October 2019 - Insole Court
- Details
- Category: Connect
- Published: Friday, 01 November 2019 16:47
- Written by Cherry
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We began with a 'simple' breath, body, sound and thought practice drawn from the 'Waking Up' series of introductory meditations by Sam Harris. In this practice attention is drawn to the breath, bringing awareness to the moment it arises to the moment it subsides. Also, when a thought arises, attention is brought to the thought or image, and there is instruction to notice the thought and to see what happens to it as awareness is brought to it - does it linger? disappear? - before coming back to the raw sensations of breathing and the awareness of the body in space. With sound, attention is brought to the ever-changing nature of sounds - arising, fluctuating - and eventually fading or disappearing. We cannot control or hold onto these sounds - they come and go - similar to our thoughts, except we can 'fuel' out thought stream if we let ourselves get caught up in some storyline about ourselves.
In practice there is always the opportunity to 'begin again' at any moment - and this is true on or off 'the cushion'. Knowing and practicing this can be a great help, comfort even, when we 'lose it' - both within our practice and in everyday life. 'Just come back' or 'begin again' are words uttered by our meditation guides or teachers, but we can utilise such words ourselves to bring us back to an awareness of the present - whatever the circumstances -in a gentle, forgiving way.
Our enquiry centred around the endeavour - and difficulty - of bringing mindfulness into our lives. We touched on the whole conundrum of starting a mindfulness course or practice to make ourselves feel better, and possibly succeeding - up to a point! But stuff still happens - and maybe we then begin to realise that change and illness and ageing and death are indeed 'part and parcel' and that working and practicing to accept this is also healing us - but in a deeper way. Both are surely valid - but the work of acceptance is a long road, but one that is hugely aided by that realisation of the universality of our condition - and an understanding that our survival and goal-oriented predilections whilst natural, are not the whole story. We also need safety and connectedness and maybe also some humility about our place in the whole scheme of things.
Our second practice was a 'silence with singing bowl' meditation. We privately repeated the first practice, but used the periodic sound of the singing bowl to 'bring us back'.
We finished with a few moments of silence to offer a private, kindly and supportive wish for ourselves - a wish such as 'may I live with a peaceful heart', 'may I be at ease' - or 'may I feel safe'. Such a wish can also form a kind of intention for ourselves as we go about our everyday lives.