by Ed Halliwell
We can let go of chasing future pleasures in a way that blinds us to present-moment joy. Ceasing our striving to get somewhere else, we gently drop into feeling where we are. We can start to relax, even if what we’re experiencing is uncomfortable. Releasing our tension, we’re no longer in a state of war, with ourselves or the world. This is the ‘co’ of co-operation.
Aligned with the reality of circumstance, we may then be ready to ‘operate’, to begin to explore some activity. Continuing to check in with our senses, the action we take may be more harmonious. When we feel the tide shift in a different direction, we’re able to readjust. We’re starting to ride the waves of life with equanimity, going with the flow.
Suggestion Notice: are you tuned in with what’s happening, or are you trying to fight or run from it, wishing you were somewhere else, or feeling something different? Let go of judging what you find: if you notice you’re not in tune, can you let go of fighting or running from that realization too?
Connecting
By centring and co-operating, we enable connection to occur. Offering awareness to thoughts and sensations, we can experience their energies fully, touching in with courage and compassion. Feeling the pulses of life, we really are alive. We may be more open to pain, but perhaps less likely to suffer from it, and we get to feel the joy of pleasure more exquisitely too. If a sensation signals that something is harmful, we may be more attuned to the danger, and more able to respond appropriately.
In mindfulness training, we cultivate connection with our inner world – thoughts, sensations and impulse. We start to know and become friends with ourselves. With this internal attunement as our ground, we can also practise connecting with the places and people around us. Rather than refusing to look at what’s going on, putting up the shutters to a seemingly hostile world, can we develop a flexible engagement that enables ebb and flow?
Suggestion Look for a community of practitioners with whom you can share the delights and challenges of mindfulness. Maybe there’s a course, group or centre near you (see the further resources section for possibilities). Mindfulness doesn’t work so well as a solo sport – as we get to know ourselves, it helps to connect with others.
Explore avenues of connection in the environment too – open your senses to trees, sky, grass, or air as you walk outside. You don’t have to live somewhere stunning – are there aspects of your neighbourhood you haven’t paid attention to? Buildings, pavements, parks or ponds?
Pay attention to internal spaces too, such as your home and work environment – do these have an influence on the inner space of your mind and body? Notice patterns of thought and sensation as you enter and leave different places, and meet different people. What are these telling you?
Confidence
Many millions of people have practised mindfulness over many, many centuries. Just because something has endured through the ages doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good thing, but experienced practitioners often say they feel happier, kinder and lighter than when they began.
Scientific research points to the same thing: mindfulness brings more contentment, more compassion, more capacity to live well. When people who’ve undergone a physical training programme report improved health, or you’re informed by your doctor that exercise is good for you, do you believe them? Could you allow yourself the same kind of confidence in mindfulness?
Confidence doesn’t mean expectation, which tries to transport us to an imagined future. If you practise with the expectation of results (or if you’re sceptical, the expectation of no results), you’ve already moved out of the moment and into a fantasy of what you think or hope might happen. Confidence here is meant more as a kind of trust, a willingness to use others’ reports as fuel for the journey – giving us the impetus to stay on the road for ourselves. In time, once your practice has had a chance to flower, you can make your own assessment about whether mindfulness helps.
Suggestion Talk to others who have started practising. If you don’t know anyone, and there’s nowhere near you where people meet to train, look online for community resources. Sites like Everyday mindfulness (www.everyday-mindfulness.org) have forums where you can discuss your practice, while mindful.org offers a range of articles on the art, science and practice of mindfulness.
Cheerfulness
Cheerfulness means making joyous contact with life on its terms. It’s not the same as crude positive thinking – trying to make things alright by thinking nice thoughts. If you find discontent within, you don’t have to fabricate happiness. Being cheerful doesn’t require you to try to be happy – it means opening your heart with appreciation.
Of course, you might say, it’s easy to do this when life seems beautiful and things are going my way, but how can I be cheerful in the midst of sadness and anger, loss and illness, difficulty and disappointment? How can I have a sense of humour when I notice my rushing or resisting, my ‘negative’ thoughts, my pain – all the things I find frustrating?
It may seem a tall order, or even foolish, to be cheerful when things are unpleasant, but it seems that only by moving in this direction can we free ourselves from the stress that comes with challenge and change. Why compound a difficult experience with an attitude of misery? We may have no control over the experience, but we do have some with our attitude to it. In gently working to meet the difficult cheerfully, we hold a key to transformation.
Suggestion When problems arise, ask yourself: ‘Could I open to this experience from a place of good cheer?’ Notice what happens when you practise this. There is no need to pretend that events bringing sadness are suddenly ones to laugh about. We can still feel disappointment or anger, but could we practise cheerfulness at the same time?
