Mindfulness

Hey, Godrew Sphere. Happy Wednesday. This is Steven, and we're going to talk a little bit about mindfulness today. So, over the past few weeks, I've been giving kind of an introduction and an overview of what the practice looks like. And we've talked about how to take our seat sitting up nice and tall in a chair or on a cushion or maybe a bench. We've also talked about bringing our attention or our awareness to our breath. So noticing the sensations of our breath as we inhale and exhale, whether that be maybe in the belly or the chest or at the nose.

Hey, Mel. Welcome. We've also talked about noticing when we have a thought that's come up, as we're supposed to be focusing on our breath. Our mind keeps thinking, thoughts come up. And we are carried away, sometimes into the past, as we're remembering something from the past or into the future as we're planning for what comes next. And it's about noticing those moments when we're carried away and labeling those things as thoughts, whatever it might be. It might be that you notice a sensation in your body that pulls your attention from the breath.

It might be that all of a sudden, you've remembered something that you need to do later this afternoon. Anything that pops up during practice, we can label that as a thought. So it's just kind of noticing it saying, oh, it's some thinking, and I'm shifting your attention back to the breath. Hey, Kadri. Welcome. So we've got those three kind of elements of practice, the three steps of practice, taking our seat for practice, bringing our attention to our anchor, which so far we've talked about. Hey, Luke.

Welcome. So far, we've talked about using the breath as an anchor. It's not the only anchor that's available, but it's one that's available to most people. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment. So noticing and kind of bring attention to the breath, and then noticing when a thought pops up and you're distracted and bringing your attention back to the breath. So those are the three steps. In addition to those three steps, there's kind of three qualities that we can bring to our practice.

I want to talk a little bit about today, and these are characteristics of practice or qualities that we can cultivate in our practice. And the first of them is precision. And precision is really an interesting one because precision is about being aware of what you're supposed to be doing. It's like remembering, hey, I'm supposed to be practicing right now, and focusing on those very subtle sensations of the breath and kind of diving into that as much as you can. There's a element of precision there in noticing something as subtle as the breath, which we often simply take for granted.

There's also precision in noticing quickly when you have been distracted and bringing your attention back to the breath. So it's about working and cultivating that ability to stay with the practice in the way that the practice is intended. Now, what does that mean and what does that look like? I can tell you I've sat many a long meditation retreat where I spend ten days in silence, sitting in meditation and doing walking meditation. And for sure, there are times when I sit down to start practicing with the breath, and then suddenly I'm like, oh, wait, I notice this, like, sensation in my foot and I'm going to start noticing, wait, do I notice any sensations in my ankle or my lower legs or upper legs?

Do I notice any sensations in my back or shoulders or face? And that's great, right? A body scan practice like that is a really powerful practice. However, it is not the kind of focused awareness practice that we're talking about so far in these lives. And precision is about staying with the practice that you intended to do and not allowing yourself to drift from practice to practice and from kind of mindset to mindset. Another thing that happens really commonly, particularly when we're focusing on the breath, is while our awareness is on the breath, we're not trying to control the breath.

We're not doing breath work here. So this isn't pranayama practice where we're counting how long we're inhaling and exhaling. Again, wonderful practices, but not the intention of this practice. It could be right, but that will be a different type of practice. So precision about doing the practice as intended and also noticing quickly when you've been carried away by thoughts, labeling that and bringing your attention back. And as you practice more and more, what you're going to notice is that you're thinking even more than you're aware of when you first start practicing.

It happens much more frequently. There's a really well known western meditation teacher named Joseph Goldstein, and he talks about something called noticings per minute, and that when you first start, you might notice, oh, there's a thought. I've been thinking about something. You may notice that ten times a minute, but as you practice more, you actually don't end up with less thoughts. You end up with an increase in the amount of noticing and, and the mindfulness and the awareness. So your noticings per minute go way up, and you end up noticing a lot more.

So this is all precision. Another quality that we can bring to our practice is gentleness. What do I mean by gentleness? And that's really about cultivating a curious and kind and friendly attitude. So it's not about judging when we have a thought. It's not about judging when we're distracted one day or when we can't sit still and we're fidgeting. It's about just being with what's here and trying to stay as open and allowing. I love that word, allowing. Whatever is here to be here, that can be really hard.

