Week #10 - Practicing

We established that we each have been able to get still, quiet and focused in awareness during meditation, resulting in a felt sense of being focused in awareness. We also established that we each have been able to apply this tool of getting still, quiet and focused in awareness amidst living our daily lives, and that it is a matter of practicing using this tool so that focusing in awareness becomes a part of our everyday lives. And this focusing in awareness brings us directly into the present, the here and now.

So, have compassion for yourself when you see the self-judgment that's been carried on from habit, and practice these short moments of awareness!

Week #9: Habitual Reaction to Emotions

We’ve been talking about emotions and our relationship to them – how we react to them – and how it is possible to see that the emotion is one thing and our reaction to the emotion is something else. Our habitual reaction to an uncomfortable emotion is to take some action within ourselves in relationship to it, e.g.: disregard it, shut it down, cover it up, protect ourselves from it, judge it, even tell ourselves convincing stories of not-enoughness or wrongness because we’re feeling it. All of that is our relationship to the emotion. The relationship is between the emotion and a sense-of-self that is identified with/defined by the beliefs, meanings, etc. that are associated with feeling this particular emotion.

We talked about an alternative response to this habitual reaction: Acknowledge the emotion when it expresses, and honor its existence by allowing it (with equanimity) to be felt as is, rather than slipping immediately, from habit, into attaching a meaning to the feeling, interpreting it, telling ourselves a story about it. Just allowing, with equanimity, in awareness, whatever feeling/emotion is there, allowing its felt expression in the body – just for 90 seconds. 90 seconds of experiencing the emotion in focused awareness.

And paying attention to what the emotion itself is telling you, rather than listening to the stories that habitual reactions tell you, as if they were truth. This is a fresh perspective, one that is no longer defined by, identified with, a filter of beliefs, meanings and stories. With this fresh perspective in awareness, the habitual reactions are seen for what they are: a closed circuit of thought about us, defining who we are (scared, anxious, frustrated, angry, lonely, stupid, etc.) in relation to this emotion. But because the habitual reaction is habitual, it may well appear again. producing the same uncomfortable result over and over, leaving us with the impression that we are, essentially, victims of our emotions. And so goes the ongoing struggle to control them.

So it may become a process that is practiced over time (and that’s okay!): we practice recognizing an emotion and allowing a response that is different from the habitual reaction – a response of focused awareness, without judgment… even with non-assuming curiosity toward the emotion, feeling its energy in the body, allowing its existence within us by giving it the space it needs to express, realizing that in allowing it this space, we are ‘bigger’ than it and are no longer a victim to it.

And in the felt sense of awareness we come to not feeling victim to a conditioned behavior when we find ourselves exhibiting it. That conditioned response, that automatic reaction that apparently occurs without thinking because previous thinking has already burned into our brain pathways, that assumed truth of our identity, all those beliefs that make it all work together as a false sense-of-self… all of that not true. We are not a victim to that. And there is no longer a need to engage a false sense-of-self in opposition, because it seen that there is really no opponent, that the opponent is itself, just conditioned thought – thought that no longer defines who and what we are.

Week #8: Bridging the (apparent) Gap

When we first start off exploring our true nature, we take ourselves to be a person who is identified with her/his thoughts, sensations and experiences, i.e., we take ourselves to be the felt, mind-created, seemingly separate sense-of-self. Then, we experience the felt-sense of Awareness – the stillness, silence and peaceful expansion of awareness – and we begin to accept the reality of awareness as our sense-of-self. But it appears that awareness “comes and goes,” and our seemingly separate sense-of-self comes back into the foreground of our life, and the sense-of-self-as-awareness recedes into the background, and there appears to be a gap.

The gap can produce conflict, e.g., when a person dumps on you with an inconsiderate or rude comment, you blow up at them and then say to yourself: “Why did I just blow up in anger at that person? I should have been able to deal with his inconsiderate comments with equanimity!” Can you see that, in this statement to yourself, you are sustaining an identity – a pre-defined sense-of-self? That sense-of-self takes the inconsiderate comment personally. This can only happen if thought produces a story of how ‘you’ are being hurt (insulted, demeaned, etc.) by these words, and that this person should not have made these comments to you (you didn’t deserve it, etc.). Then comes your reaction, which is based on another story of ‘you,’ and you may retaliate with anger or slink off into a corner and hide.

