Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Victorious Practice

To practice mindfulness you start by bringing your attention to one thing. By sitting and bringing your attention to the breath fully for a moment you are practicing awareness. When you extend that awareness to the next breath, that is further awareness which we call ... mindfulness. Practicing with the breath is an important practice because it is bringing us into focus with the primary sensation of life-giving breath.

Once we can appreciate and relax with this basic sensation of breath then we can extend our awareness to the environment. Mindfulness is not sensory withdrawal. You may need to practice in a quite place at first, yet once you connect with your meditation object or the object of mindfulness then you can afford to relax and let more of the environment into your field of awareness. If you become distracted by thoughts that seem to stem from the sense objects or from past and future concerns, include that in awareness as well. See the thoughts and once you have included then in your awareness, then return to the primary sensation of breath or your meditation object.
 
In order to practice you need to include your experience of the world of the senses and of thoughts while also training your mind to come back to your chosen meditation object. That is what is called practice. After your formal practice session you can work with any experience of the present moment. Feel free to reflect on future goals or past experiences as well, yet from the point of view of greater mindfulness and awareness. There are no experiences or thoughts that need to be excluded from your awareness. Seal everything that comes up with awareness, and come back to your chosen object of meditation. If you can practice mindfulness this way then it is impossible to "fail". With the right view on practice, it is always victorious.