Concentration and Meditation
One of the key components to living mindfully – is learning how to tame the unruly mind and cultivate attentional balance. In other words, we must learn how to direct our attention where we want it and hold it there. Ultimately, this is the only way to establish free will in our lives.
It is a common myth that we have such free will and use it daily. Most of our choices and reactions are triggered by an unruly mind; they are not conscious choices based in reality. If we are to have free will in our lives, we need to be present in the current moment with clarity and wisdom. Instead of having the mind drag us around from one thought or feeling to the next, we need to train the mind to serve us in the healthiest way possible.
If we observe the mind, we will notice that it tends to be either very active – ruminating, planning, reminiscing (often referred to as monkey mind) – or tired, such as when we can’t muster the energy to pay attention. These two states are often described as excitation and laxity – the mind tends to be either too excited or too lax. Rarely is it relaxed, stable and attentive. This dual tendency – excitation and laxity – is a common one that has been noted in many wisdom traditions throughout time. It is so common, in fact, that people just get used to it and accept is as a normal state of mind. While this acceptance is a pervasive human experience, in truth it is not our natural state of mind. The natural state of the mind is blissful, luminous and non-conceptual.
Unfortunately, the obsessive, compulsive and delusional activities of the mind obscure its true natural state. This state is verifiable – consistently replicated by meditators over thousands of years – yet it eludes us. When we are able to cultivate attentional balance, avoid getting caught up in excitation or laxity, and develop the ability to rest our awareness in a relaxed, stable and clear way, only then will we discover this natural, blissful state of mind.
The method of cultivating attentional balance that has been refined over thousands of years is available to us in concentration meditation otherwise known as shamatha (calm abiding). This specific practice is the antidote to the most detrimental mental affliction we have: the obsessive and compulsive mind. Before unveiling this method further, let us say a few words about meditation.
First, the form of meditation we are suggesting is very simple and can be done by anyone. You do not need to climb a mountain, sit in full lotus position, or learn any complicated visualizations. It is as simple as learning to relax your body, breathe naturally and pay attention.
Second, there are many different types of meditation, and all of them are designed with a specific purpose in mind. The great teachers of all traditions will emphasize that it does not matter so much that we sit this way or that way, do this meditation or that meditation; what matters is whether our meditation counteracts our mental afflictions. This is a very important point, and one that is overlooked far too frequently. So often we hear studies indicating that meditation has all sorts of wonderful benefits. Nice posters state that, if we all meditated, the world would be a peaceful place. Unfortunately, these claims are often out of context and not entirely true. Meditation can have a beneficial, non-beneficial, or neutral effect on us. We can use meditation to escape the responsibilities and challenges of life – or to face them. We can use meditation to concentrate all our energy on selfish means – or on helping others. We can do elaborate meditations working with energy and, without proper guidance, actually damage our bodies. We can also use certain meditations – understanding their specific purpose and with guidance from a qualified teacher – that enable us to alleviate, if not eliminate, mental and physical afflictions, thus improving our quality of life.
So remember that when learning to meditate it is very important for us to understand the purpose of the meditation, the directions of the meditation and how it addresses our afflictions. The concentration meditation that used in MLP is very safe, easy to learn and can be extremely effective in cultivating attentional balance.
Because many of us do not have a great deal of freedom and time to participate in hours of training, practice and meditation, it is also important to use what little time we do have to meditate in the most effective way. Most people are fortunate if they have 30 minutes a day to dedicate to formal meditation practice. We lead very busy lives, and it can be challenging to break old habits and create the time for a meditation practice. So, if you are able to meditate for only 10, 20 or 30 minutes, why not choose the meditation that directly counteracts our biggest obstacle, the unruly mind? That is the very specific purpose of concentration meditation practice.
Meditation practices are divided into two categories: concentration and contemplative/analytical. Concentration meditation such as shamatha is a concentration practice designed to develop attentional balance. The unique feature of this meditation is that we focus all of our awareness on one object to the exclusion of all else. In this way, we are able to train the mind to attend to what we choose, rather than have it drag our attention around. This meditation practice is also very healthy for our bodies. It allows us to rest body and mind in their natural states, which, in itself, is very healing. An added bonus to all of these benefits is that this meditation is a simple and straightforward practice that all of us can learn. It has three stages of development: relaxation, stability and vividness. It is often explained using a tree as a metaphor.
