Mindfulness is kind of like following a trail of breadcrumbs. Whenever you feel lost in yourself, in your life, just bring notice to the sensation or that comes to you most tangibly. Bring your non-judgemental and kind awareness to it. As you do this, you will notice that as this sensations disappears again your awareness might automatically be pulled towards another sensation. Our body and mind has a natural way of telling a karmic story as soon as we start listening, which will lead to the unfolding of awareness, becoming more and more expansive. This requires, however, that we start listening to what is going on right now in this moment. Then if we follow the breadcrumbs that come to us in our awareness, it will automatically lead us back to our natural open state.
According to Buddhism, our karma resides in the body. Checking in with the quality of your bodily sensations is checking in with your karma. Are there parts of your body that feel frozen? resistant? Our automated response to such sensations is often rejection, we do not want to deal with it, it is actually therefore those parts contain so much tension. The whole paradox in this is that it actually keeps the suffering in place, as does the karmic response to it. Buddhism challenges us to breathe into the suffering, to accept it, with compassion. Let it hurt, it’s just the karma burning and it is exactly those very painful emotions, if we can experience them within a container of self-compassion (not self-martyrdom), which will wake us up and gain us insight into the behaviours that led to them in the first place. So try one time to breathe into the body, into your whole body and fully experience it the way it is right now. See what you discover. It might not always be pleasant, but it will sure be interesting.
There has been a lot of talking and researching going on lately on the topic of Self Compassion, it being claimed to be one of the most important pillars in mindfulness meditation practice. For some people it might actually be THE most important pillar right now in their lives. What is it though and why is important? Self compassion is giving yourself the kindness and love you need when you are suffering. When we start sitting on a cushion, we start noticing our suffering, this is mindfulness/awareness. But just how we actually deal with this suffering is actually what forms the quality of our meditation and eventually our entire lives. This is where self compassion comes in, it’s giving your self just the kind support you need to accept the pain your life and telling yourself it is ok to let go of the struggle against it. Self compassion is not just about feeling good, it’s about allowing yourself to feel whatever arises within a caring container. A simple technique for this is simply putting your hand(s) on the heart region of your chest whenever your experiencing difficult feelings or thoughts. Just the warmth of your own hands can get you into a state of acceptance and form the anchor you will need to become mindful of what is bugging you. Try it!
Every mindfulness training starts with something called the raisin exercise, in which you very carefully start to examine and experience a raisin with all your senses. This if often considered kind of strange and hard to grasp with the conceptual mind. It is important to know that there is a very important rational behind this. In mindfulness meditation one always tries to bring back the awareness to an experience instead of thinking and that is because our raw experience has something very naked and true about it. There is nothing inherently confusing about the breath, there is nothing inherently misleading about drinking a glass of milk, our thoughts, however, can lead to a lot of confusion, a lot of suffering (note: there is also nothing inherently ‘wrong’ with our thoughts, just with the way we deal with them) . In order for us to experience this unconfused state again we are trying to just experience again, no over-analyzing, no plan, no striving. The inherent clarity of our experience can lead us back to the natural clarity of our own minds.
We spends tons of money on therapists, self-help books, courses and gurus depending on them to lead us the way, give us clarity. The raw truth, however, is that no one can make us see through our own confusion but ourselves. All that a therapist can do is mirror this ability, cast you back upon yourself, which a skilled therapist would do through his or her own insight in themselves. It all boils down to the very fundamental issue that we don’t trust ourselves. We have to work with our confusion very raw and very naked, without preformulated answers or even clear guidelines, it’s about opening your eyes. This is not an analytical understanding, it is understanding with our entire being, we see and feel with our entire being. Confusion is just there as the little nagging voice of our parents when, as a child, they woke us up to go to school, irritating as it might have been, it was out of love. When confusion clears up we will notice that it was just there as an indicator of us not being awake. Good luck
In choosing a spiritual path it is very important to listen to your own experience. It is very important to listen to what it is that resonates with your heart, with your karma, which is completely individual, like DNA. It is important to realise that the teaching themselves are a vehicle, they are not the ultimate truth, that is something we namely already have inside. We do however need a vehicle that fits us well, that can take us back to that truth. You know, it’s like listening to music; some artists you kind of like, but they do not completely touch you. Other artist go straight to the heart when you hear them for the first time, it is no different with choosing a spiritual path. You can fool your self to be in love with someone for many years, but eventually you will know when you are truly in love, eventually you will also truly know, or feel, which path is right for you.