Being Present

Mindfulness practice is training in concentration, attention, and cultivating discernment of experience. To develop concentration we focus our attention on a single object of meditation, such as the breath, and return attention to the object when we notice we are distracted. To cultivate discernment we keep focusing a little closer to the object of our meditation. Think of it as focusing a microscope or camera lens to get a closer and closer shot of the finer details

The manifestation of thought is often the place where we get hung up. Usually thoughts are an activity that draw our attention away from our meditation object, becoming a major distraction. We then begin chasing our thoughts like the greyhounds chase the mechanical rabbit at a race. Instead, we want to temporarily – or during some meditations, on purpose – use thoughts as our object of meditation.

We use the same process, no matter what the object of our meditation is. Whether it’s the breath, sound, brushing your teeth, eating, or thoughts.

When we are developing our concentration, we using noting. First noticing and noting that we are thinking, “thinking, thinking.” Then noticing the type of thought and noting the type. For example, noticing a remembering of some past event, then noting “remembering, remembering”.

Martine Batchelor in Meditation for life talks about different types of thoughts.

Intense thoughts are those that are often sudden, from being shocked by something, usually painful, and become obsessive and repetitive. These type of thoughts are often accompanied by intense emotion and sensation in the body.

Habitual thoughts are mental habits that have formed a groove in the mind and we fall into these grooves over and over again. Some examples of habitual thinking are day dreaming, ruminating about the past, fabricating stories, elaborate intellectual constructions (i.e. wouldn’t it be great if we could solve the homeless problem by . . . ), planning, judging, calculating, procrastinating and complaining (If only the room were quieter, if only the instructions were better, if only . . .)

The third type of thought is what we call occupying thoughts. These are the light ones, simple mechanical trains of thoughts where you start thinking about a trip to New York and end up thinking about Aunt Helga. All without any recognition about how you got from one to the other.

The intervention when we notice we are lost in thought is the same. Notice you are lost in thought. Note the distraction, “Thinking, thinking”, and return, without judgment, to the object of your meditation.

Working with developing discernment we notice the process. Noting the rise and fall of thoughts, the rise and fall of each thought, a bit like really small bubbles that rise and pop. Dialing in a bit closer we note what’s behind the thoughts, what else we can notice about them, what comes attached to them like sensations, emotions, images, or more stories.

We begin to notice that underneath our most frequent mental patterns are unacknowledged feelings. For instance, planning from fear. Intense thoughts likely are attached to hurt and anger or helplessness and shame. Calculating, daydreaming, speculating can be related to boredom or doubt. Judging, procrastination and complaining can be related to feelings of longing or inadequacy. We begin to see what we have been avoiding by staying hooked into habitual thought patterns.

The closer we look, dialing in our microscope or camera to gain greater detail, we begin to see that thoughts are movements of energy and sensations. We discover that we can’t really grasp and hang onto the mind. We recognize how rapidly changing the process is, that nothing is really static. Eventually, according to Jack Kornfield a famous meditation teacher, “meditation becomes more like a fine shower of sensation and thought moments.” The mind becomes quiet and open and we see in the depths of our being how noting lasts and nothing can be grasped.

Jack Kornfield says, “In meditation we learn to care with full-hearted attention, a true caring for each moment. Yet we also learn to let go. We do not separate out only those experiences we enjoy, but cultivate a sense of harmony, opening constantly to the truth within us and connecting with life. This is an energetic, committed way of practice. As a great Tibetan lama Karmapa said, ‘This is living the practice instead of just doing it.’”