Now About Meditation

In the practice of meditation, we use our non-judgmental awareness to get in touch with our feelings emotions and what’s going on in our bodies without adding our narratives or dramas to it. We just see what comes up.

When the great root of faith and the great ball of doubt are present, a great determination will arise. Great determination is a strong resolve that wells up from the bottom of our gut and spurs us on. If there already is an innate belief that we ourselves are intrinsically awake; we only need to set on the path of discovering what is within us .

To be alive is to be present here and now with what is.  Meditation helps us in staying grounded in the present moment. With time and practice, meditation will open a path towards what is to be alive - to be present and  full aware in play with mystery and beauty and love of life. With time it might make you realise that we live on a very strange little speck of rock in a very remote corner of the universe and it is this rock that allows us to be alive. Cherish it.

The highest expression of our human nature is arrived through the purification of our minds.  This is the purpose of the practice of meditation through the use of an anchor of attention . Our mind is by nature comparable to a clear sky, the thoughts in our mind are compared the clouds. To clear away the clouds in meditation whenever you notice that your mind is lost in thought you acknowledged that and return back to your anchor of attention and the sky like nature of mind. With time and practice, this clearing away of the clouds results in the breaking of the sheets of snow and ice that we are encased in or the breaking up of our delusions and our habitual patterns of reactivity.

The key to cultivating tolerance is to separate the validity of an idea from the validity of the person holding the idea. Behind every idea is a motivation that is shaped by hopes and fears . If we are able to identify this underlying motivation, we will see the wish to find happiness and to be free from suffering.

Socrates said that "the unexamined life is not worth living". About the same time, the Buddha started teaching a way towards  Socrates examined life, attained through the practice of meditative inquiry . Meditative inquiry is the practice of dropping a question in the mind in such a way that it causes the mind to distance itself from conditioned thinking , making space for our own innate wisdom to arise. As the Buddha said, "there are wise questions that help free the mind from suffering — and unwise questions that keep us mired in confusion."

Whenever you feel overwhelmed STOP : S top just stop and pause.   T ake a deep breath and mindfully rest the mind back into the body.   O bserve what’s going on right now, notice any thoughts or feelings and bodily sensations.   P roceed mindfully with awareness and kindness to yourself and others.   Source -  STOP – What does mindfulness and being mindful mean?

By  living mindfully wholesomely cultivating the beautiful and the good. This is made possible through the seeds of generosity, kindness, and compassion that live in every human heart. These qualities ennoble our hearts and leave no residue of regret in our minds.

Perhaps there is a common clue of how one can be happy. Living in a spiritual community could be one of the clues. Within a spiritual community happiness arises and is inherent in the caring compassionate connections that are made: With such connections formed the frightened “I” who struggles is replaced by a collective “we” who go about facing the frightening and difficult aspects of life together, looking after one other.

When you meditate, sitting quietly, trying to focus, on your meditation anchor you start to notice what takes you away from your point of focus. Generally, this is a thought of some kind or another. Meditation practice is not intended to stop you from thinking but its purpose is to help you discover what and how you are thinking .

In  contemplative traditions , you’ll find many examples where different forms of meditative practices are used together. For instance, in Buddhism mantra meditation, mindfulness meditation, visualisation meditation etc. are all used. This is also true within backspace the Roman Catholic tradition where they use mantra meditation (example the Rosary), mindfulness meditation in the form of contemplative prayer, and visualisation imagination prayer an example that used in the Ignatian tradition. Remember that at the  basic meditation  is using an anchor of attention as a point to return to when the mind wanders. All the above forms of meditation use different types of anchors of attention to return to when the mind wanders. Remember, it’s not a question of what meditation practice or  anchors of attention  you use. It’s about finding what best works for you to calm the mind. So if you find benefit from practising different forms of meditation together beneficial for you as they hel

Practice, of both the athletic and the spiritual kind, are quite similar.  They both focus on our imperfection by accepting and acknowledging them.  Such that spiritual practice is not a manifestation of perfection, but an acceptance of imperfection . One does not achieve or attain spiritual heights of  compassion , kindness, mindfulness and equanimity; one develops them by meeting the moment over and over again .

