Sunday, October 20, 2013
Precision, Gentleness, & Letting Go - a simple yet effective meditation.
Dear Readers,
I attended a "Mindfulness Summit" last fall online. Mindfulness is the trendy new word for meditation I discovered. This little practice is a great one for mindfulness and training the brain stay focused in the present moment. I have always been one that enjoyed my "spacing out" time, and still do. But practicing mindfulness is a great way to de-stress and get on task. It will not make you lose your edge. It helps you to be better at what you do.
I found a "Shambhala Pocket Classic" while in Boulder Colorado last week - shopping at the Pearl Street Mall. It is a small red book that goes into much depth about this wonderful meditation. It is a great practice that will stop anxious thoughts and eliminate feeling stressed out. It is a great exercise to draw the thoughts away from deep subconscious thinking that generates anxiety. I have condensed into a simple mindfulness practice that has brought me a lot of relaxation since I have put it into practice. I have published my condensed version below and hope it brings you the mindfulness and tranquility it has brought me.
Best,
Brenda Bishop-Kyle
In our daily lives there are three qualities that we can nurture, cultivate, and bring out. We already posses these, but they can be ripened: precision, gentleness, and the ability to let go...
Precision: The technique is, first, to take good posture and, second, to become mindful of your out-breath. This is just your ordinary out-breath, not manipulated or controlled in any way. Be with the breath as it goes out, feel the breath go out, touch the breath as it goes out. Now, this seems simple, but to actually be with that breath and to be there for every breath requires a lot of precision. When you begin to meditate on this out-breath, the fact that you always come back to that breath brings out the precision, the clarity, and the accuracy of your mind. Just the fact that you always come back to this breath and that you try, in a gentle way, to be as fully with the breath as you can sharpens your mind.
Gentleness: If we emphasized only precision our meditation might become quite harsh and militant. It might get too goal-oriented. So, we also emphasize gentleness. It is helpful to cultivate an overall sense of relaxation while you are doing the meditation. When you realize you have been thinking, or even getting lost in thought, you say to yourself "Thinking" even if you wake up as if from a dream and realize you have been thinking - you immediately go back to the breath and pause just a little bit and say to yourself, "Thinking." Use the label it is so precise and gentle - it acknowledges you've just been thinking, just that, no more, no less. You may notice as you become more mindful and more aware and awake, you begin to notice that your stomach tends to get very tense and your shoulders tend to get very tight. Relax your stomach and your shoulders and your neck. If you find it difficult to relax, just gradually, patiently, gently work with it. You can sit in a chair with back support as you accustom yourself to this practice. Become softer with the out-breath and more sympathetic with the labeling.
Letting Go: The third part of the technique is the quality of opening or letting go. It helps us rediscover this ability that we already have to open beyond small-mindedness and to let go of any kind of fixation or limited view. Precision and gentleness are somewhat tangible. You can work on being more accurate with the out-breath and relax tense areas of your body. But, letting go isn't easy. Rather, it is something that happens as a result of working with precision and gentleness. Your ability to let go spontaneously arises, you don't force it. The honesty of precision and the good heartedness of gentleness are qualities of making friends with yourself. If you find your mind tensing, relax it. If you find your body tensing relax it. Feel the expansiveness of the breath going out into space. When thoughts come up touch them very lightly, like a feather touching a bubble. Let the whole thing be soft and gentle, yet at the same time precise. Why we are mindful of our out-breath and only our out-breath is the ability to let go; for a moment there is not instruction about what to do --breath goes out and dissolves, and there could be some sense of letting go completely. Nothing to hold on to until the next out-breath.
A condensed excerpt from a meditation from "Awakening Loving-Kindness" by Pema Chodron
I attended a "Mindfulness Summit" last fall online. Mindfulness is the trendy new word for meditation I discovered. This little practice is a great one for mindfulness and training the brain stay focused in the present moment. I have always been one that enjoyed my "spacing out" time, and still do. But practicing mindfulness is a great way to de-stress and get on task. It will not make you lose your edge. It helps you to be better at what you do.
I found a "Shambhala Pocket Classic" while in Boulder Colorado last week - shopping at the Pearl Street Mall. It is a small red book that goes into much depth about this wonderful meditation. It is a great practice that will stop anxious thoughts and eliminate feeling stressed out. It is a great exercise to draw the thoughts away from deep subconscious thinking that generates anxiety. I have condensed into a simple mindfulness practice that has brought me a lot of relaxation since I have put it into practice. I have published my condensed version below and hope it brings you the mindfulness and tranquility it has brought me.
Best,
Brenda Bishop-Kyle
In our daily lives there are three qualities that we can nurture, cultivate, and bring out. We already posses these, but they can be ripened: precision, gentleness, and the ability to let go...
Precision: The technique is, first, to take good posture and, second, to become mindful of your out-breath. This is just your ordinary out-breath, not manipulated or controlled in any way. Be with the breath as it goes out, feel the breath go out, touch the breath as it goes out. Now, this seems simple, but to actually be with that breath and to be there for every breath requires a lot of precision. When you begin to meditate on this out-breath, the fact that you always come back to that breath brings out the precision, the clarity, and the accuracy of your mind. Just the fact that you always come back to this breath and that you try, in a gentle way, to be as fully with the breath as you can sharpens your mind.
Gentleness: If we emphasized only precision our meditation might become quite harsh and militant. It might get too goal-oriented. So, we also emphasize gentleness. It is helpful to cultivate an overall sense of relaxation while you are doing the meditation. When you realize you have been thinking, or even getting lost in thought, you say to yourself "Thinking" even if you wake up as if from a dream and realize you have been thinking - you immediately go back to the breath and pause just a little bit and say to yourself, "Thinking." Use the label it is so precise and gentle - it acknowledges you've just been thinking, just that, no more, no less. You may notice as you become more mindful and more aware and awake, you begin to notice that your stomach tends to get very tense and your shoulders tend to get very tight. Relax your stomach and your shoulders and your neck. If you find it difficult to relax, just gradually, patiently, gently work with it. You can sit in a chair with back support as you accustom yourself to this practice. Become softer with the out-breath and more sympathetic with the labeling.
Letting Go: The third part of the technique is the quality of opening or letting go. It helps us rediscover this ability that we already have to open beyond small-mindedness and to let go of any kind of fixation or limited view. Precision and gentleness are somewhat tangible. You can work on being more accurate with the out-breath and relax tense areas of your body. But, letting go isn't easy. Rather, it is something that happens as a result of working with precision and gentleness. Your ability to let go spontaneously arises, you don't force it. The honesty of precision and the good heartedness of gentleness are qualities of making friends with yourself. If you find your mind tensing, relax it. If you find your body tensing relax it. Feel the expansiveness of the breath going out into space. When thoughts come up touch them very lightly, like a feather touching a bubble. Let the whole thing be soft and gentle, yet at the same time precise. Why we are mindful of our out-breath and only our out-breath is the ability to let go; for a moment there is not instruction about what to do --breath goes out and dissolves, and there could be some sense of letting go completely. Nothing to hold on to until the next out-breath.
A condensed excerpt from a meditation from "Awakening Loving-Kindness" by Pema Chodron
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