This whole scenario played out according to conditioned thought structures of perception, interpretation and reaction; there was a habitual identification with (belief in) these thought structures as ‘you.’ Examine these thought structures and the feelings they produce. They are there now only because of habit and, most likely, were created to protect a story-based sense-of-self of the past. Acknowledge that you are still identifying with that sense-of-self who feels she needs to protect herself, or still feels not-enough. Why acknowledge it? Because it’s obviously already there, and it’s still wreaking havoc in your life! Acknowledge that there are story-based thought structures that produce a sense-of-self that feels not-enough, or incomplete, or separate, or isolated, or mad at the world, or a victim, or a know-it-all, or who is ‘different’ – whatever the conditioned story is. Acknowledge with gratitude of clear-seeing that each story-based sense-of-self came into existence as thought’s (mind’s, ego’s) way of helping you to survive in the world! And acknowledge that, when seen from the perspective of awareness, of Presence, these apparently real and solid senses-of-self are, in fact, only thought structures, without any substance of their own apart from what you feed them when you identify with them as ‘you.’

Acknowledge them, and in the spaciousness of awareness (with equanimity), allow them to dissipate and dissolve. Or, you could take this thought-created self into you with compassion, absorbing it completely with your acceptance, thus neutralizing its energetic need for an apparently separate existence. Allow the felt-sense of awareness to be more and more your identified-with sense-of-self – a sense-of-self that is here and now, not pre-defined and conditioned by past stories. And the next time someone dumps on you with inconsiderate or demeaning comments and you feel the conditioned reaction rising up, shift your focus immediately into awareness and see the lie of the stories of ‘you’ of the past and feel the Truth of you, now. And watch the supposed ‘gap’ gradually dissolve!

"A person's true life is the way in which she puts off the lie imposed by others on her. This is a matter of being, and not of becoming. The lie can not become the truth; the personality cannot become your soul. And striving towards the truth is nothing but creating more confusion. The truth has not to be achieved. It cannot be achieved, it is already the case. Only the lie has to be dropped. Recognize the fact that, as you are, you are a lie. Manipulated, cultivated by others. Striving after truth is a distraction and a postponement. It is the lie’s way to hide. See the lie, look deep into the lie of your personality. Because to see the lie is to cease the lie. No longer to lie is to seek no more for any truth – there is no need. The moment the lie disappears, truth is there in all its beauty and radiance. In the seeing of the lie it disappears, and what is left is the truth."
–  Osho Zen Tarot

Week #7 Reminder!

Disruption comes in many forms. The tendency is to fall back on old patterns of survival to cope with unsettling events. DON'T JUMP SHIP JUST BECAUSE THE WATER HAS GOTTEN TURBULENT! You know how to get still. You know how to get quiet. You know how to focus on the sensation of just this breath. Instead of falling back on old, conditioned thought patterns, USE WHAT YOU ALREADY KNOW - FOCUS IN AWARENESS. When you focus on just the sensation of this breath, there a felt sense of awareness. Stay with that. Focus into that. Allow all to be as it already is, and surrender any thought-motivated desire to change what is in any way. If you need to take action, let it come from awareness, not from outmoded, conditioned thought. You have the 'tool' of focusing in awareness. USE IT!

Week #6 Recap & Exploration

Part I of this course – the first six weeks – was all about building a tool: the capacity to focus in Awareness. Now we'll take that tool into Part II and focus on using the tool outside the arena of sitting meditation. It’s going to be very important that you remain aware of what happens when you use the tool and when there appears to be an obstacle to focusing in awareness, so you can discuss these topics during class time.

Here are some highlights from Week #6 class:

• We shared our experiences with last week’s assignment, i.e., what happened when we focused in awareness and saw a reaction thought and/or emotion.
• When habitual thought/feeling reactions ‘take over,’ there is a tendency to not focus in awareness, but rather to focus on whatever thoughts and feelings are occurring, and whatever interpretations, meanings and stories are associated with that habitual pattern. But if we can maintain a focus in awareness with equanimity, just as we practiced doing during meditation, we don’t 'join with' those thoughts/emotions – we don’t give them the energy they need to keep running, the energy they receive from focusing on them, and as a result they lose their oomph and wither away.
• Acknowledge that, in the instant you see a pattern playing out, it is awareness that is allowing you to do that – the tool of focusing in awareness is working! Now focus (with equanimity!) in the awareness of the thought/feeling – not in the thought/feeling. Doing that will allow you to remain aware of what is occurring without becoming identified with it, without getting all caught up in it. And the next time you see yourself getting caught up in a reaction, you can remember that you have another option available in your repertoire: you can focus on the sensation of one breath and then continue to focus in awareness (with equanimity) on the breath and on your reaction.
• Remember that as you practice and hone this tool of focusing in awareness, you will be more aware of the habitual patterns you have been reacting to, and your initial reaction may be one of judgment. But with continued practice of allowing what already is to just be, see how viewing your reactions from the perspective of being focused in awareness changes your relationship to these patterns. From this perspective, you’ll be able to see the difference between what it is you’re reacting to and the reaction itself – what you’re doing with what is: the judgments, meanings, interpretations and stories about what is, that thoughts are creating.

