I set a quiet alarm on my phone. Time no longer mattered. I sat still. My mind was clear, and all my focus was on my breathing. I felt each breath fill my lungs and all my weight shift with each breath. I was still with my body for as long I could be. Thoughts were simply wandering puppies in my way. They didn’t know any better, so I gently picked them up and set them aside, over and over. No scolding, no reprimanding. Just putting things back the way they go. It got easier as I practiced.
Theoretically, meditation seems straightforward — you find a comfortable position, close your eyes, and try to find peace amongst your thoughts. However, on my own journey towards mindfulness, I’ve learned that this notion is reductive at best, a sham at worst. Believing it is counterproductive, in that it stands in the way of real progress. We’re trying to come to grips with the inner workings of the mind, after all. It’s complex. It’s chaotic. And with not a doubt in my mind, it’s tremendously different for everyone.
I recognised that:
- my ‘mind’ was always in a state of tension. My mind experienced change, but the awareness of change created its own constant, so I was both changing and unchanging in every moment. It’s when I was aware of both, that I felt a sense of ‘wholeness’ that lay beyond the feeling of tension.
- the goal was not always to be comfortable, but to exercise concentration. This is why people talk about losing yourself in a single act. But the ‘trick’ was that with 100% concentration, my mind achieved an amazing relaxation, and consequently, a new kind of mental and emotional plasticity.
- in mindfulness, I was not merely detached from my thoughts, but I started to see my thoughts detached from myself, and that changed what I see significantly.
- my mind made a passenger of me, but all too often, I was a sleepy passenger. The idea is to be a wakeful passenger.
- that ‘detachment’ is not in itself the goal.
- while most emotions pushed or pulled me away from reality, a state of calmness was the only thing that generated ‘acceptance’ and opened me up to possible realities.
- compassion towards allis not a failure to discern the moral reality or value of life, it is the realisation that we are all one, and so fighting or holding back love is a pointless and unnecessary act of self-sabotage.
This is why mindfulness is a practice — because inevitably, you will forget to be mindful. Thoughts are compelling and fighting for our attention because our brains are processing so much new information constantly.
It is a myth that mindfulness is a “dismissal of all thought, all of the time”. Mindfulness is about noticing your thoughts and your relationship and response to them. With mindfulness, insights and introspection can arise. Allowing for thought is important because that’s naturally what will happen from your thought-manufacturing brain. Mindfulness is simply noticing, accepting what is, and letting go. The more you practice just noticing objectively, the more you can discern how to respond. What you may start to find is that most of our mind’s chatter is not worth all of the attention we habitually give it — because 80% of the time, the untrained mind is not in the present moment, which means we usually are not focusing on what we are doing while we are doing it — and that means not doing our best.
Written by Anisha Masand
Week 43, October ‘20