The roots of the tree represent relaxation. For us to truly progress in this practice, we need to be able to relax the body while keeping the mind alert. As simple as this sounds, we find that it is a skill to be cultivated. Rarely is the body physically relaxed while the mind is clear and mentally alert. We notice that when we relax, we have a tendency to feel very tired, or even fall asleep. Most of the time, the nervous system is quite active and ramped up. So, initially, our practice is simply learning how to relax our bodies without falling asleep. This is the root of our tree.
As we develop in our practice and are able to be alert while relaxed, what will become the trunk of our tree – stability – begins to sprout. Stability occurs when we are able to maintain our attention on our chosen object of meditation. If we have a consistent practice, even if it is only a short time daily, we will learn to have a relaxed body and an alert mind that is eventually able to remain focused on what we have chosen to attend to. This is a gradual process; trying to hurry does not help.
At first, the mind will wander many times, challenging us to maintain stability. At this point, many people struggle and begin to believe that they are not capable of meditating. However, this is when we are actually making progress! If the mind wanders 10 times during meditation and we bring it back 10 times, we have just had 10 mindful moments that we would not have had otherwise. Every time we notice that the mind has wandered, we become mindful and are able to direct it back consciously. This is the process of training the mind.
Most the time, when the mind wanders, we are not aware of it; it just takes us along for the ride. But gradually, with consistent practice, the trunk of stability will develop, and we will be able to rest our awareness on our chosen object for longer periods of time. Eventually, this will lead to a high degree of clarity and a vividness; these are the leaves of our tree. There is a sequence: First relaxation, then stability and, finally, vividness. Of course, in our goal-oriented modern Western world, we often try to reach for the leaves first, before we have developed healthy roots and a strong trunk. Rather than being beneficial, this actually hinders our progress.
There are two primary reasons people struggle to develop a consistent meditation practice. First, we don’t really know why we are meditating. We have a vague idea that it is good for us, we have read about its benefits and we believe that it will bring us inner peace. Then we try different meditations with hope that we will find . . . something. However, because we don’t know the specific qualities of the meditation we’re doing and how it is targeted to specific afflictions, it is difficult for us to see any progress, and our practice fades away.
Establishing any new habit is challenging; to be successful, we have to have a clear, realistic goal and a measurable path by which to arrive at that goal. As we prepare to meditate, we like to remind people to take a little time to remember why we are meditating – to call to mind that this is an opportunity to develop ourselves fully and cultivate a meaningful life with attention and intention. By choosing to meditate, we are developing the ability to direct the mind and attention where we choose, to no longer live unconsciously, to stop falling victim to every thought, feeling, worry or desire that pops into our heads. We give ourselves permission to relax and nourish ourselves, allowing body and mind to heal and become resources we can draw upon.
The second reason we struggle with meditation is that we try to do too much too soon. It is much better to start with short meditations of good quality than long meditations of poor quality. Quality is much more important than quantity with meditation. When we begin a meditation practice, it is best to choose a short one and learn to do it well. Venerable Thubten Chodron states that the best meditation practice occurs when we finish and feel as if we could have done a bit more. This encourages us to look forward to our next session rather than seeing it as a chore, which we might do after a painfully long session.
© 2015 Mindful Life Program Inc
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Concentration and Meditation
Concentration and Meditation
One of the key components to living mindfully – is learning how to tame the unruly mind and cultivate attentional balance. In other words, we must learn how to direct our attention where we want it and hold it there. Ultimately, this is the only way to establish free will in our lives.
It is a common myth that we have such free will and use it daily. Most of our choices and reactions are triggered by an unruly mind; they are not conscious choices based in reality. If we are to have free will in our lives, we need to be present in the current moment with clarity and wisdom. Instead of having the mind drag us around from one thought or feeling to the next, we need to train the mind to serve us in the healthiest way possible.
If we observe the mind, we will notice that it tends to be either very active – ruminating, planning, reminiscing (often referred to as monkey mind) – or tired, such as when we can’t muster the energy to pay attention. These two states are often described as excitation and laxity – the mind tends to be either too excited or too lax. Rarely is it relaxed, stable and attentive. This dual tendency – excitation and laxity – is a common one that has been noted in many wisdom traditions throughout time. It is so common, in fact, that people just get used to it and accept is as a normal state of mind. While this acceptance is a pervasive human experience, in truth it is not our natural state of mind. The natural state of the mind is blissful, luminous and non-conceptual.
