coming into the moment

coming back to what is already happening and resting in that (McCleod)

from the title of this practice, we can see that our formal mindfulness practice is not a doing, but rather a being with experience. “practice” may indeed not be the most useful word, because we tend to associate it with doing. then again, every word has its own problems. “wei wu wei” (“action that is inaction”) gets closer, because mind cannot wrap around it. it is beyond thought, or prior to it. and yet, when we reflect on the nature of influence, we see it clearly. or the way another’s mood can affect us. another way to describe the attitude of the practice would be: “what, other than thought, is happening in this moment?” so, we are focusing on direct experiencing, prior to interpretation. and that experiencing comes in the form of sensation and perception.

meditation is experiential, not intellectual. Buddhism talks endlessly about mind but, in Sanskrit and Tibetan, “mind” does not mean intellect; instead, mind is everything we experience. mind includes sensations, feelings, the heart, as well as thoughts and the intellect. the use of the word “mind” has introduced an intellectual and cognitive bias in English, which is neither valid nor helpful in this context. “put the mind on the breath” does not mean “think about the breath.” it means experience the breath or feel the breath with your heart.

Ken McCleod

usually, we begin by bringing attention to the breath. it is a good place to start, because it is dynamic: it flows, so attention can flow with it. it is also slower than thought, and therefore helps to slow mind down. notice the sensations that we call breathing: the chest/stomach expanding and contracting; the feeling in the nostrils, the soft sound of air exiting the nostrils. see if you can simply be with the sensations as they arise, noticing the difference between experiencing them viscerally (immediate, alive), and “thinking about” them (dull, flat).

if you expand attention to the rest of the body, you will notice the sensation of the chair against your legs, or the floor against your back, legs, head; the feeling of clothes against your skin; your hands resting on each other or on your legs... can attention hold these and breathing concurrently? you may notice tensions, for example in the shoulders. you may also notice little bursts of what feels like electricity randomly arising and dissipating throughout the body (we will look more deeply into sensation later).

see if you can now include auditory sensation in attention as well. notice all the little sounds that arise: birds, the humming of the fridge, traffic, the wind. notice that if you are listening, you are not occupied with mental chatter, and if you are occupied with mental chatter, you are not listening. we miss so much of life because we are in our heads... see if you can be with the breath, the body, and with sound at the same time. resting in breathing, sensation, and listening.

if you like, you can also open your eyes. can attention hold breathing, sensing, listening, and seeing concurrently?

how about now?

and now?

in the beginning, it will be easier to be with two of these at a time. or we will go between them, being now with listening, now with the body, now with breathing.with time, we begin to expand attention.

when mind is quiet, this practice feels intensely alive, utterly intimate, and deliciously joyful. we really begin to wake up to our life, our actual experience, prior to our interpretation of such. we realize that we are not separate from what we experience.

this practice, and many others you will find in the meditation section, is adapted from Ken McCleod:Waking Up to Your Life.