by Ed Halliwell
If you feel able, now bring to mind someone with whom you have difficulty. Perhaps not choosing (to begin with) a person for whom your dislike or anger is very strong, but someone you experience as perhaps challenging or irritating, or with whom you are in some conflict. Open to the reality that this person is human as well, and wants to be happy – perhaps they’re doing the best they can in their circumstances. You might consider their positive qualities, recognizing what they’re good at. Perhaps they’re suffering as a result of their behaviour – contemplating this may open the window of compassion.
Letting go of judgements as best you can, practise offering this person loving-kindness too, wishing them well in their lives. Remember that offering kindness doesn’t mean you’re condoning any unskilful behaviour or harm done. Whatever feelings come, let these be as they are – there’s no wrong way to be feeling as you practise this.
If this feels or becomes too difficult, it’s completely okay to return to mindfulness of breathing or to sending loving-kindness to the benefactor, friend or ourselves once more. We could also choose to practise loving-kindness for aspects of ourselves that we find difficult, or tend to deny.
Finally, picturing all the people you have visualized together, including yourself, offer a sense of kindness and warmth to the whole group – saying to yourself something like: May we all be safe, may we all be free from stress, may we all experience peace. If you like, you could extend your compassion out further – to the whole town you live in, or even to all beings on the planet. Visualize the energy of kindness radiating out from your heart, extending far and wide.
Intention is key here, rather than result, so it’s not a problem if you don’t feel loving-kindness during or after this meditation. Just keep working with the practice as best you can, noticing what comes up and bringing a friendly acceptance to this too, as best you can.
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Week 8: practices to explore
Train with any combination of the practices we’ve been exploring so far. This could be mindfulness of breath, body, sounds, thoughts, and choiceless awareness or the five senses practice, along with the three-step breathing space.
Practise for as long each day as feels manageable for you. Explore working with a schedule you think you could continue for the next phase of your life. For now, just see how it goes this week, and at the end reflect back and make any changes that seem wise.
Practise the breathing space with the action step. Experiment with it especially when you need to make a decision, or when you feel stressed and impelled to act. See if you can allow any actions to come from your whole being: mind and body together, moment by moment. Notice what happens, and also when and how you feel fragmented. Be interested in the connections between what you do, think and feel.
Write down a list of everything you’ve done today (or yesterday). Be as complete as you can. Looking at the list, notice whether you found each activity ‘nourishing’ or ‘depleting’, bringing awareness to how you feel as your eyes read what you’ve written. Did an activity lead you to feel more inspired, uplifted and energized, or more deflated, tired or flat? If you felt nourished by an activity, write an N next to it, and if you felt depleted, write a D next to it. Now ask yourself: is there one thing you could do to shift the balance towards more nourishment? Be realistic, recognizing that most of us have responsibilities that mean doing some things we don’t like or don’t find easy. Can you make an intention for just one small change? Doing more of something, less of something, or trying something new?
See if you can let inspiration for change come from the whole body, rather than following an idea of something you ‘should’ or ‘shouldn’t’ do’. Does this plan fit with your values? Is it practical? Is it gentle and kind?
Experiment with making this small change, and then after one week repeat the writing exercise. What effect did the change have? Is it something you could continue? Perhaps you’d like to explore a different small shift? This is something that can be done again and again, each time offering information on how we’re feeling about our actions, leading us into gentle, authentic, forward steps. This can be a more effective way to make shifts than trying to make single great leaps, which may be unrealistic and unsustainable.
Experiment with the loving-kindness meditation a few times this week. Notice and be interested in what comes up when you practise.
Choose a C of mindfulness to work with this week, following the guidance in chapter 2.
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Simon’s experience
Work and how I responded to it used to be one of my biggest triggers, and that has really transformed. A colleague said to me: ‘You seem very different in meetings, much quieter.’ I guess I was quite loud and opinionated, almost by default taking up a position of being ‘against’ everything. I don’t do that anymore, as I don’t think that’s the best way to move forward and get things done. It doesn’t feel right to react by shouting and stamping my feet.
My ambition now is to have more free time, more quiet time. I’ve even gone to my major clients and said: ‘I’m going to have to put a cut-off point on how much time I can give you because I’ve got other things I want to do.’ And those other things are taking the dog for a walk and meditating – quiet things. That’s so different from a little while ago. It’s a real re-alignment.
I’ve become aware that in every situation, you have the opportunity to express kindness, compassion and gratitude, and wherever possible I like to take it. There’s a selfish side to it because I feel good when I do that, and it also seems to make everybody else feel good as well. It just seems to be a much happier way of being. I can take the dog for a walk and maybe have some really nice interactions with a few people, maybe do somebody a favour or compliment them. I don’t have to wait till August every year to be happy.
