Homework to Zencast 148 - Mindfulness Meditation Course Wk 2

Mindfulness Meditation (Week 2)

by Gil Fronsdal

Mindfulness of breathing is a wonderful beginning to
cultivating awareness. It strengthens our ability to concentrate and
steadies the attention on our present moment experience. It also weakens
our tendency to get lost in reactive emotions and mental preoccupations.
With time, attention to the breath helps us to develop a clear, non-reactive
awareness that can then be turned to the full range of our human experience.
As mindfulness develops, we begin to bring this awareness to other areas
of our lives.

Mindfulness is an embodied practice. By practicing mindfulness, we learn
to live in and through our bodies. Learning to be mindful of bodily
experiences is one of the most useful aspects of mindfulness. It is
much easier have a balanced, healthy awareness of the rest of our lives
when we are in touch with our immediate physical experience.

During this week we expand the practice to include the body. Many people
ignore their bodies. The busier a person’s life, the easier it is to
discount the importance of staying in touch with how the body feels.
Many people may be attentive to their body, but it is from the outside
in; that is, they are concerned about body image and appearance. Mindfulness
of the body is attention from the inside out. We notice what the body
is feeling, in and of itself. We give a generous amount to time to be
with the felt sense of the body. Not only does this help the body relax,
remaining mindful of the body is a safeguard from getting wound up with
mental preoccupations.

Benefits of Mindfulness of the Body

Mindfulness of the body has several benefits. First,
cultivating mindfulness of the body increases our familiarity with our
bodies and with how the body responds to our inner and outer lives,
to our thoughts and emotions, and to events around us. The Buddha saw
the human mind and body as unified. When we suppress or ignore aspects
of our emotional, cognitive, and volitional lives, we tend also to disconnect
from the body, from the physical manifestations of our experience. Conversely,
when we distance ourselves from our physical experience, we lose touch
with our inner life of emotions and thoughts. The awakening of the body
from within that comes with mindfulness can help us to discover, not
only our repressed emotions, but also, more importantly, a greater capacity
to respond to the world with healthy emotions and motivations.

Second, in cultivating mindfulness we are developing non-reactivity,
including the ability to be present for our experience without turning
away, habitually seeking or resisting change, or clinging to pleasant
and avoiding unpleasant experience. All too often, our automatic desires,
aversions, preferences, and judgments interfere with our ability to
know what is actually happening. Learning to not respond automatically
and unconsciously makes possible a deeper understanding of the present
moment and our reaction to it, and gives us more freedom to choose our
response. Being non-reactively present for our physical experience goes
a long way in learning to do so with the rest of our lives.

Last, but not least, mindfulness of physical sensations helps us both
to relax tension and to understand its causes.

Mindfulness Exercises for the Second Week

1. Continue your daily twenty-minute meditation
   session.

2. In the midst of your regular activities, devote
   two one-hour periods during the week to being mindful of your body.
   During this time, perhaps using a timer or some other cue to remind
   yourself, periodically check in with your body, maybe every five
   minutes or so. Notice, in particular, your shoulders, stomach, face,
   and hands. If you find tension in any of these places, relax.

3. Devote one meal to eating slowly and mindfully,
   paying attention to the tastes, textures, temperature, and other
   qualities of your food, and to the experience of your body eating.
   (When does your body tell you that have had enough?) If possible,
   take the meal in silence, with no other activities to distract you.
   You might want to put down your spoon or fork between bites. Whenever
   your mind wanders, or whenever you get caught up in reactions to
   what is happening, relax and come back to the simplicity of eating
   mindfully.

4. Start noticing when, how and by what, your attention
   becomes distracted or fragmented. Are there any common themes or
   patterns in the kinds of thoughts, feelings, activities, or pre-occupations
   where your mindfulness disappears? If you discover any, discuss
   what you find with somebody: a friend, relative, or colleague.

Meditation Instruction: Mindfulness of the Body

During meditation, center your awareness primarily on the physical sensations
of breathing. With dedication, but without strain, keep the breath in
the foreground of attention. The idea is to be relaxed and receptive
while alert and attentive. As long as other experiences such as bodily
sensations, sounds, thoughts, or feelings are in the background of your
awareness, allow them to remain there while you rest your attention
with the sensations of breathing.

When a strong physical sensation makes it difficult for you to stay
with the breath, simply switch your awareness to this new predominant
experience. The art of mindfulness is recognizing what is predominant
and then sustaining an intimate mindfulness on whatever that is. When
the mind wanders and you lose the mindful connection with the sensation,
gently and without judgment return your attention to the physical sensation.

As if your entire body was a sensing organ, sense or feel the physical
experience. Simply allow it to be there. Drop whatever commentary or
evaluations you may have about the experience in favor of seeing and
sensing the experience directly in and of itself. Carefully explore
the particular sensations that make it up - hardness or softness, warmth
or coolness, tingling, tenseness, pressure, burning, throbbing, lightness,
and so on. Let your awareness become as intimate with the experience
as you can. Notice what happens to the sensations as you are mindful
of them. Do they become stronger or weaker, larger or smaller, or do
they stay the same?

As an aid to both acknowledging the physical experience and sustaining
your focus, you can ever so softly label the experience. The labeling
is a gentle, ongoing whisper in the mind that keeps the attention steady
on the object of mindfulness. You should primarily sense directly the
experience and what happens to it as you are present for it.

Be alert for when the focus of your attention moves from the physical
sensations to your reactions to the sensations and your thoughts about
them. If this happens move your attention back to the felt-sense of
the sensations. Try to keep yourself independent of whatever thoughts
and reactions you have. Relax.

Once a physical sensation has disappeared or is no longer compelling,
you can return to mindfulness of breathing until some other sensation
calls your attention.