Mingyur RinpocheIf your remember that awareness of whatever occurs is meditation, then meditation becomes much easier than you think.
Tag Archives: awareness
Form Meditation ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheForm meditation is actually very simple. In fact, we practice it unconsciously every day whenever we stare at a computer screen or watch a traffic light. When we lift this unconscious process to the level of active awareness, deliberately resting our attention upon a specific object, the mind becomes very peacefull, very open, and very relaxed.
No need to fight ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaIn order to make yourself a person of the world, you have had to fight for every inch. Even when you are pressing your clothes or busy organizing a cocktail party, there is always an undercurrent of trying to prove something, trying to achieve something. Whatever you do involves some kind of chauvinism, which in fact could be one definition of ego. However, individual chauvinism can be overcome. The achievement of mindfulness and awareness gives you tremendous freedom: that is the idea of individual salvation. You realize that there is no need to fight or wage warfare. In this way, the development of awareness leads to tremendous relaxation, gentleness, and peace.
Benefits of mastering your mind ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Dilgo Khyentse RinpocheIf you master your mind, it will remain naturally concentrated, peaceful and aware. You will even be able to wander around in a crowd without being distracted and carried away by desire or aversion.
Be like a lion ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Dilgo Khyentse RinpocheWhen you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick; every time a stick is thrown, you run after it. But if, instead, you look at where your thoughts are coming from, you will see that each thought arises and dissolves within the space of that awareness, without engendering other thoughts. Be like a lion, who rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once.
Becoming the breathing ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaThe attitude toward the breath in meditation is to become the breathing. Try to identify completely rather than watching your breath or just observing the process of breathing. You are the breath; the breath is you. Breath is coming out of your nostrils, going out and dissolving into the atmosphere, into the space. You put a certain energy and effort toward your awareness of that. Then, as for in-breathing, should you try to deliberately draw things in? Thats not recommended here. Just boycott your breath; boycott your concentration on the breath. As your breath goes out, let it dissolve. Just abandon it, boycott it.
The openness of panoramic awareness ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaLike a great river that runs down toward the ocean, the narrowness of discipline leads into the openness of panoramic awareness.
The path of pausing ~ Pema Chödron
Pema ChödronThe primary focus of this path of choosing wisely, of this training to de-escalate aggression, is learning to stay present. Pausing very briefly, frequently throughout the day, is an almost effortless way to do this. For just a few seconds we can be right here. Meditation is another way to train in learning to stay, or, as one student put it more accurately, learning to come back, to return to being present over and over again. The truth is, anyone who’s ever tried meditation learns really quickly that we are almost never fully present. I remember when I was first given meditation instruction. It sounds so simple: Just sit down, get comfortable, and bring light awareness to your breath. When your mind wanders, gently come back and stay present with your breath. I thought, “This will be easy.” Then someone hit a gong to begin and I tried it. What I found was that I wasn’t present with a single breath until they hit the gong again to end the session. I had spent the whole time lost in thought.
Touch-and-go ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaThe application of mindfulness has to be precise. If we cling to our practice, we create stagnation. Therefore, in our application of the techniques of mindfulness, we must be aware of the fundamental tendency to cling, to survive. We come to this in the mindfulness of life, or survival. We encounter this tendency in the form of clinging to the meditative state. We experience the meditative state and it is momentarily tangible, but in that same moment it is also dissolving. Going along with this process means developing a sense of letting go of awareness as well as of contacting it. This could be described as touch-and-go: you are there—present, mindful—and then you let go.
The quintessential point of all spiritual instruction ~ Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
Dilgo Khyentse RinpocheThe practice of Dharma should bring you to the point where you can maintain the same constant awareness whether in or out of practice sessions. This is the quintessential point of all spiritual instruction; without it, however many mantras and prayers you recite, however many thousands of prostrations and circumambulations you do, as long as your mind remains distracted none of it will help to get rid of your obscuring emotions. Never forget this most crucial point.
Ignorance ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheIgnorance is a fundamental inability to recognize the infinite potential, clarity, and power of our own minds, as if we were looking at the world through colored glasses: Whatever we see is disguised or distorted by the colors of the glass. On the most essential level, ignorance distorts the basically open experience of awareness into dualistic distinctions between inherently existing categories of “self” and “other”.
Recognizing What’s Going On ~ Pema Chödron
Pema ChödronOur habitual patterns are, of course, well established, seductive, and comforting. Just wishing for them to be ventilated isn’t enough. Mindfulness and awareness are key. Do we see the stories that we’re telling ourselves and question their validity? When we are distracted by a strong emotion, do we remember that it is part of our path? Can we feel the emotion and breathe it into our hearts for ourselves and everyone else? If we can remember to experiment like this even occasionally, we are training as a warrior. And when we can’t practice when distracted but know that we can’t, we are still training well. Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what’s going on.
Maintaining awareness ~ Mingyur Rinpoche
Mingyur RinpocheAs long as you maintain awareness or mindfulness, no matter what happens when you practice, your practice is meditation. If you watch thoughts, that is meditation. If you can’t watch your thoughts, that is meditation, too. Any of these experience can be supports for meditation. The essential thing is to maintain awareness, no matter what thoughts, emotions, sensations occur. If you remember that awareness of what occurs is meditation, then meditation becomes much easier than you may think.