The 90 Second Emotion Rule (as described on the Denise Renye, PsyD Candidate Blog):

“In her amazing book, MY STROKE OF INSIGHT: A BRAIN SCIENTIST'S PERSONAL JOURNEY, Jill Bolte Taylor, Ph.D., maintains that it takes about 90 seconds to pass through the physical phase of experiencing an emotion...

Taylor says it takes "less than 90 seconds" for an emotion to get triggered, surge chemically through the blood stream, then get flushed out. She goes on to assert that within this brief period of time, the automatic emotional response is complete, so that whatever we feel after that is our choosing. Stunning information! Her take is that we need to be present and open to the feeling at whatever intensity it comes. If we short-circuit it, we won't receive the full impact of the message it's delivering. Alternately, if we continue to stoke the fires of the emotion, we're holding on to discomfort unnecessarily.

Emotions can feel terrifying because of their power and what we believe about them. Some folks are convinced they cannot tolerate affective discomfort and, therefore, choose to eat or in other ways distract themselves to avoid it. Others rationalize or minimize their emotions and, therefore, are not completely present to them. Still others intensify feelings by over-focusing on them until they really do become unbearable and feel overwhelming.

Where are you on this continuum? Where do you want to be? Can you really not stand to feel an emotion for 90 seconds? Next time you're stressed or distressed, grab your watch or keep your eyes on the clock. Watch the second hand go ‘round one and one-half times. Notice how you feel. Get in the habit of observing how long the physical part of experiencing an emotion takes. Pay attention to what you're feeling and see if you can simply allow the emotion to wash over and through you. Do nothing, just let it flow.

If you allow yourself the full 90 seconds of experiencing a feeling while staying mindfully in neutral, congratulate yourself. If you distracted yourself before the chemicals were able to naturally flush through your system, be compassionate and remind yourself to try to do better next time. If you're still hanging onto your feelings after 90 seconds, gently pry yourself away with the reminder that you no longer need to hold on. You felt what you felt and hopefully gained insight or information from the experience and now it's time to let go. Ninety seconds, that's all it takes.”

• Lastly, we talked about what we were going to do in the next six weeks during class time, i.e., exploring the non-duality perspectives – and our reactions to them – of Scott Kiloby, Candice O’Denver, Jeff Foster, Tony Parsons and others.

Assignment: Set aside some time to reflect on your experience during the first six weeks  of this course and write down any specific insights about yourself (e.g., your thought patterns, habitual reactions, etc.) and/or changes in your perspective that occurred as a result of focusing in awareness. Please email your responses to me before our next meeting on November 2.

Note: It would be good to keep doing the meditation, and you can simply think of it as getting still and quiet, and focusing in awareness on the sensation of breath. And then allow the felt sense of awareness itself to be what is focused on.

Week #5 Recap & Exploration

In class last night I said that the 'assignment' was to be aware of thoughts and feelings during meditation, and to be aware of any thought or feeling you then have in reaction to them. And then to let go of them. I want to clarify what I'm asking of you to explore.

First let your breath help you focus in awareness. And focused in awareness,  when a thought or emotion arises, or pops ups, allow, with equanimity, its presence - its 'facticity'; it's already a thought or feeling. Instead of disallowing, or disregarding, the thought or feeling, you are allowing it 100%. You don't resist or try to change in any way what already is. And when you offer no resistance to what is, what is is seen as it is, without any overlay of thought about it or about you. It is seen and allowed to be what it is, but no more is made of it. The allowing itself is awareness. Feel what that feels like to let it go entirely, and return to focus in awareness.

And so the 'practice' goes, both when you are stopping to meditate and when you are on the go in your daily life. How many thoughts do you have in one day? Whatever the amount, that's how many opportunities you have to explore being focused in awareness.

Journey well!

Week #4 Recap & Weekly Exploration

This past week has been a challenge for me to bring focus to just this present breath! Was it for you? Sometimes, it's just that way. No matter... the next breath is always available (until it's not) to focus on.

What happens when you focus completely on the sensation of breath? When I focus all my attention on just the sensation of breath and nothing else, there is awareness of that sensation, awareness of other sensations (sounds, smells, bodily sensations, etc.), awareness of thoughts, and something else... there is awareness of the focusing itself. It's not me "being aware of" focusing in awareness (although thought may tell "me' that an instant later). No, it's a direct, aware sensing into the essence of focusing itself... it's awareness of awareness. In your exploration, see if you discover this for yourself, in your own experience.

Week #3 Recap & Weekly Exploration

As we continued to focus attention on the sensation of breath at the nostrils, we noticed the many and varied distractions that pull our attention away from this focus. And we noticed the habitual tendency to engage our focus in thought if we are not noticing with equanimity.