Unfortunately, the obsessive, compulsive and delusional activities of the mind obscure its true natural state. This state is verifiable – consistently replicated by meditators over thousands of years – yet it eludes us. When we are able to cultivate attentional balance, avoid getting caught up in excitation or laxity, and develop the ability to rest our awareness in a relaxed, stable and clear way, only then will we discover this natural, blissful state of mind.
The method of cultivating attentional balance that has been refined over thousands of years is available to us in concentration meditation otherwise known as shamatha (calm abiding). This specific practice is the antidote to the most detrimental mental affliction we have: the obsessive and compulsive mind. Before unveiling this method further, let us say a few words about meditation.
First, the form of meditation we are suggesting is very simple and can be done by anyone. You do not need to climb a mountain, sit in full lotus position, or learn any complicated visualizations. It is as simple as learning to relax your body, breathe naturally and pay attention.
Second, there are many different types of meditation, and all of them are designed with a specific purpose in mind. The great teachers of all traditions will emphasize that it does not matter so much that we sit this way or that way, do this meditation or that meditation; what matters is whether our meditation counteracts our mental afflictions. This is a very important point, and one that is overlooked far too frequently. So often we hear studies indicating that meditation has all sorts of wonderful benefits. Nice posters state that, if we all meditated, the world would be a peaceful place. Unfortunately, these claims are often out of context and not entirely true. Meditation can have a beneficial, non-beneficial, or neutral effect on us. We can use meditation to escape the responsibilities and challenges of life – or to face them. We can use meditation to concentrate all our energy on selfish means – or on helping others. We can do elaborate meditations working with energy and, without proper guidance, actually damage our bodies. We can also use certain meditations – understanding their specific purpose and with guidance from a qualified teacher – that enable us to alleviate, if not eliminate, mental and physical afflictions, thus improving our quality of life.
So remember that when learning to meditate it is very important for us to understand the purpose of the meditation, the directions of the meditation and how it addresses our afflictions. The concentration meditation that used in MLP is very safe, easy to learn and can be extremely effective in cultivating attentional balance.
Because many of us do not have a great deal of freedom and time to participate in hours of training, practice and meditation, it is also important to use what little time we do have to meditate in the most effective way. Most people are fortunate if they have 30 minutes a day to dedicate to formal meditation practice. We lead very busy lives, and it can be challenging to break old habits and create the time for a meditation practice. So, if you are able to meditate for only 10, 20 or 30 minutes, why not choose the meditation that directly counteracts our biggest obstacle, the unruly mind? That is the very specific purpose of concentration meditation practice.
Meditation practices are divided into two categories: concentration and contemplative/analytical. Concentration meditation such as shamatha is a concentration practice designed to develop attentional balance. The unique feature of this meditation is that we focus all of our awareness on one object to the exclusion of all else. In this way, we are able to train the mind to attend to what we choose, rather than have it drag our attention around. This meditation practice is also very healthy for our bodies. It allows us to rest body and mind in their natural states, which, in itself, is very healing. An added bonus to all of these benefits is that this meditation is a simple and straightforward practice that all of us can learn. It has three stages of development: relaxation, stability and vividness. It is often explained using a tree as a metaphor.
The roots of the tree represent relaxation. For us to truly progress in this practice, we need to be able to relax the body while keeping the mind alert. As simple as this sounds, we find that it is a skill to be cultivated. Rarely is the body physically relaxed while the mind is clear and mentally alert. We notice that when we relax, we have a tendency to feel very tired, or even fall asleep. Most of the time, the nervous system is quite active and ramped up. So, initially, our practice is simply learning how to relax our bodies without falling asleep. This is the root of our tree.
As we develop in our practice and are able to be alert while relaxed, what will become the trunk of our tree – stability – begins to sprout. Stability occurs when we are able to maintain our attention on our chosen object of meditation. If we have a consistent practice, even if it is only a short time daily, we will learn to have a relaxed body and an alert mind that is eventually able to remain focused on what we have chosen to attend to. This is a gradual process; trying to hurry does not help.
