Highland Mindfulness Group

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way:

on purpose,

in the present moment,

and nonjudgmentally.

– Jon Kabat-Zinn (2001)

Mindfulness also includes “awareness of one’s conduct and quality of one’s relationships, inwardly and outwardly, in terms of their potential to harm” and as such “are intrinsic elements of mindfulness.  Mindfulness in everyday life is the ultimate challenge and practice.”

– Jon Kabat-Zinn (2011)

Why practice mindfulness?

• Most of the time our attention is divided. For example, we eat our lunch and think about the afternoon ahead or we drive our car and dwell on what happened in the morning
• Consequently, our minds are either dwelling in the past or anticipating the future.
• This is stressful because it fragments our attention and dissipates our energy. We are pulled in different directions causing mental agitation, tension and anxiety.
• The practice of mindfulness is to focus all of our attention on one thing and to do it properly – when we eat lunch, we just eat lunch
• Life is happening in the present moment. If we are not in the present moment we are living in a world of thought.
• We often live our lives on autopilot,
  carrying out routine activities while our minds are jumping around in the past or future like a monkey jumping from tree to tree.
• This robs us of the precious experiences of life: we do not connect with the people we love. We see them fleetingly and then drift into the thoughts and issues that are preoccupying us. We eat without really tasting, hear without listening and see without really seeing. We live in a state of unawareness and often miss what is most meaningful in our lives.
• When we start practicing mindfulness we realise that we are not in control of our minds – our thoughts are running wild and they are using us, instead of us using them.
• Not only are we immersed in a world of thought, but our thoughts and emotions are in conflict with one another. There seem to be different voices in ourselves singing to different tunes, drowning each other out and fighting with each other. For example, we want to be happy but at the same time hate ourselves.
• Beneath the stream of incessant competing thoughts and emotions, are deep-rooted habitual patterns that repeat themselves over and over again. They are often rooted in past experiences and not relevant to the present, but we are unaware of them and constantly repeat them. For example, when we were young we did not receive the love and attention we needed and then carry the belief that we are not worthy of love. This may not be relevant to our lives now, but if we still believe it, then it determines how we see ourselves and we end up not feeling loved as a consequence.
• As a result of these patterns we end up carrying a lot of emotional pain in our bodies and minds. Whenever this pain rears its head we do whatever we can to avoid it – reach for a cigarette, grab a strong coffee, play our MP3 player. And so itgets driven underground and remains unresolved, but nonetheless affects our mood and physical health.

How do we practice mindfulness?

• We decide to bring our attention into the present moment; noticing our thoughts and feelings and bodily sensations.
• Given that the force of habit pulling us in different directions is so strong, we need a method to anchor us in the present moment. So we learn the technique of resting our attention on a single point of awareness, such as our breath or sound, and whenever our attention is carried away by distracting thoughts we notice this and bring our attention back to the mindfulnesspractice.
• When we practice in this way we notice that there is a constant shift between mindfulness and distraction. Distraction is the tendency of the mind to identify with thought and emotion and to become lost in spinning a story. Mindfulness is recognising this and bringing the mind back to the present, back to the focus.
• Distraction is unconscious and mindfulness is conscious. It does not matter how many times our attention is carried away – the only important thing is to notice this and bring our attention back to the focus.
• When we start practising mindfulness it feels like thoughts, emotions and images are cascading through our minds like a waterfall. People sometimes get discouraged at this point because it feels like things have got worse. But this is an important first step because we are seeing what is actually happening in our minds. It is the beginning of awareness. Then, as we continue to practice mindfulness, our mind gradually begins to settle.
• An important point is that we are not trying to stop our thoughts. We are not trying to create a thought free space in our minds. We are training in not habitually identifying with thoughts, but instead we identify that our thoughts are not facts.
• Mindfulness practice is about striking up a different relationship with ourselves. Instead of think habitually and unconsciously, we are
  training ourselves to think consciously and effectively. For example, walking down a familiar street and not noticing anything going on around us, suddenly arriving at our garden gate and wondering how we got there.  What we term ‘automatic pilot’.  If we walk in conscious awareness we are able to notice all kinds of things.

What are the benefits of mindfulness?

