Homework to Zencast 149 - Mindfulness Meditation Course Wk 3

Mindfulness Meditation (Week 3)

by Gil Fronsdal

In mindfulness practice we keep our attention on the
breath, unless some other experience is so strong as to pull us away
from the breath; then we turn our attention to that other experience.
One kind of experience that can pull us away is physical sensations,
which we talked about last week; another is emotions.

No emotion is inappropriate within the field of mindfulness practice.
We are not trying to avoid emotions, or to have some kinds of emotions
and not others. We are trying to allow them to exist as they arise,
without the additional complications of judgement, evaluation, preferences,
aversion, desires, clinging, resistance or other reactions.

The Buddha once asked, "If a person is struck by an arrow, is that
painful?" Yes. The Buddha then asked, "If the person is struck
by a second arrow, is that even more painful?" Of course. He went
on to say, that as long as we are alive, we can expect painful experiences
- the first arrow. Often the significant suffering associated with an
emotion is not the emotion itself, but the way we relate to it. If we
condemn, judge, hate, or deny the first arrow, that is like being struck
by a second arrow. The second arrow is optional, and mindfulness helps
us avoid it.

An important part of mindfulness practice is investigating our relationships
to our emotions. Do we cling to them? Do we hate them? Are we ashamed
of them? Do we tense around them? Are we afraid of how we are feeling?
Do we measure our self-worth by the presence or absence of an emotion?
Can we simply leave an emotion alone?

Mindfulness itself does not condemn or condone any particular emotional
reaction. Rather, it is the practice of honestly being aware of what
happens to us and how we react to it. The more aware and familiar we
are with our reactions, the easier it will be to have, for example,
uncomplicated grief or straightforward joy, not mixed up with the second
arrows of guilt, anger, remorse, embarrassment, or judgement. Emotional
maturity comes, not from the absence of emotions, but from seeing them
clearly.

Mindfulness helps us to be as we are without further complications.
If we can be accepting of ourselves in this way, then it is much easier
to know how to respond appropriately with choice rather than habit.

How To Attend Emotions

Generally, during meditation, keep yourself centered on the breath.
If there are emotions in the background, leave them there; keep the
breath in the foreground of awareness as if it were the fulcrum for
your experience.

When an emotion becomes compelling enough to make it difficult to stay
with the breath, then bring it into the focus of meditative awareness.

There are four aspects to the mindfulness of emotions. You don’t have
to practice all four each time you focus on an emotion. At different
times, each is appropriate. Experiment to see how each can help in developing
a non-reactive attention to emotions. The four are:

Recognition: A basic principle of
mindfulness is that you cannot experience freedom and spaciousness unless
you recognize what is happening. The more you learn to recognize the
range of your emotions, including the most subtle, the more you will
become familiar and comfortable with them, and the less you will be
in their thrall.

Naming: A steady and relaxed labeling of the emotion
of the moment, e.g., "joy," "anger," "frustration,"
"happiness", "boredom," "contentment",
"desire," and the like, encourages us to stay present with
what is central in our experience. Naming can also help us become calm
and less entangled with the emotion, less identified with it or reactive
to its presence.

Acceptance: This does not mean condoning or justifying
certain feelings. It means simply allowing emotions to be present, whatever
they may be. Many people frequently judge and censure their feelings.
Formal meditation practice offers us the extraordinary opportunity to
practice unconditional acceptance of our emotions. This does not mean
expressing emotion, but letting emotions move through you without any
inhibitions, resistance, or encouragement.

Investigation: This entails dropping any fixed ideas
we have about an emotion and looking at it afresh. Emotions are composite
events, made up of bodily sensations, thoughts, feelings, motivations,
and attitudes. Investigation is not analysis, but more a sensory awareness
exercise of feeling our way into the present moment experience of the
emotions. It is particularly useful to investigate the bodily sensations
of an emotion, letting the body be the container for the emotion,. In
a sense, the body is a bigger container than the thinking mind which
is easily exhausted, and which tends to spin off into stories, analysis,
and attempts to fix the situation - away from acceptance of the present
moment experience.

Mindfulness Exercises for the Third Week

1. Lengthen your daily meditation session to 25
   minutes. When you first sit down, notice the main concerns, feelings,
   physical sensations that may be pre-occupying you. Acknowledge them
   and remain attentive to any tendency to become lost in your thoughts
   concerning these experiences. Meditation proceeds easiest when we
   are willing to suspend - for the duration of the meditation - the
   need to think about anything.

2. At least once during the week "ride out
   an emotion." Sometime during the week when you are feeling
   a strong desire, aversion, fear, or other emotion, don’t act on
   the feeling. Rather, bring your mindfulness to the feeling and observe
   the changes it undergoes while you are watching it. You might choose
   to sit, stand or walk around quietly while you do this study. Things
   to notice are the various body sensations and tensions, the changes
   in the feeling’s intensity, the various attitudes and beliefs that
   you have concerning the presence of the emotion, and perhaps any
   more primary emotion triggering the feeling. If after a time the
   emotion goes away, spend some time noticing what its absence feels
   like.

3. Spend part of a day making a concentrated effort
   to notice feelings of happiness, contentment, well-being, joy, pleasure,
   and ease. Even if your day is primarily characterized by the opposite
   of these, see if you can identify even subtle and seemingly insignificant
   moments of these positive states. It can be as simple as appreciating
   the texture of a doorknob or a flash of ease in your eyes as you
   notice the blue sky after the fog has burned off. This is not an
   exercise for manufacturing positive states but rather discovering
   that these may be much more a part of your life than your preoccupations
   allow you to notice.

4. Spend part of another day noticing which feelings
   tend to pull you into a state of preoccupation. Sometimes there
   are patterns in the kinds of feelings that lead to becoming lost
   in thoughts. Common sources for distraction are desire, aversion,
   restlessness, fear, and doubt. Are any of these more common for
   you than the others? What is your relationship to these feelings
   when they appear? As you notice the patterns, does that change how
   easily you get pulled into their orbit? By clearly noticing their
   presence, can you overcome any of the ways in which these interfere
   with, or inhibit, whatever activities you need to do?