Being as Fully Aware as Possible ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaOne of our most important challenges in life is to remain mindful of who we are and what we are doing. To keep this awareness present all the time is a great support for spiritual growth. One aspect of a spiritual life is to live consciously. For that, we need to be as fully aware as possible. Without mindfulness, we end up sleepwalking through life. We act without realizing what we are doing.
Start a New Life Every Morning ~ 17th Karmapa
17th KarmapaWe sometimes wake up fresh in the morning yet still go through the day half asleep. Our busy 21st century lives overwhelm us with a relentless stream of immediate tasks. We lose sight of how precious it is just to have a human life.
This is an awareness that we need to feel in our hearts. I would like to share with you a practice that I call ‘living your whole life in a single day.’ You can do this by starting with this thought in the morning: ‘I am starting a whole new life. It begins right now’. Initially, leave yourself a note at your bedside to remind you, and then slowly cultivate the habit of waking up with this thought.
Your body is fresh from the night’s rest; when you wake up with this awareness, so does your mind. Ask yourself what kind of person you want to be in the life that you will live today. Throughout the day, remind yourself that your life is happening right now. In the afternoon, check to see how your life is going and readjust as needed. A whole lifetime of possibilities stretches out before you every moment.
This is the basic truth of interdependence. Conditions are constantly shifting, and what seemed impossible earlier can suddenly become possible. Every moment counts. Every action counts. A single kind act can have a positive impact on the future of many others you share the earth with. You can change the course of the future in any moment. Do so consciously, and the whole world will benefit.
There is no ideal state of meditation ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaThere is no such thing as an ideal state of meditation. Awareness allows us to relate to our mental processes and to see the fundamental expression of mind as it is, including our thoughts. The meditator may find that many thoughts recur during the meditative state. These thoughts could be seen as waves on the ocean. They are part of our intelligence. When they aren’t armed or heavy-handed anymore, they have a transparent quality. Thoughts also develop an evenness when we recognize that, fundamentally, nobody is trying to fight against anything.
Aesthetic appreciation ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaThe next bodhisattva action is meditation. In this case, meditation is almost, we could say, aesthetic appreciation. this means awareness of body, awareness of colors, awareness of things around you, awareness of people’s different styles. There’s always room for everything that comes up. Everything is treated reverently, respectfully. Nothing is regarded as rubbish. Even the garbage heap is a work of art. Things have their own place, and you appreciate this, which is meditation in the broader sense. Both the relevant and the irrelevant are respected, so you don’t have to economize on your time and energy. Because of that, everything becomes an object of meditation, of greater awareness, panoramic awareness. You take tremendous interest in different styles, people’s different approaches, and the different physical situations of objects around you, and the different emotional states within yourself. For the bodhisattva, the whole thing is constantly meaningful and workable.
Aesthetic appreciation does not mean looking for beauty alone. It means looking at things with space around them. When things are seen with space around them, they have their own pictorial quality, so to speak. Things are seen in perspective rather than as representing demands or expectations. So bodhisattvas make a wonderful audience for the theater of life and death. This is meditation. But at the same time, the bodhisattva takes part in this theater, so the whole thing does not become merely a matter of impersonal observation.
Good conduct ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaFor a dharmic person, good conduct is a sense of mindfulness and awareness: whatever you are doing, you should try to see it as an extension of your sitting practice, your general sense of awareness and refraining from too much, unnecessary activity…. You could look at yourself and smile. You could be awake and aware and, at the same time, on the spot. Constant sunrise happens. Your reflect that yourself, and you always look awake and aware of what you are doing. That is good conduct. You respect yourself and you respect the sacredness of your whole being, your whole existence. When you have that kind of self-respect, you don’t spill your tea or put your shoes on the wrong feet. You appreciate the weather, your coffee, your tea, your clothes, your shower. There is a tremendous sense that for the first time you have become a real human being and you can actually appreciate the world around you. That appreciation comes from being aware.
These situations are the scriptures ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaThe only way to relate with the present situation of spirituality or the neurotic state of the moment is by meditation. I don’t mean sitting meditation only, but relating with the emotional situations of daily life in a meditative way, by working with them, being aware of them as they come up. Every situation then becomes a learning process. These situations are the books; they are the scriptures.
Panoramic awareness in everyday life ~ Chögyam Trungpa
Chögyam TrungpaIn addition to the sitting form of meditation, there is the meditation practice in everyday life of panoramic awareness. This particular kind of practice is connected with identifying with the activities one is involved in. This awareness practice could apply to artwork or any other activity. It requires confidence. Any kind of activity that requires discipline also requires confidence. You cannot have discipline without confidence; otherwise it becomes a sort of torturing process. If you have confidence in what you are doing, then you have real communication with the things you are using, with the material you are using. Working that way, a person is not concerned with producing masterpieces. He is just involved with the things that he is doing. Somehow the idea of a masterpiece is irrelevant.