At first, the mind will wander many times, challenging us to maintain stability. At this point, many people struggle and begin to believe that they are not capable of meditating. However, this is when we are actually making progress! If the mind wanders 10 times during meditation and we bring it back 10 times, we have just had 10 mindful moments that we would not have had otherwise. Every time we notice that the mind has wandered, we become mindful and are able to direct it back consciously. This is the process of training the mind.
Most the time, when the mind wanders, we are not aware of it; it just takes us along for the ride. But gradually, with consistent practice, the trunk of stability will develop, and we will be able to rest our awareness on our chosen object for longer periods of time. Eventually, this will lead to a high degree of clarity and a vividness; these are the leaves of our tree. There is a sequence: First relaxation, then stability and, finally, vividness. Of course, in our goal-oriented modern Western world, we often try to reach for the leaves first, before we have developed healthy roots and a strong trunk. Rather than being beneficial, this actually hinders our progress.
There are two primary reasons people struggle to develop a consistent meditation practice. First, we don’t really know why we are meditating. We have a vague idea that it is good for us, we have read about its benefits and we believe that it will bring us inner peace. Then we try different meditations with hope that we will find . . . something. However, because we don’t know the specific qualities of the meditation we’re doing and how it is targeted to specific afflictions, it is difficult for us to see any progress, and our practice fades away.
Establishing any new habit is challenging; to be successful, we have to have a clear, realistic goal and a measurable path by which to arrive at that goal. As we prepare to meditate, we like to remind people to take a little time to remember why we are meditating – to call to mind that this is an opportunity to develop ourselves fully and cultivate a meaningful life with attention and intention. By choosing to meditate, we are developing the ability to direct the mind and attention where we choose, to no longer live unconsciously, to stop falling victim to every thought, feeling, worry or desire that pops into our heads. We give ourselves permission to relax and nourish ourselves, allowing body and mind to heal and become resources we can draw upon.
The second reason we struggle with meditation is that we try to do too much too soon. It is much better to start with short meditations of good quality than long meditations of poor quality. Quality is much more important than quantity with meditation. When we begin a meditation practice, it is best to choose a short one and learn to do it well. Venerable Thubten Chodron states that the best meditation practice occurs when we finish and feel as if we could have done a bit more. This encourages us to look forward to our next session rather than seeing it as a chore, which we might do after a painfully long session.
© 2015 Mindful Life Program Inc
Healthy Relationships- Bringing Mindfulness to Others
One of the biggest values of a daily mindfulness practice is the ability to remember what’s important to you, what gives life meaning, and stay focused on that. It’s the same when we apply mindfulness to our relationships and interactions with others. Asking what’s important to you, and how do you want to show up each day with others you come in contact with is key. We seek to have healthy relationships and want to have healthy responses to events and experiences in life, though we often either notice we’re not quite who we’d like with others, or we may outright struggle with certain relationships in our life. How many of us have found ourselves reacting in a way we instantly regret, notice we’ve developed a habit of responding to someone in our life with a subtly unhealthy attitude, or perhaps we find that we barely acknowledged the cashier, the waiter, or the bus driver and wish we had?
When we are mindful, we are able to bear in mind, even in a momentary interaction, what we value and how we’d like to show up, so that we can respond in healthier ways. Bringing to mind our values, developing our attentional skills so we can attend to all of our relationships and interactions, being able to choose to respond rather than react when we are triggered, being able to see how we mislabel, use projection and exaggeration and otherwise misperceive reality, and cultivating an open heart, so that we can extend ourselves, our kindness and compassion, to all that we come into contact with, these are skills we can develop and nurture with a mindfulness practice.
In our Mindful Life Program Foundations course, we bring a strong emphasis to the four keys of mindfulness – attention, values, wisdom and practices of an open heart, and how they relate to having healthy relationships. Developing these areas, participants find that they are able to be more mindful in their relationship with themselves. This in turn, allows them to turn their attention and intentions more clearly towards relationships with family, friends and coworkers, and extend it to those they meet and interact with. We look at ways we can respond that are aligned with our values, that are meaningful to us, and we feel good about in the moment and afterwards, and how we get caught in reacting in ways that we don’t feel good about.
