![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Mindfulness Meditation
Jun. 29th, 2004 04:48 pmA few posts ago, I mentioned mindfulness meditation as my method of choice for watching what I do that causes me to suffer. There are many resources available out there that discuss how to do it, but it basically boils down to two things: First, it’s a time that you set aside for the express purpose of watching yourself. Second, when you notice that your attention has wandered or gotten stuck on something other than yourself, you bring it back to yourself again. That’s it! That’s all there is to it. There are things you can do (breathing, posture, etc.) to help keep your mind on those things, but they are not strictly necessary for this meditation.
Simple, huh?
Deceptively so.
Because your egocentric conditioning has been conditioned to preserve itself (for your own good, it would have you believe) it will do everything it can to prevent you from doing this, even for five minutes.
Possibly even for one minute.
If you don’t believe me, try it. Make yourself comfortable and then turn your attention to your thoughts. It is hard to pay attention to your thoughts when you are preoccupied with them, so try to stop thinking and just watch what happens. Watch what thoughts come up in response to that. If you notice that you’ve gotten caught up in one of those thoughts, or that you’re thinking about something that happened earlier or something that you need to do later, or anything other than watching yourself, just let go of whatever you find yourself distracted by and come back to watching.
Go ahead, try it now. The rest of this entry will still be here in one minute.
( Done? Click here to continue )
Simple, huh?
Deceptively so.
Because your egocentric conditioning has been conditioned to preserve itself (for your own good, it would have you believe) it will do everything it can to prevent you from doing this, even for five minutes.
Possibly even for one minute.
If you don’t believe me, try it. Make yourself comfortable and then turn your attention to your thoughts. It is hard to pay attention to your thoughts when you are preoccupied with them, so try to stop thinking and just watch what happens. Watch what thoughts come up in response to that. If you notice that you’ve gotten caught up in one of those thoughts, or that you’re thinking about something that happened earlier or something that you need to do later, or anything other than watching yourself, just let go of whatever you find yourself distracted by and come back to watching.
Go ahead, try it now. The rest of this entry will still be here in one minute.
( Done? Click here to continue )
