Building a short period of self-inquiry into meditation practices is an opportunity to learn a little more about ourselves and the workings of our mind.

“Mindfulness meditation is the awareness that arises from paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally”. Jon-Kabat Zinn. 

Mindfulness is an intimate witnessing. We are having an experience at the same time as we are aware of the experience we are having. During our mindfulness practices we suddenly realise we are caught up in thought. We remember we are doing a mindfulness practice of observing. Oops! We bring our attention back to breath and the train of thought dissipates. 

There are two main responses to our thoughts. One is the associated memories that takes us into a train of thoughts. The other is the sensation and feelings that arise in our body. Mindfulness is a process of observing in the present moment, with a goal of staying in the present moment, by observing bodily sensations. As soon as we notice we are off into the past, future or we are caught up in an emotion or response, we bring our attention back to observing bodily sensations or the breath. We become familiar with our mind and its tendencies through this intimate witnessing of our inner experience.

When I’m teaching this I start by bringing us to a mindful state of observing, ask you some questions for you to contemplate, thus setting the stage for you to keep this curious attention on the natural fluctuations of the mind as we flow through the practice. Essentially we delve a little deeper into understanding our own individual thought patterns. We explore how we can observe them and distinguish between them (the thoughts) and our unchanging pure awareness, metta-awareness the scientists call it. Yes, this ability to watch the thoughts can be measured by science and observed in brain scans, who knew?!

Next time you find yourself getting caught up in thought, getting agitated or stressed, see can you pause for a moment just to notice a few breaths. After this little breather, this little focused-attention practice, see if you can notice any and all sensation in the body. There’s no right way or wrong way to do this, you simply notice with an open mind what is arising for you in the sensations in the body. We don’t need to judge, or try to change anything, our experience is what our experience is. Bring a sense of kindness and compassion to what you discover.

You may find a sense of acceptance starts to settle into the body, even if what we are experiencing is not what we would have wished for. From this place of acceptance see if you can choose your next actions or words with a wise discernment.

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