During the course, we spend time identifying and exploring some of the unhealthy habits we can fall into in relating to others and their causes. Through journaling and small group discussions, participants have a chance to look at how some of these ways of relating have affected friendships in their lives. Bringing wisdom from ancient traditions and western psychology, we investigate, for example, how our misperceptions, expectations and attachments, and our emotional triggers affect our interactions with others. It is so easy to get attached to another’s behavior being a certain way, or expecting one’s actions to cause a certain outcome in others, and suffer as a result. Our misperception in such an instance is one of the reasons we may end up having a regrettable emotional event! Having clarity about unrealistic expectations and attachments to an outcome can reduce much stress in our lives and interactions. As we develop our ability to have attention and presence of mind, we are much more able to bring this wisdom into our days. More obvious unhealthy behaviors such as criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling are highlighted in one of the videos used in the course, and illuminate these as red flags in any relationship.
What we easily conclude, and investigate more deeply, is that how we respond in any interaction has an impact on others. Whether it is smiling at the cashier, genuinely thanking a coworker, or how we respond in a more intimate relationship such as in marriage or parenting, our words and actions have an impact. One kind gesture may save someone from despair, or at least lighten his or her day. Attending to a conversation with a child, or with a spouse, allows them to feel cared for and heard. Thich Nhat Hanh has said, “One word, one action, one thought can reduce another person’s suffering and bring that person joy.” Alternately, our behavior can be harmful. For example, studies have shown that contempt, that behavior showing disapproval tinged with disgust, done from a place of superiority, over a period of time in a relationship, can have an impact on the recipients’ immune system for up to four years and impact the number of infectious diseases they have. Also, research has shown that how parents argue in the third trimester has a measurable impact on the baby’s neurological system in the first three years of life.
As we identify our real values, our desire to act with more kindness, more compassion, more attention, we ask, how can we create healthier relationships? While improving relationships is obviously an extensive topic, bringing the tools of mindfulness with a focus on the four keys areas of mindfulness help get to the core of improving our relationships. Starting with cultivating our attention, our ability to attend closely to those around us, we bring care and concern to others. John Bruna has pointed out that, “Truly listening, attentively, and with care, is one simplest and most kind gifts we can give anyone.” Through attending to the moment, ourselves and others, we are more present and aware. By creating more awareness, we create more choice in how we respond, rather than unconsciously reacting. Viktor Frankl’s quote illustrates this well. “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” As we move into looking at our deepest values, cultivating wisdom, and planting the seeds of an open heart, we find our relationships improving day by day.
Enhancing Resilience in Firefighters Mindfully
by Mark Molony
For the past 15 years I have had the honor to work with an amazing group of professional firefighters from the local fire service in the Melbourne area which numbers approximately 2,200 firefighters. More recently, I have been incorporating the foundational practices of the Mindful life Program in assisting firefighters to developing resilience as they navigate the effects of their work. My role is as a part time consultant mental health worker supporting firefighters to maintain their well-being and mental health while they continue to work in a challenging emergency response role. Our firefighters, like many around the world, also work as first responders to medical emergencies where patients are non-breathing and non-responsive. These life and death calls can be very challenging for firefighters. As part of my role, I keep an eye out for all the different types of stress and traumatic situations firefighters are exposed to and work to restore and enhance their personal resilience.
One way I work with firefighters is by providing a service called a “well-being check”. This well-being check is the mental health equivalent of regular medical monitoring or physical health check ups by a doctor. In these well-being checks, I share about what can lower our resilience. I explore symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression and trauma, using some screening questionnaires and by reviewing significant life events that have impacted them in the past year. Together, we also explore beliefs and actions that support well-being and human flourishing. As a result of this well-being check, we develop a plan for the individual firefighter for the next year that will continue to build their resilience. The fire crews are usually very enthusiastic about their well-being checks, especially when I let them know that the aim is to help them maintain their own awareness, well-being and resilience while they are helping rescue others in our community.
As a result of my individual conversations with firefighters, I am able to have a very honest discussion about what helps to promote well-being and resilience. I introduce mindfulness, the practice of noticing and monitoring how you are in the present moment while actively remembering what are the important considerations in your life that you wish to take care of.
