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Kaarine, is Zazen meditation the same as Vipassana? What you’ve described of Zazen it sounds as though you take in awareness of your entire experiences - inner and outer - rather than focusing on one particular object? I’ve only ever done Mindfulness of Breathing and the Metta Bhavana techniques. Is it a more advanced meditation technique and not for relative beginners?

I listened to a talk on the web a while ago now which was all about Mindfulness Meditation. The man who was giving the talk said that when your mind wanders off from the object of attention while you are meditating, you should just try and take note of where it habitually goes to, and then gently bring it back to your breath or whatever you are focusing on. That way you are gaining self-awareness of your mind’s habitual patterns, but also stepping out of getting caught up in your thoughts. Is that what you meant when you were describing what you do in everyday life? Do you reach a stage where you are able to just ‘objectively’ recognize what you are thinking and feeling, and then move your attention back to whatever you are doing in the present moment? Is that what is meant by freeing yourself from attachment? Attachment to our thoughts and feelings?

When I woke up the other morning and felt a bit depressed, I tried out what Bhante Vimalaramsi suggested in his talk ‘What is Buddhism’, and just tried to accept the feeling for what is was - an unpleasant experience - and not think about why it was there or try and push it away forcefully - as I usually do. I felt staying with the feeling and just letting it go away on its own worked quite well - in fact the feeling disappeared faster than normal. I’m not sure if that is how I should have been dealing with it - outwith meditation practice - but it certainly worked and I felt better quicker. Although I was ‘staying with’ the negative experience rather than just pushing it away - I’m wondering if because I wasn‘t looking into why it was there in the first place, is this what you would call denial or escapism which leads to a lack of awareness? I was thinking about what andyrobyn said and how he finds it helpful to focus on the thoughts behind the unpleasant feeling. I feel I want to let the feeling go, and thinking about it keeps the feeling there longer.

Also this talk on mindfulness meditation spoke of depression and how when your mood goes down a bit, this can start triggering negative thoughts which can then escalate out of control. I was thinking of what Element said in connection with what came first, the thought or the feeling. Last night I was reading a bit about the limbic system in the brain and how emotions arise in this area of the brain in response to a variety of stimuli and then impulses travel to the cortex where we then interpret and make sense of those feelings. Its all a bit too heavy for me to understand fully but I was thinking that maybe its the dark or lack of light which affects my mood (stimuli) - since I’m completely different when I’m up and about - and this triggers off negative thoughts leading to a feeling of depression. Feeling > Thoughts > Feeling.

‘Living Buddha, Living Christ’ just arrived…thanks for recommendation Lazy Eye.