We had our Sunday Introduction to Meditation Class at Yoga Bliss today. We’ve been working with the four foundations of mindfulness: awareness of the body, feeling tone, thoughts, emotions and then all phenomena. We drew our practice inspiration from B. Alan Wallace’s Minding Closely: The Four Applications of Mindfulness. We included two practice periods and a walking meditation.
Alan suggests observing what we perceive and how we perceive it. Oh yes, and don’t get caught up with proliferating thoughts about whatever “it” your awareness lights on. Sounds simple but it isn’t easy. The key to practice is to feel the body as the body; feel thoughts and emotions simply as thoughts and emotions; experience all phenomena, internal and external, just as phenomena. Notice when you are embellishing the direct experience of what you perceive with a projection of your own. How are you cloaking your experience? Are your windows of perception clear? Sometimes the veils are so thin they’re really tough to recognize.
