This page contains the meditations from 8 sessions held in the Chapel of the RNI from the 8th July to the 26th August 2019 on the subject of developing insight through positive mind states. This follows on from the Developing / Advanced Mindfulness course.
These practices seek to demonstrate how positive mind states, developed through meditation practice, can be used to help the mind open and allow insight to arise.
Week 1 – Monday the 8th July 2019 – insight through positive mind states 1 – Happiness.
Practice 1 – “Remembering the good that is within you” – a 25minute meditation in which we allow happiness to arise within us by recalling good things that we have said or done. Reflecting on and resting in that happiness allows insight to arise with particular regard to opening the mind and observing resistance and the self-critic.
Practice 2 – “The benefactor” – a 25minute meditation practice in which we visualise someone who has helped us in the past and who we respect. We rest with our feelings of gratitude and extend loving-kindness to them. The meditation ends with imagining ourselves doing good, helpful deeds to others and observing the feelings that arise.
Week 2 – Monday the 15th July 2019 – insight through positive mind states 2 – Resting in Happiness and Contentment.
Practice 1 – “Conscious breathing” with thanks to Thich Nhat Hahn. A 28minute meditation practice in which breathing techniques are used to generate a feeling of restful contentment.
Practice 2 – “What do we truly need to make us happy” – a 25minute reflective meditation practice in which participants are invited to contemplate what they really need to help them find true happiness.
Week 3 – Monday the 22nd July 2019 – insight through positive mind states 3 – Experiencing the warmth and power of the body.
Practice 1 – “Resting in the energy body (Samadhi)” – a 25minute practice in which we scan through the body generating a sense of the “energy body” and feeling a sense of warm restfulness whilst remaining alert.
Practice 2 – “Love, hate and the energy body” – a 26minute practice in which we experience the response of the energy body to positive (love) and negative (hate) feelings and contemplate how negative energy can be integrated into the body.
Week 4 – Monday the 29th July 2019 – insight through positive mind states 4 – Gratitude.
Practice 1 – Developing a sense of gratitude – a 29minute positive mind state practice in which we come to rest and allow ourselves to develop a sense of gratitude for our senses, for the people who are close to us and who help us, for our own lives and abilities and lastly for life itself.
Practice 2 – “Using gratitude as a state of mind to help us see the positive in all things including the negative events of our lives”. A 25minute meditation in which we first of all access our sense of gratitude and rest in its positivity before allowing memories of negative events to come to mind. We see if we can hold negativity and rest with it in an open, receptive and non-judgemental way.
Week 5 – Monday the 5th August 2019 – insight through positive mind states 5 – Equanimity.
Practice 1 – Equanimity and the serenity prayer. A 26minute meditation practice in which we look for a sense of balance, calmness and ease amongst the difficulties of life through our natural desire to care for others.
Practice 2 – Equanimity and impermanence. A 30minute meditation practice in which we look for a sense of balance, calmness and ease through the ever changing nature of the experience of our external and internal senses.
Week 6 – Monday the 12th August 2019 – insight through positive mind states 6 – Forgiveness.
Practice 1 – Forgiving ourselves and others. A 31minute meditation practice in which we try to generate a sense of forgiveness for the things that we blame ourselves for and the things that have been done to us. Is forgiveness a positive state of mind?
Practice 2 – Letting go is forgiveness. A 29minute meditation in which we practise the art of letting go and releasing our thoughts and feelings. Hopefully we begin to realise that forgiveness is about letting go of our resentment and anger.
Week 7 – Monday the 19th August 2019 – insight through positive mind states – Unconditional love (and definitely not romantic love, sentimental love or the attachment that we all feel towards those to whom we are close).
Practice 1 – “Learning to love through the appreciation of beauty”. A 30minute meditation practice in which visualise a place of great beauty and begin to contemplate ourselves as being part of the beauty. This is then expanded to the beauty of the natural world and ultimately to respect for and love of the world and all living things including all human beings. A sense of a love that transcends the sense of self and the sense of separation.
Practice 2 – “Loving oneself”. A 25minute practice in which we seek to appreciate ourselves as sentient beings by first of all opening awareness to our 5 external senses and the mind. Progressing then to appreciate ourselves as incredibly complex and beautiful living organisms and resting in that beauty releasing all judgements from the past. Finally coming to rest in the love of being alive.
Week 8 – Monday the 26th August 2019 – insight through positive mind states 8 – sowing the seeds of our intention to be happy.
Practice 1 – “Keeping it simple” – experiencing the joy of simply being alive. A 20minute meditation in which we breathe in awareness, experience the flow of energy in our bodies and rest in the sense of that energy, warmth and the love of life.
Practice 2 – “Releasing/letting go and being peace” – a 20minute practice in which we use the breath to enable us to acknowledge and release our experience and to breathe out relief, as sense of freedom from afflictive emotions and a feeling of strength.
Practice 3 – “Recognising our innate goodness and allowing happiness to arise” – a 25minute practice in which we contemplate what we need to be happy and make contact with the goodness that is innate in us all. Reflecting on this and noticing how happiness can then arise spontaneously.
STUDY DAYS
You may also be interested in meditations from these study days:
- Happiness and Joy (July 2019)
- Being positive – Positive being (February 2019)
- Being Positive (February 2018)
Highland Mindfulness Group 