You can still meditate if you have a breathing problem. Remember that  meditation is not about the breath . It’s about familiarizing yourself with your own mind it’s about  awareness  and the  cultivation of mindfulness . To do this in meditation, we use what’s called a  meditation anchor  so that whenever the mind wanders, we have something to bring it back too.  An anchor can be a mantra, the body, sounds or an image it’s a point of focus to which you return when your mind wanders. Remember that meditation is not about what anchor you use.   But the anchor is simply there to remind us that no matter how many times or for how long your mind wonders the anchor is there in meditation as a reference to which we bring the mind back to the present moment over and over again.

From time to time our mind wanders off in thought during meditation .  The anchor we use in meditation is there to remind us that whenever the mind wanders, we can bring it back to the present moment, over and over again. It doesn’t matter how many times or for how long when your mind wanders off once you notice, that is a moment of mindfulness .  A moment where you have woken up in the present, and when this happens, congratulate yourself and gently return to your meditation anchor and to the experience of meditation — that of getting to know and befriending the monkey mind. Source - Finding a Suitable Anchor of Attention in Meditation

Forgiveness is a practice of  compassionate  self-healing and a way of transcending our hurts  and pains so you can keep moving forward in life.  Forgiveness is about making our own peace in life. Source -  Forgiveness: Making Our Own Peace in Life

“The past is past; it is gone, cherish the experience, learn from it; keep reliving it, and you will be stuck in it while your life passes by.  The future is illusionary.  The only thing you have is the “unfathomable” present moment, which is beyond time and space, in which you experience eternity and what has been termed “the kingdom of heaven” and “nirvana”." – by Clayton Micallef

Have you ever heard the story of the lotus flower growing out of the mud in the lake.  It is a story about the seed of compassion which lies dormant below the mud and inside each one of us. It might lay there for a whole lifespan , totally hidden and undisturbed until it sprouts and breaks out of the water totaly untainted by the mud. The following article is about its meaning:  The Lotus Flower and the Painful Mud of Life

Every moment of mindfulness we have is a recognition of a reflexive, a self-protecting response of the mind. Mindful acceptance of such response favours a clea r and balanced understanding of our reactions. The wisdom that comes from this fair understanding helps us let go of our attachment to having things and to being other than what we are. A reflection on the analogy of "The Two Farmers"  https://claytonmicallef.com/the-two-farmers/

I found this interesting 3 part series on the mental processes at work in 3 different families of meditation.  The first article of the series is on  attentional meditation practices  which cultivate the mental cognitive process of emotional regulation. The second article is on how  constructive meditation  practices use such cultivated emotional regulation to transform our view of negative situations, to a more positive, neutral, equanimous and assertive  compassionate perspective . The last article of the series looks at  deconstructive meditation practices  and the cognitive processes at work here those of self-inquiry and insight. Click Below to Read the Articles: Meditation attentional practices: The Fascinating cognitive processes at work (Part 1) Constructive Meditation practices: The Fascinating cognitive processes at work (Part 2) Deconstructive Meditation Practices: The Fascinating Cognitive Processes at Work (Part 3)

Do you practice meditation to achieve some particular state?  We do not practice meditation to achieve some particular state.  Meditation is primarily the cultivation of awareness, what we call “ mindfulness ”. So how do we practice the cultivation of mindfulness through the practice of  meditation ?  Read Clayton Micallef 's answer to How successful are most people at achieving a meditative state? on Quora 

Wisdom does not alter the world; it lets the sage transcend the world . —Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano, “The Phone Rings”

The purpose of nirvanic  moments of mindfulness  is to create an ethical space from which to see, think, speak, act, and work in ways that are not conditioned by reactivity. —Stephen Batchelor, “A Buddhist Brexit”

Karen Armstrong  reflects that the golden rule ( compassion ) is at the basis of every religion and our  common humanity .  She proposed and launched the charter for compassion.  See video. What are your thoughts about this?

  After ChristChurch