“The practice of mindfulness is much more than present moment awareness. It includes and facilitates the cultivation of concentration, wisdom and the ability to make healthy choices that foster genuine happiness and a meaningful life.” – John Bruna
These discussions often promote great interest as firefighters can be challenged by remembering many distressing and traumatic situations. These memories can trigger off some very strong emotions and reactions. After observing hundreds of firefighters in my professional practice over 15 years, one of their major strategies for dealing with these symptoms is keeping themselves very busy. It is common to see firefighters working two jobs and/or undertaking large projects, volunteering and undertaking charity work to keep themselves occupied. This busy behaviour is often highly productive, yet can also be driven by trying to avoid the difficult feelings, memories and thoughts that appear when you stop. We all can experience this when we stop being occupied and let our minds wander. Often the wandering mind will roam to areas of worry and concern. The practice of mindfulness and mindfulness meditation allows firefighters to calm and settle themselves and be present. This is often a pleasant contrast to the busy avoidance behaviours that keep them active and filling large chunks of their waking hours.
I have been delighted to see the beneficial impact that the foundational practices of the Mindful life Program has had in assisting individual firefighters to start developing a mindfulness practice. As a population, our firefighters tend to be practical, no nonsense types who want down to earth, grounded and simple strategies. So the design of the Mindful Life Program to be practical, universal and accessible works well. The mindfulness practices work at both a preventative and remedial level by assisting them to maintain higher levels of resilience to deal with their emergency responder roles and helping to reduce and cease distressing reactions after difficult personal and traumatic incidents. I look forward in the future to introducing a pilot mindfulness training for recruit firefighters and monitor their progress to more effectively validate the impact of the mindfulness training.
Aspen Public Radio, April 14, 2016
Carbondale couple aims to make mindfulness more accessible
Learning how to meditate can be difficult, and developing something called mindfulness can be just as tricky. Now a Carbondale couple aim to make those activities a little easier to achieve.
Carbondale resident John Bruna has seen and experienced a lot. He’s been homeless, worked as a corporate manager, trained to be a buddhist monk, all among many other things. Now Bruna and his wife, Laura Bartels, are creating an online community for people interested in mindfulness.
“There’s no agreed-upon definition of mindfulness that’s universal,” says Bruna. “But one version of it is the ability to bear in mind who you are and what your values are.”
Bruna and Bartels are based at their Way of Compassion Dharma Center in Carbondale. This newer project is called the Mindful Life Program, with daily teachings and other resources posted online for subscribers.
“The basic research right now says that on average, mostly in the U.S., our mind is wandering about half the time that we’re awake,” says Bruna.
He and Bartels have taught mindfulness courses for a while, usually traveling outside the Roaring Fork Valley, to help participants make better choices, avoid bad habits and generally stick to what students find important in life.
Bartels, who has made a name for herself as a straw bale construction expert, says she and Bruna noticed their courses didn’t seem to be enough. “We also wanted to be able to support people on a daily basis,” she explains, “because when you have daily support, and you feel connected to a community of support, that’s where you can really change habits.”
That can be especially true for folks in addiction recovery. A woman we’ll call Aaron is a member of the Mindful Life Program and says it’s been helping her in the early stages of putting her life back together. She heard about the project–and daily emails– from Bruna.
“I use [the project] all the time,” she said by phone last week. “I watched all the videos that [John Bruna] and Laura [Bartels] did. And when I wake up, that’s the first thing I read in the morning, is the email. So yeah, I use it a lot.”
“Part of the vision is to always make this accessible to people,” says Bruna. He points out that the people who usually have time for mindfulness courses have a fair amount of disposable income, too. “We really wanted to take it out of the domain of the wealthy, educated, upper middle class community.”
Bruna and Bartels are up against a plethora of meditation and mindfulness phone apps. So far they have more than two hundred paying subscribers, and hope to sign up tens of thousands in the coming years.
http://aspenpublicradio.org/post/carbondale-couple-aims-make-mindfulness-more-accessible#stream/0
The Habit of Attention
Last evening I caught up with one of my dear friends, Gary. In the course of our conversation he told me about an eight week mindfulness program he is undertaking at work. He proudly told me he was up to week three. Gary told me that so far it was OK, but he was longing for some practical application of this mindfulness stuff. “Just show me how to use it”, he said. I responded to him by quoting the famous line from the Karate Kid film- “patience, grasshopper”.
This conversation sparked me to sit down and pen this article. I could hear the impatience in Gary’s tone. I suspected, as a mindfulness teacher, I could do more to help guide my students in the practice.