By the way, I hear my kids in the background. There's 29 days until school starts. So it is this gentleness that you can bring to the tone of your inner voice as you're practicing. That could be, oh, there's a thought again. Instead of saying, oh, thinking again, it's like, oh, there's another thought. Oh, there's another thought. Right. I've noticed this a lot in group work when I've been practicing in Sangha with many other people. There's often a period of time in practicing in Sangha, where you sit in practice, and then afterwards, there's often reflection time.

Or there may be a question that's asked where we can do some inquiry, and we can reflect on elements of our practice or elements of our lives. And when someone shares a view that I don't agree with, or when someone shares a view that might be a bit triggering. For me, gentleness is about being able to be with that element, of being triggered, about being with it and not being harsh with ourselves because of it. So gentleness can stretch through the entire practice, and there's entire practices dedicated to cultivating more gentleness and more compassion and kindness.

And then the third quality that I think is really important in practice is just about letting go. So there was another teacher. Again, this was an eastern teacher named Goenka, and he popularized this ten day Vipassana retreat that many people have heard of where you go and sit in silence for ten days, and I. And they're wonderful retreats. They have a kind of a specific regimented structure. And Cuenca was very famous for giving simple instruction for the practice and then just reminding you as you're sitting to begin again.

Because oftentimes as we practice, our minds get carried away. We lose focus, we lose attention, we lose that gentleness, and we can always start over again. We can always begin again. And each time that we notice a thought and label it as thinking come back to the breath. That isn't a function of beginning again. So letting go is a about kind of relaxing into the practice, beginning again whenever distraction comes up. It's also about letting go of our kind of fixed views of what the world around us is presenting.

And this leads a little bit more into the insight element of practice and kind of our ability to learn and observe our minds and learn what's going on up here. Oftentimes we have a story in our minds, and that story is. Can be really hard to overcome. But oftentimes, the story is just made up. It's just something that is from our conditioning. It's from our. The way that we were raised. It's from our socialization. It's from maybe a previous experience, but it doesn't necessarily mean that it's the absolute truth.

But if we start to narrow our focus, narrow our. What options are available to us that can be kind of constricting and tightening? So I spent the weekend at amusement parks because I have two little boys, and my oldest son, who is seven, is really excited about roller coasters. He loves watching roller coasters videos, and he likes being at the museum parks and seeing the roller coasters. And we were at the park, and there were some small roller coasters that he was able to ride, and there was one that was just, like, a little bit bigger, right?

It was a little bit bigger than kind of the kiddie coasters. And he got on, and he really got kind of scared. So we ended up getting off, and we talked a little bit about it. And the example that I used with Joe came from a Disney movie called Luca. And in Luca, there is this scene where the two characters who are actually sea monsters that have been transformed into humans, when they come out of the water, they're trying to ride this bike down this really steep incline, and they've built the bike.

It's kind of rickety and made from spare parts. And one of the boys, Alberto, is trying to encourage Luca to get on the bike and ride down this hill. And Luca's like, I don't want to do that. And Alberto's whole explanation for Toluca was, hey, you've got a Bruno in your head. And that means that, you know, we don't listen to Bruno. I think that's from another movie. I think that's Encanto, that there's. We don't talk about Bruno, but in. In Luca, it is. We don't listen to Bruno. And when you get a Bruno in your head, it's like some.

A voice inside of your head telling you something, and oftentimes it's not right. And sometimes you just have to say thank you for trying to keep me safe and warn me that this might be scary, but you're going to be brave, and you're going to do it again. And so Joe and I talked a little bit about Luca, and I said I often get a Bruno in my head. I generally get a Bruno in my head right before I press the start live button in this app. But I have to say thank you, you know, thank you to Bruno for kind of keeping me safe, but I'm going to be brave and I'm going to try anyway.

And with Joe, it was, thank you for bringing this fear up and making me kind of aware of it, but I'm going to be brave and I'm going to try. And with Joe, ultimately, he did decide he wanted to try to ride the ride. So we got on the roller coaster, he rode it, and as is very typical of Joe, as soon as the roller coaster pulled back into the station, his first words to me were, again, and we probably end up riding the roller coaster 20 times. So letting go is about letting go of our limited beliefs about what we can do.

It's about letting go of a fixed mindset. It's also about beginning again when we have thoughts and distractions come up in our practice. So three qualities to consider as you're practicing. Precision, staying with the practice. Gentleness. Cultivating a kind inner dialogue about your practice and about what you're experiencing and letting go, beginning again and again and again. I hope those three qualities serve you in your practice, and I look forward to practicing with you next week. Thanks so much.

Bye. Cadre.