including in the background the whole domain of sensory experience.  For instance you might be resting in the inflow and outflow of the breath as your home base, and also be mindful of the sounds in the room, a feeling of sleepiness, an itch, heat.

• When you notice you have been lost in thought, pause and gently re-arrive in your anchor, mindful of the changing moment-to-moment experience of your senses.

It can be helpful to remember that getting distracted is totally natural- just as the body secretes enzymes, the mind generates thoughts!  No need to make thoughts the enemy; just realize that you have a capacity to awaken from the trance of thinking. When you recognize that you have been lost in thought, take your time as you open out of the thought and relax back into the actual experience of being Here.  You might listen to sounds, re-relax your shoulder, hands and belly, relax your heart. This will allow you to arrive again in mindful presence, senses wide open, letting your home base be in the foreground.  Notice the difference between any thought and the vividness of this Here-ness!

As the mind settles, you will have more moments of “being here,”’ of resting in the present and simply recognizing and allowing the changing flow of experience. Naturally the mind will still sometimes lose itself in thought, and at these times, when you notice, you again gently return to the present—“coming back,” and “being here” are fluid facets of practice.

One final note

We all have preconceived notions and preferences regarding “good meditations”. It helps to recognize that this is a liberating but challenging path: Our nature is to get lost in thought, be reactive to our experience, get restless, sleepy, doubtful…. Try not to judge your experience. Rather trust that you are truly an awakening, loving being. Practice love by accepting whatever arises. Gradually the practice of mindfulness and compassion will free you to express your true nature and live each moment fully.

All information for this presentation came from the Insight meditation society, local Washington DC branch website

Practice:

1. Sit in a way that feels comfortable and balanced. The posture is erect, with a tall and upright back, and, at the same time relaxed. The optimal sitting posture is one where there is a sense of dignity and of an alert and relaxed body/mind.

2. Take the first moments of sitting to sweep through the body with the intention to relax. Soften and let go areas of tightness and contraction. Let all of the senses be awake…. aware of physical sensations, moods, sounds and space in all directions. Then become aware in a very soft, yet clear way, of the movement of the breath.

3. Your awareness can rest in the breath, wherever the sensations of breathing are most predominant. For most people it is the inflow or outflow at the nose, or the rising and falling movement at the chest or abdomen. Once you decide where to be with the breath, let this be an anchor, the place you return to again and again.

4. Bring a full mindfulness to the breath: making no effort to control the breath, discover what it is actually like, moment to moment. If the attention gets too tight or tense, relax your body again, soften back into the breath. If the attention gets too spacey, difficult to focus, then intend to bring a real precision and clarity to the awareness of the breath.

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