For many people, just noticing whether they are present, fully attentive, to what they are doing can be a challenge. Why is this a challenge for some many? The way we currently understand how our perceptual and sensory systems creates our reality is by taking a series of sensory snapshots of our environment and constructing our reality of experience. These snapshots are not necessarily how the environment is, but more about how we see it and experience it. Snapshots are necessary, as we could not take in every detailed aspect of our environment in every moment.
Interestingly, the way we take snapshots and make representations of how our environment becomes habitualized over time. With this habit comes speed of observation, understanding and in some cases – an action or response. It also allows us to skim over the details of things that are familiar to us. Through this process our brains create faster, more automated and responsive neural networks. “Neurons that fire together- wire together”. Hence, whatever we regularly practice, whether it is intended or unintended, becomes our habit. What marvelous adaptive perceptual/sensory systems we have! Evolution has clearly set us up to adapt to many varying environments and situations.
When things change in our world, sometimes our minds still feel as though things shouldn’t or haven’t changed. An example of this is the feeling of unreality you can get when someone close to you dies or when the road intersection traffic light sequence changes for the first time in 10 years. We have difficulty accepting and managing the change. We expect things to be as they were. It’s like our attention has been captured in someway.
A way of describing our attention is like a torch or flashlight for those in the US. It shines a beam of attention on objects in our life. Like a torch, we can switch our attention “ON” and we can switch it “OFF”. We can FOCUS it on one object or we can focus it on many different objects in a short period of time. We can change the DIRECTION of our attention and even vary the INTENSITY of it. Often we focus our attention on objects outside of ourselves. As human beings we also have the capacity to focus our attention in TIME -in the PAST, in the PRESENT and in the unrealized FUTURE.
So, Attention= ON/OFF, FOCUS, INTENSITY, DIRECTION, PAST, PRESENT and FUTURE. How many of these do you use on a daily basis and which ones do you have active conscious control over? If I had a magic attention tracking machine and attached it to you- what would I see about your day to day attentional practices?
Is your attention captured by worries or concerns? Are you able to focus your attention on an object and hold it there without your attention wandering off? How frequently is your attention distracted by technologies, the environment, people or random thoughts that come up? How scattered is your attention when you multi-task or juggle tasks? How busy are you? Do you find yourself often rushing and getting stressed? Does your attention get regularly hijacked by your emotions?
The problem of all of these considerations above is that they regularly occur in our lives. Yet we are unaware of the repetitive impact they are having on our awareness, our attention, our intentions and our actions in the world. They contribute to wiring our brains to become more mindless. Even when we stop and rest, our minds are still thinking, planning, worrying, jumping from the past to the future without our conscious direction. We can even have difficulty switching our light of attention OFF- even when tired and trying to sleep.
You can only imagine what the impact of these attentional afflictions have on how we experience our life- moment to precious moment. In the words of William James, founder of modern psychology, “what we attend to becomes our reality”. This attentional affliction does not allow us to focus on the ingredients of our lives that genuinely make us happy.
This is the “WHY” in practicing mindfulness. John Bruna defines mindfulness as, literally, “presence of mind”. In other words, it is the ability to maintain a level of awareness of what is happening within us and around us without elaboration. The practice of mindfulness is much more than present moment awareness, it includes and facilitates the cultivation of concentration, wisdom and the ability to make healthy choices that foster genuine happiness and a meaningful life.” You can notice from this definition the focus of awareness of what is happening to us and around us in our lives.
To assist us all in this mindful awareness, we have developed an online community of practice called “The Mindful Life Community”. This community provides a practice community in the application and practice of the four foundations, or keys, of mindfulness.
In the Mindful Life Community, we undertake a daily attentional and intentional practice based on the four foundations of mindfulness – Attention, Wisdom, Values and an Open heart. One way members of the community receive support in this practice is by a daily mindfulness support email. In each daily email, they are invited to focus and reflect on one of the four foundations of mindfulness, reflect on how this relates to their life and how they could incorporate mindfulness practice into their day. This is supported by a daily activity and a weekly exercise that community members can use to build their mindfulness every single day.
If you haven’t joined the Mindful Life Community, I would encourage you to do so. It’s a great way to gain support in becoming more mindful in your life. You also might gain better control of your attention ——-ON, FOCUSED, BRIGHT, PRESENT.
-Mark Molony