Coming back
Most of us aren’t constantly courageous, committed and centred. We don’t always feel compassionate. Sometimes we experience doubt and separation, not confidence and connection. We get bored more than curious, and we don’t feel like co-operating today. Cheerful? Forget it.
This is okay. We don’t have to strive for perfection. We can allow ourselves to be who we are, where we are. Just noticing this is itself an act of co-operation, of compassion. It’s more than good enough. The wonderful thing is, as soon as we’ve noticed what’s happening, we’re already back in mindfulness. When we see with eyes of awareness that we’re bored, fearful, distracted, or depressed, we’re no longer caught up in those things. This is worth celebrating.
However we’re feeling, the very fact of knowing and being willing to experience it, makes the situation workable. We don’t have to cajole, force or struggle our way back to awareness, or criticize ourselves for having wandered into unconsciousness – we can just notice. This process of noticing, again and again, is right at the heart of mindfulness practice.
Suggestion Bring awareness to patterns of distraction. Ask yourself at intervals: ‘Am I here or elsewhere? Am I awake or unconscious?’ Notice the effect of asking the question – does this return you to presence? If you find yourself forgetting to ask, set an alarm on your phone to ring a few times a day, or post reminders around your house. Make the reminders friendly rather than hectoring: ‘Hello – are you at home right now?’
What mindfulness is not…
Misconceptions of mindfulness can hinder our practice. Letting go of beliefs such as the ones below can change the experience of meditation.
You’re supposed to empty your mind
Many people give up meditating because they can’t empty their mind of thoughts. But thinking isn’t bad – it’s okay to have thoughts, including in mindfulness practice. The invitation in most meditation practices is to let thoughts pass through the mind, neither following nor rejecting them. Striving to be rid of thoughts actually sets us up for a battle with the mind – thoughts tend not to go away on order. By dropping that goal, we’re dropping a struggle that intensifies stress.
You’re supposed to relax
Seeking calm moves us away from the moment, which may or may
not feel calm. If we’re tense, bored, angry, or sad, that is how we’re feeling, and noticing and being with that is mindfulness. If we let go of resistance to what’s here, relaxation may arise, even in the midst of unpleasant experience. But trying to grasp for the situation we’d like, rather than opening to the present that’s here, is a recipe for tension.
It’s doing nothing, and that can’t help
Mindfulness practice may look like doing nothing, but by training ourselves to tune in to reality, we’re engaging in important work. Most of us are in the stressful habit of seeking some other reality. To find relief, we need to stop trying so hard. Action may come, but we also need to learn when and how not to act.
It’s a passive approach
If we’re not resisting and battling, then aren’t we giving up, being weak, failing to tackle the problems of the world? It’s true there’s a lot of stress around, and much of it is caused by unconscious action, patterns of habitual doing played out from habit. It takes courage and energy to tune in to life, and by moving into mindfulness, the stress of the world is eased as we learn to stop adding to it. With awareness, any action we take is more likely to bring relief.
It’s navel-gazing self-centredness
Taking time for meditation, especially when there may be others depending on us, is sometimes considered selfish, an unaffordable luxury. Actually, mindfulness is even more important when we’re under pressure, which may drive us to react impulsively and unskilfully. Far from being selfish, our training is key to caring for others well.
It’s an escape from life
Sometimes, meditation is promised as a bypass to bliss – a way out of life’s problems. But mindfulness means engaging with the now, which can sometimes be messy and difficult. Ironically, by trying to get to a place of easy enlightenment, we may be denying reality, which only makes this moment more difficult to handle. Mindfulness isn’t an escape – it’s a full, heartful engagement with the world.
Week 2: practices to explore
This week, choose one of the Cs of mindfulness above, and practise noticing it in your own being. How does it already manifest in you? When and how is it expressed? Using the suggestions from this chapter as a guide, explore opening to this quality further, letting it arise and unfold within you. You don’t have to try to get more of it or make it grow – your job is simply to take care of the seed, nurturing without expectation.
Each week for the rest of the course, experiment with choosing another C to work with in the same way. It’s also fine to stay with one for longer, or to come back to one you’ve already practised with. Listen to what feels right for you.
Choose another daily activity that you normally do on autopilot (e.g. brushing your teeth, walking the dog, washing the dishes, etc.) and practise bringing mindfulness to it each day this week.
Continue to work with the coming to your senses practice, once a day this week.
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Simon’s experience
Co-operation is a massive part of mindfulness. It’s so easy to get frustrated with what you can’t change, but you can always change one thing and that’s your attitude. Our house looks out over a field, and there’s a possibility that housing will be built there within the next five years. I don’t want houses at the end of our garden, so what am I going to do? There are three possibilities: the building happens and we move house, the building happens and we stay where we are, or the building doesn’t happen.
