Sitting Meditation

Mindfulness

What do we need to be mindful? Jon Kabat-Zinn, in his book Full Catastrophe Living, lists attitudinal foundations of mindfulness: acceptance, non judging, nonstriving, letting go, patience, trust, beginner’s mind, gratitude and generosity. Christiane Wolfe adds: curiosity, kindness and humor.

These attitudes need to be cultivated like you would a garden, it takes daily attention.

One way to deepen our connection to these attitudes is to pay attention to one of them each week for 11 weeks.

Our brains automatically focus on what we don’t have, so gratitude, which focuses on what we do have, can be a great counterbalance. It can shift attention to peach contentment and calm.

Acceptance can be one of the hardest attitudes to achieve. We can force acceptance, we can only invite it in. By turning towards the present situation and realizing that it simply is the way it is, we can move ourselves towards acceptance.  It’s important to remember, we don’t have to LIKE a situation to accept it. “Yes, I don’t like it AND this is the way it is right now.”

Non judging is so important that Jon Kabat-Zinn included it in his definition of mindfulness: “the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, moment by moment and nonjudgmentally.”

Nonstriving is being present in the moment without any agenda, without trying to change anything. Not trying to relax, or feel better, or even to reach a special meditative state. It is the state of just being, as you are.

How to practice patience? The best practice is when you notice you are impatient. And then you decide not to do anything about it. Just notice how the impatience feels and colors the experience you are currently in.

Loving-kindness is the general well-wishing and benevolence towards all living being. It is the impulse to alleviate suffering. This is also called compassion. And when directed towards the self, it is called self-compassion.

Mindfulness and loving-kindness are describes as two wings of a bird. Both are necessary. Mindfulness is present-moment nonjudgmental awareness, while compassion is an active and kind turning towards suffering with the aim of relieving that suffering.

Today’s practice, sitting mindfulness is a form of mindfulness of the body. Mindfulness of the body is on of the 4 main mindfulness practices:

1. Mindfulness of the body (the body is always present)

2. Mindfulness of feeling tones (accompany emotions)

3. Mindfulness of the mind (thoughts & emotions)

4. Mindfulness of how the mind operates

Mindfulness is not a quick fix. The idea of mindfulness is not to make problems go away. It is to learn to accept what is where.  For example, if the issue is chronic pain, you should know that mindfulness will not make the pain go away. Mindfulness can help a person accept the pain, which in turn allows a person to cope better and to feel the moments of joy in life.

It teaches us how to relate to our experiences differently.