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Ann’s experience
There was a missing link for me between being aware and doing something about it, and mindfulness has filled that gap. I can ask myself: ‘What are the consequences of a decision – what could happen?’ and ‘Which would be the best route?’ I never made time for that before because I felt like I couldn’t get off that treadmill or I’d be upsetting too many people. Now I’m not in a rush. I have a habit of taking time out.
My instinct for life going forward is to make it a lot simpler – it doesn’t need to be complicated. That doesn’t mean I’ll just sit in an armchair knitting, but it does mean I don’t need to do everything. I don’t need to be the best, I don’t need to put pressure on myself to worry what other people think.
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Andy’s experience
These days I work as a psychologist. I try to help people make sense of their experience, and with what they do or don’t do with it. Mindfulness has led to a huge shift in my work – I now practise psychology differently. It’s more process-driven, helping people understand why they get stuck in patterns, rather than just the content of what’s happening.
In healthcare, mindfulness could have a huge impact, such as on the lives of people with long-term conditions. And there’d probably be a knock-on effect, because people wouldn’t be turning up in the emergency room at hospital every time they’re having a twinge – when they think they’re having a heart attack and they’re probably just feeling anxious.
If more people meditated, there might be less kneejerk anger, less envy and greed. Meditation helps people be more confident, more happy in their own being, which will lead to better relationships with others. If you’re insensitive to other people, it’s probably because you’re not listening to your own messages about what’s going on.
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Catherine’s experience
Meditating changes the way I think and act – the way I respond to things. I’m able to pause, be patient, and have that self-control I always wished for. If there’s a big argument or an issue with the kids I deal with it be
tter – I’ve more resilience. It’s in split seconds but I’m able to suddenly notice they’re upset about something so I don’t need to tell them off about it. It’s okay if I’m irritated – I don’t need to take it out on them.
I act with more authenticity because I’m more in tune with myself. I instinctively do the things that matter to me, without thinking about it that much. I can feel my way, rather than thinking. I’m in my head a lot, so it’s quite good to have another form of guidance – from my inner self, my intuition, my body. There’s a flow between mind and body so they’re working together, and things happen more easily.
A lot of people think they’ve no choice – if they feel a certain way or they respond in a certain way they think it’s not their responsibility. It’s really useful to teach people that you can actually choose how you’re going to respond. You can be aware. It’s a practice thing – the more you do it, the more you get into the habit of doing it, even if it feels fake at first.
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SUMMARY
Letting ourselves trust in the space of awareness, we may find ourselves opening to a bigger picture, and less caught in reactivity. As we experience greater contentment, and express that through our behaviour, we’re following a sustainable, upward spiral to wellbeing.
Awareness of the workings of mind and body naturally draws us into situations conducive to wellbeing. Mindfulness is associated with greater autonomy and choicefulness – along with authenticity and coherence – as well as engagement with valued behaviours.
Understanding mind and body brings insight into the lives of others, igniting a compassion for their struggles. Compassion is implicit in every moment of mindfulness, and by explicitly cultivating this through loving-kindness meditation, we’re opening the gift of benevolence. This helps us live life with loving eyes.
Practising kindness is strongly linked to wellbeing.
The ethics of mindfulness come from understanding that how we live our lives affects wellbeing. The breathing space can be explored as a first step to mindful action.
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Chapter 9
Wholeness
‘(Mindfulness is) the unfailing master key for knowing the mind and is thus the starting point, the perfect tool for shaping the mind and is thus the focal point (and)… the lofty manifestation of the achieved freedom of the mind and is thus the culmination point.’
NYANAPONIKA THERA
Understanding, sustaining and acting from a mindful perspective is likely to be a lifelong training, requiring our ongoing, gentle effort. We can let go of getting to perfect mindfulness, and instead work simply on bringing awareness to our lives, moment by moment. Whenever we remember to live from awareness, we’re practising mindfulness.
Mindfulness is not just a set of techniques. Seeing patterns of mind and body in communion with circumstance, we’re offered the gift of awareness. Learning the capacity to stay present to an ever-changing flow of inner and outer experience, we find freedom from reactivity and the possibility of wiser, more conscious action.
Practising attitudes conducive to wellbeing, we uncover a wholesome perspective that dissolves the painful defences of imagined ‘selfhood’, easing our path through the world. This enables greater enjoyment of pleasant events, a deepened capacity to negotiate hardships, and a finer-tuned skill in relating to connected others with confidence and compassion.
Put simply, mindfulness is an ABC skill: we cultivate Awareness by Being with experience, and this leads to Choice.