Noticing with equanimity is the same as allowing what already is to just be. In any given moment, we have the ability to focus our attention on the sensation of one breath right now, and allow everything (i.e., all content, all phenomena: thoughts, feelings, experiences or states, and other sensations) to be exactly as it is without doing anything about it. Practicing equanimity, or allowing, during meditation is how we are stopping the habit of reacting - usually with more thinking (internal judging, story-making, commenting, etc.) - to what is. We are strengthening our capacity to focus with equanimity during meditation so that we are capable of focusing on breath and allowing what is, when we are not in meditation.

This week, continue to practice this and see if you can increase your meditation to ten minutes, twice a day. Start your meditation with a deep, 'let-go' breath, focused completely on the sensation at the nostrils for one complete inhalation and exhalation. Repeat the deep breath once or twice again if necessary. Let it pull all your attention to it like a magnet. Then, as the breath resumes its natural depth and frequency all by itself, continue to focus all (shoot for 100%!) your attention on the sensation of breath and on allowing what is to just be - one breath at a time.

And if you have time, check out one or two of the Non-dual Realization links at the right side of this page to familiarize yourself with what these concepts are pointing to.

Things to remember...

1. The underlying goal and purpose of these first six weeks is for you to gain the capacity for using meditation as a tool for recognizing, or being aware of, awareness itself.
2. You are always already aware of whatever "phenomena" or "content" your attention is focused on: thoughts, feelings, sensations or experiences. Meditation allows you to directly experience being aware of the sense of stillness, silence and spaciousness, which is simple awareness without phenomena, without content.
   
3. When you identify with the content of your life (the "normal" way of living), who and what you take yourself to be is dependent on what you are thinking, feeling, sensing or experiencing - all temporary phenomena. During meditation, you just notice the arising and passing away of content with equanimity from the perspective of content-less stillness, silence and spaciousness.
4. From the perspective of being focused in awareness, as you see all content as temporary phenomena that arise and dissipate, you begin to sense, and have confidence in, the solidity and permanence of awareness as your primary identity.
   
5. As we move through this 12-week course, your confidence in the solidity and permanence of awareness as your primary identity will strengthen, as will your capacity to focus in awareness even when you are not in meditation. But for now, just practice the meditation perseveringly with patience, compassion and gentleness for yourself.
   

Week #2 Recap and Weekly Exploration:

When you sit to meditate, get still and quiet. Then focus all your attention on the sensation of breath at the nostril area (“home base”). Notice the stillness you are aware of when your attention is focused only on the sensations of breath. Notice the silence and spaciousness you are aware of when you focus all your attention on the sensations of breath. Notice whatever phenomena that may arise: thoughts, emotions, other sensations, experiences. Whatever arises, notice it with equanimity. Keep re-focusing your attention on the feeling of breath at home base, and the stillness, silence and spaciousness you sense.

Start where you are able, and attempt to increase the meditation duration and frequency so that by next class day, you're sitting for a minimum of 5 minutes and sitting twice a day. Be patient and gentle with yourself and persevere.

When the sitting time is over, record what you have experienced for discussion in next week’s class.

Week #1 Recap & Weekly Assignment

In class tonight we defined equanimity as impartiality, no preferences, no liking or disliking, no judgment and no reaction. We experienced that when we get still, we notice movement or change, and the more still we can get, the more acutely aware of movement we become. Noticing with equanimity then looks like getting very still and feeling breathing without trying to change it, or hearing a noise outside without judging it to be too loud, or being aware of having a thought without trying to shut it out, make it go away, or make a story about it with more thought. And we noticed, through direct experience, that when we get still and notice with equanimity, we notice that what does not change or move is the noticing, the awareness, itself.

The assignment (i'm going to start calling them explorations instead of assignments!) this week is to take a minimum of 5 minutes per day to get still and simply notice with equanimity what is. Please write out your findings and bring them to class next week for sharing and discussion. Journey well!

PS: please give yourself a little extra traveling time next week due to local road construction, so we can start as close to 6:00 PM as possible. thanks!

Syllabus for Part I: Meditation as a Tool for Focusing in Awareness

Week 1:

• Introduction to the course
• Review of Course Objectives and Results for Parts I and II
• Getting still, quiet and focused – why and how
• Noticing ‘what is’ with equanimity
• Weekly assignment

Week 2:

• Getting still, quiet and focused – breath as a reference point 
• Weekly assignment

Week 3: 

• Meditation – focusing on sensations of breath with equanimity
• Weekly assignment

Week 4: 

• Meditation – focusing on inner body energy with equanimity
• weekly assignment

Week 5: 

• Meditation – noticing thoughts and feelings with equanimity, focusing in awareness
• Weekly assignment

Week 6: 

• Meditation – noticing thoughts and feelings with equanimity, focusing in awareness
• Weekly assignment

Welcome to Focusing in Awareness - a 12-week Course

Look here for session recaps, weekly assignments and participant discussions.