Day 5

Mindfulness Revisited

 Welcome to 40 Days of Mindfulness and Compassion Day 5!

Lecture

Today we will revisit mindfulness of breathing. This is really a core foundational practice and is fruitful to revisit again and again.

As I indicated on day one, mindfulness as a wide spread practice, was primarily popularized by Jon Kabat-Zinn via his Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction program. This was a unique and accessible approach to meditation, and being housed in a medical center at a major University gave it a certain amount of social credibility. During the 1990’s it gradually built a reputation as well as an evidence base. Emerging research displayed a variety of benefits from mindfulness practice.

I remember first hearing about MBSR and the work around it, in a documentary that I saw sometime in the early 2000’s, and it was eye-opening to me. I had been “studying” meditation, primarily but not exclusively from a Buddhist perspective, since January 1991. What I saw was quite new and different to me, and I have followed the emerging growth of secular based mediation practices since this time. It was eye opening on several levels. On one level, as a Western person, I had struggled with how to integrate practices from another tradition and belief system into my modern life. On a second level, it was eye opening in that practices from an ancient spiritual tradition could be modified to meet the needs of modern persons. There are currently quite robust discussions about this in Buddhist and contemplative circles. It is very much an emerging dialogue and process.

All this is to say that this public interest in meditation, along with its secular adaptations, is quite new. And, there is an explosion of practical resources available now to help people that did not exist for the many years that I was trying hard to meditate. My goal here, and generally, is to help to provide practical resources to people engaged in or interested in a contemplative path. I highlighted the word trying because I put a lot of seriousness and effort into the process, and this in retrospect presented certain difficulties.

Based on my own experiences, and reports of others, it is very critical to not be “too wound up” when we meditate. The practice that will be presented today is an antidote to such tightness. As I indicated, instructions and advice like this were not available for the many years that I was working on learning to meditate (I did not absorb them if they were there). Something that I was missing in my meditation practice was gentleness, an aware and compassionate type of gentleness that can be quite powerful and relaxing. In retrospect, I was coming to mindfulness and meditation practices with much seriousness. I consciously and unconsciously thought of myself as on some kind of high-minded pursuit. And, this seriousness and tightness really prevented me from accessing mindfulness and compassion. What was missing was gentleness and openness. Today, we will work on this, and on its relationship to posture and somatic awareness.

Meditation Tips

Meditation Tip #7: When in doubt, come back to the body. In the modern world, many or most of us “live in our heads.” At least speaking for myself, we are stressed, tightly wound and self-critical. If we bring these qualities into our contemplative practices unaware, then the practices can actually contribute to these. We can become more stressed, more tightly wound, and our self-criticism may be triggered. We may even self-identify as a failure, or as someone who “cannot meditate.” The antidote: relax and come back to the body and somatic sensations.

 

Meditation

Here are 10 and 20 minute versions of breathing meditation practice, done by Margaret Cullen. She was one of the early people trained in MBSR, developer of Mindfulness Based Emotional Balance.

 

Margaret Cullen:  Breath Meditation

 

  

Self-Reflective Activity

Try and stop 3-5 times during your daily activities for a short (1-2 minute pause). You might even set up reminders for you to do this.  Simply feel the sensations of the breathing as you breathe in and out, and then bring awareness to your body. Observe: what is going on in my body right now? What physical sensations are present? Do not evaluate, just observe. And regarding any muscular tension, observe gently and then release. Recognize the tension, hold it gently in awareness, then release and relax (particularly on the outbreath).

This practice can also be done when you notice yourself in a place of stress and  tension.

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