• If we maintain a regular practice of mindfulness, the cascading thoughts and emotions start to settle and space and clarity begins to
  appear in our minds. In the beginning it is as if we decide to face ourselves and walk into a darkened room, which is our unaware mind. As mindfulness strengthens the room starts to light up, almost as if someone is turning up the dimmer switch. We start to see the furniture in the room. We start to see what is going on in our minds, what patterns are driving us and what pain we are suppressing.
• We begin to see that there is a space between ourselves and our thoughts and that most of the time we latch onto and run with whatever
  thoughts pop up in our mind. We don’t notice this space. Mindfulness practice is about recognising and developing this space.
• We then realise that we have a choice as to what thoughts we think. We don’t have to dwell on negative thoughts.  We can instead cultivate positive ones. A lot of the time we dwell on negative thoughts, believing they are a true reflection, and feed our life energy into them.
• We then begin to see that the mind is very powerful and it creates our entire experience. If we cultivate wholesome thoughts and feelings we attract wholesome experiences into our life. If we dwell on negative thoughts and feelings, we attract negative experiences. Everything in life is interconnected, so how we think determines what we experience.
• As our practice deepens further, we realise that none of what is going on in our minds is solid and real. We make it solid and real. We notice how the mind grasps onto experiences, makes them solid and calls them ‘me’. Mindfulness is about cultivating a non-grasping quality of mind. It is about seeing the non-solidity and impermanence of our experience.
• The more we practice mindfulness the more well-being, peacefulness and clarity begins to emerge in our mind. We realise that things are not as we thought they were. We have just been in the grip of a fever that we have taken to be real. This fever is our habitual way of thinking and judging and reacting. And if we feed it, it continues endlessly.
• To use a simple analogy, it is like the clouds obscuring the sun. The clouds represent all our worries, busy thoughts and ups and downs. The sun represents our inner well being and peacefulness which is always there behind the clouds.  Through practising mindfulness the clouds start to break and disperse and the sun begins to shine through more and more.

Attitudes of Mind

The attitude of mind with which one practices mindfulness is crucial in whether it works or not. It is a process that requires the commitment of our whole being.  There are certain important attitudes of mind to cultivate:

• Non-judging – mindfulness is about stepping back from the flow of our mental experience and becoming an impartial witness. We step out of the war zone of conflicting emotions and observe the constant stream of judging and reacting that is going on. We are constantly judging experience in terms of what we like, what we do not like and what we are not interested in. This stops us experiencing peace. When practicing mindfulness we do not try to stop the judging and reacting – instead we watch it and do not fuel it.
• Patience – this is the wisdom of knowing that things will unfold in their own time – change cannot be rushed. In the beginning we can be impatient with ourselves because we are constantly carried away by thoughts. But we simply apply the method and stay with what is happening right now confident that change will happen in its own way.
• Beginners’ Mind – we see everything as if for the first time. There is a sense of freshness and aliveness and immediacy to life as it unfolds. There is a sense of wonderment in life. It is not a dull routine that we are repeating over and over again. If we practice mindfulness in this way then we see the extraordinary in the ordinary. Simple things become sacred. Often we think we ‘know’ and don’t see things as they really are.
• Non-Striving – almost everything we do is for a purpose: to get something or to go somewhere. Mindfulness is different.  It is a paradoxical process because it requires focus and commitment, but we are not going anywhere or trying to achieve anything – we are simply entering fully into the present moment. It does not involve striving and becoming; it is about non-doing and simply being. It is important not to introduce ideas into meditation like: ‘I want to become relaxed and peaceful’, because this creates conflict with what is happening now.
• Acceptance – this means to see things as they are in the present. Mindfulness accepts what is happening as it is happening. We cannot see something clearly if we are rejecting its existence. This also wastes time and energy. Many different states of mind can arise. Reactivity and aversion lock us more strongly into these states, whereas acceptance takes the power out of them. What causes us trouble is not what arises but how we react to what arises. Acceptance is also the wisdom of knowing that things will change anyway. It is not about being passive and resigned to one’s fate. Out of acceptance comes clarity to act in the appropriate way. Acceptance is the wisdom of knowing that things will unfold in the appropriate way if we stop judging and interfering.
• Letting Go – Mindfulness is about noticing how we are holding on and realising that we have a choice to let go. When we start practicing mindfulness we notice that there are certain experiences we hold onto and others we push away.  We intentionally decide not to engage in grasping and aversion, but simply accept our experience as it is. When we find ourselves judging and reacting we let go of these attitudes and don’t pursue them. If something has a strong hold on our mind and we cannot let go, then we direct our attention to what holding on feels like and just rest in this experience. We cultivate the non-grasping mind.

(With grateful hanks to: Karma Choden, Charlotte Proctor, Neil Rothwell and Alistair Wilson.)