We had our Sunday Introduction to Meditation Class at Yoga Bliss yesterday. 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.
We adapted last week’s approach of allowing mindfulness to rove throughout the tactile field of the body. We narrowed our focus to stay with the sensation of breathing in the belly. We balanced between relaxation and focused attention while tending to the entire length of each in-breath and each out-breath. Alan suggests arousing attention while inhaling and releasing thoughts while exhaling. When we notice the mind wandering we respond first by relaxing. Then we return to sensation in the belly and reestablish our focus on each in-breath and each out-breath.
This is a foundational practice in which we learn how to create a state of equanimity and eventually simply pure awareness – sometimes referred to as “samadhi.” We discussed how this practice alone yields many benefits including stress reduction, diminished reactivity and improved cognitive ability. Yet this approach is only one dimension of practice. If we want to use meditation to affect healing and transformation in our lives we go beyond the mere cultivation of calm awareness. We incorporate a type of investigation referred to as “vipashyana” in which we observe the nature of our experience. That is, we come to witness the impermanence of experience and the nature of our thoughts.
In our post meditation period we can contemplate the insights that arose during meditation. We can consider the causes and conditions that gave rise to our current way of thinking and how this thinking informs our actions. Are we thinking our way to actions that benefit ourselves and others? Do our thoughts and actions conform to a living body of ethics or values that we are consciously embracing? I think this kind of inquiry and reflection is an essential part of honoring the very gift of consciousness we’ve been given. Coming back to the inspiration, the wisdom of the breath allows us our very life and the opportunity to affirm conscious living again and again.
Each one of us in the circle reflected something different and true about our experiences in practice. Participation and sharing add deeper dimensions to a “whole hearted” practice. We practice for ourselves and we also practice for each other. I deeply appreciate the opportunity to learn from you and the wisdom you’ve gained in your life experience. It is truly a precious place from which we can breathe in and breathe out as we co-create exploration and learning.