Actually, all these options are okay and that makes it a lot easier to deal with the process of trying to prevent the building from happening in a calm, mindful and non-reactive way. It enables acceptance of the outcome, even if I don’t get what I want. Maybe we can move to somewhere even nicer and treat it as an opportunity?
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Ann’s experience
On the mindfulness course I took, a lot of us felt bad if we didn’t do our practice. We beat ourselves up. But then I came to realize that part of being mindful is not having to berate yourself. If you don’t practise for one day, the Earth isn’t going to cave in. In some ways that gives you more space to practise because you’re not putting that pressure on yourself. So then I started to apply that compassionate attitude to other things. I thought: Why am I putting pressure on myself and creating anxiety?
I do still get anxious, but I recognize it and then I know I’ve got something I can do about it. I can do a mindfulness practice or think: You’ve just fallen into a habit again – you don’t have to get in a tizzy.
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Andy’s experience
I notice a deeper sense of connection when I practise mindfulness. It gives me a feeling of community, a connection to a wider world. I go to a regular practice group and we learn from each other. I’ve also been going to other mindfulness-related events and there are certain attitudes I see that I really respect, and which I’d like more of. I’m working towards it.
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Catherine’s experience
I can remember getting really annoyed during the first meditation we did on the course because I was uncomfortable. We talked in the group afterwards and I admitted this. The teacher said: ‘It’s okay, you’re allowed to be irritated,’ and I was like, ‘Oh! Okay.’
It was really powerful because after that, every time I was irritated at home, with the kids or myself, I started saying: ‘I’m annoyed, but that’s okay; I’m allowed.’ It’s an amazing relief to be able to think like that, with compassion. It reduces the irritation because you’re not fighting yourself as much, and you’re not judging or blaming yourself for what you’re feeling.
It’s allowing yourself to be human, really – supporting yourself and being a good friend to yourself. Mindfulness has stopped me beating myself up so much.
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SUMMARY
Certain qualities are useful as we travel on the path of mindfulness. Just as seeds can flower when tended, so these qualities can grow as we nurture them.
Ten Cs (seeds) of mindfulness are: Curiosity, Commitment, Courage, Compassion, Centring, Co-operation, Connection, Confidence, Cheerfulness and Coming Back.
You don’t have to try to get more of these qualities, or try to force them to grow in you – your job is to take care of the seed.
There are some common misconceptions about what mindfulness is (such as emptying the mind or escaping from the world). Letting go of these can change our experience of meditation.
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Chapter 3
Learning to look
‘The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgement, character and will… An education which should improve this faculty would be an education par excellence.’
WILLIAM JAMES
How can we start to see more clearly? First, we need to learn how to pay attention. Because the mind is so used to wandering off, a good way to train is to practise placing and re-placing it on an object such as the breath. Each time we remember to return to the breath, with kindness, we’re strengthening our capacity to be more fully awake.
The untamed human mind is sometimes likened to a drunken monkey that’s been bitten by a scorpion. In a chaotic bid to run from its pain, the monkey leaps from tree to tree, frantically seeking relief. It cannot be still, even for a moment. Mental agitation happens mostly without our conscious awareness. Until we choose to direct the mind, and notice how difficult that can be, or find ourselves hurtling on a train of unwanted thoughts (such as in the distressing ruminations that often accompany anxiety and depression), we might not even notice the constant whirring. It’s as if it’s all happening on autopilot.
There are advantages to this autopilot. Mind and body mechanisms have evolved to deal with threats to survival, so when we’re faced with an approaching fire or an assailant with a weapon, the autopilot reacts fast, either getting us out the way or preparin
g us for defence.1 When our life is at risk, stopping to consider the options could be fatal, so it’s good that our automatic reactions are quick and unreflective.
Living in the past
There are drawbacks, however. Thoughts occur in the mind unbidden, based as much on what’s expected as what’s actually happening. Working at speed, the autopilot takes mental shortcuts and makes guesses, unconsciously based on what’s been learned before, rather than a full appreciation of the here and now.
This process makes use of what’s called implicit memory,2 in which previous experiences are unconsciously stored and brought to bear on actions in the present. This means we’re partly seeing current situations with eyes of the past, simultaneously projecting into a possible future as we imagine likely dangers and rewards.
Let’s say you were bitten by a dog when you were young. Now you’re an adult, each time a friendly canine approaches, thoughts may appear, saying: Danger! Don’t go near! This animal could harm you!, along with sensations of gut-churning, tight muscles and a rapid heartbeat. These thoughts and sensations – preparing you to fight or flee – might save your life in times of real threat, but in this case they’re based on a memory rather than present-moment risk. Once, when you were small and a dog seemed large, you got hurt. That was one dog, yet you’re now running from (or tensing up at) all dogs.