As we’ve discovered, mindfulness is trainable. Through the gentle, repeating work of meditation, we’re shown our current circumstances and given the know-how to gradually transform our relationship to them. By cultivating this shift, we invoke the possibility of creative, compassionate action, and this can become a foundation for skilful doing, or non-doing, as appropriate. Wise decision-making nurtures an ethical, values-inspired lifestyle that allows for expansion of the peace we may be starting to glimpse more often.
Embodied learning
As an experiential practice rather than a theory, ideology or set of concepts, mindfulness means bringing awareness to present-moment phenomena (thoughts and sensations) as they appear in mind and body, observing, attuning and responding to these events, perhaps in a new way. This requires a willingness to experiment, exploring the suggestions of practitioners past.
We don’t have to buy in to dogma: if a shift in view occurs, it emerges from our own experience, rather than a mere change in belief. This enables our learning to be embodied. By opening to seeing, feeling, hearing, tasting, smelling – we can develop deftness in our minds, hearts and life. This is the font of wellbeing, and of astute, sensitive action.
Buddhism, the contemplative tradition with which mindfulness practice is most closely associated, has sometimes been described as ‘a science of mind’. Emphasis is placed on testing out the hypotheses put forward by its teachers – is our inner and outer world as described, and does working with it as prescribed lead to contentment? Willing to follow a set of methods, the practitioner notices what happens and learns from what’s realized. Awareness is the scientific observer that watches and reflects on the flow of events in the internal and external world.
A union of art and science
Quantitative methods have brought a new kind of rigour to this ancient way. Many researchers engaged in this work are also mindfulness practitioners, able to use their first-person experience to guide the design of studies which can give a more objective view. These contemplative scientists are producing empirical data that demonstrates with precision when and how mindfulness is helpful. There is, as always, much to discover, but an alliance of ancient and modern approaches has already led to new understandings of how wellbeing can be found and maintained.
The Dalai Lama once said that while Western scientists were exploring outer space, great meditators in the East were exploring inner space. Bringing the learning from both kinds of inquiry together, using the technology of awareness and of MRI scanners, EEG machines and data analysis, we may find ever more fruitful means of accessing the freedom and peace that great teachers through the ages have said is possible.
Into wholeness
As we enter a path of mindfulness – purposefully, attentively, and gently – we let go into a journey that naturally and gradually inclines to wholeness. Tuning in to feedback from mind, body and environment, we learn to trust in meditative tools, realizing that they’re usually enough to guide us, so long as we learn to use them well.
Just as attention wanders when we practise meditation, so we’ll likely revert to painful old habits again and again, but rather than upbraiding ourselves, we can choose to see this as part of the dance of life. Off the hook of having to get it all together, we’re free to enjoy the journey as it happens.
Dropping the need for a certain result – even an experience of wellbeing – might seem difficult at first, entailing as it does a relinquishing of control. But if we’re willing to accept uncertainty, we may discover that wellbeing finds us without our having to strain for it. A wellbeing that can be experienced without conditions – isn’t this happiness indeed?
A mindful world?
When each of us commits to the path of mindfulness, a pivotal point is reached in our life. Going against the stream of automaticity, we’re starting to face our predicament squarely, and to live our lives more consciously.
As our practice deepens, we may come to influence others to take a similar step – it’s often said that mindfulness is ‘caught’, as much as it’s ‘taught’. If enough people are inspired to live in this way, the possibilities for influencing the world in the direction of wisdom and compassion are great, especially in this time of complex political, social and environmental challenge.
How this might unfold is speculation, but it’s encouraging that moves are being made to mindfulness not just in healthcare but in education, business, politics, the law, digital media and the
arts, as well as many other arenas where people meet, connect and communicate. Mindfulness has been taught in settings ranging from Google headquarters in California to the English Houses of Parliament, as well as in a great number of schools, clinics, social service organizations, workplaces, retreat centres and festivals, as well as online.
We don’t need to try too hard. The way of mindfulness is as much of an undoing as a doing, especially for those of us bent on achievement. It seems that when we give up our habits of clinging, craving and avoidance, a wise, compassionate, skilful awareness can arise in the space, without our having to strain for it.
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Practice: Mindful Movement (Walking)
Meditation doesn’t have to be practised in stillness. Any movement can be mindful, as we bring awareness to it. Mindfulness while moving can be practised with traditional forms such as yoga or tai chi, or by bringing awareness to activities such as swimming, running, cycling, cooking, cleaning the house and washing the dishes. By noticing sensations and thoughts, we can discover new ways of experiencing activities that we regularly engage in.
We might find, for example, that washing the dishes becomes a more interesting experience when we connect with the sensations of soap and water on the hands, watching the judgements that tell us it’s unpleasant or boring. Or perhaps we might become more aware of the slave-driver in us as we exercise, learning to let go of pushing and pulling ourselves too far and too fast.