[ArraryTauTDew]

I'm curious about other people's perspective on practicing mindfulness. I focus on the breathing, and observe myself from inside, my thoughts, my reactions, and all that; without judgement, simply observing. I had such a strange feeling about it, though (I don't necessarily object to, just a curiosity that I wanted to ask about). I almost felt like I was (or was becoming) a deeper, more interior version of myself, regarding my inner thoughts as if they were a slightly more external yet still inner layer. Almost as if that deeper, more inner observing intelligence was a separate aspect. It didn't necessarily feel spiritual, per se, but more like an act of benevolently dividing myself into aspects of myself within my mind. I'm having difficulty conveying this in quite the way I had hoped, now that I'm trying to verablize it.

I'm curious about other people's experience with practicing mindfulness, what is it like for you personally? Thanks.

[neniajany]

Hello Tristan Jay,

About your question, exerience is quiet personal. I am new at mindfulness of breathing. I used to do zazen and I have found some similarities. Anapanasati or mindfulness of breathing has several stages known as tetrads. As an starter I am learning just the first one. Anapanasati Sutta is the core guideline I use.

While breathing in and out the experience is a deep feeling of loosing the coarse sensation of physical body, then, after that, mind seems to be "full of air" where thoughts arise and fade more and more easily.

Wandering mind is my tough problem. So, by now, the returning with an smile, to breathing in and out has to be done several times. In and out breathing is starting to occur smoothly and with ease letting it just happen. Nothing really mystical is felt but joy because of feeling a kind of emptiness or less tightened mind.

[AndreasLV]

Many people expect/understand that Dhamma is special, and we have to do special things for practicing Dhamma, so that we will obtain a special thing at the end. In fact, Dhamma is normal, simple and natural, so practice Dhamma is also normal, simple, natural and not difficult or complicated. But many people like to expect something special and overlook simple things so they do not find Dhamma.

What happened to you is not strange. Many people I know (and I) had this similar experience. What you did is very good and on the right track to do meditation for Vipassana.

1. When the observation is made, there are two things, i.e. the “object” to be observed and the “knower” which observes the object.

You practice to observe your thoughts, reactions, inner thoughts without judgment. All of these things are objects, and you can feel about the objects. Please add one thing. You should also feel about the knower (or the observer). But do not use your knower (or observer) as the object. Just feel about it existence and know that there is the knower which observes the objects.

2. If you feel “an act of benevolently dividing yourself into aspects of yourself within your mind”, it is correct. The Buddha taught that life comprises aggregates. The way to see and understand this clearly is to truly feel/see separated aggregates in real (not just thinking by brain). If we do not see separated aggregates, we will not understand why the Buddha said so. So, feeling or seeing (not by eyes, but by mind) division of yourself into aspects is the right way. However, please be careful that you have to feel or see (not by eyes, but by mind) them, not just thinking about them. Thinking is by brain and not deemed practicing.

3. Observing the objects in your body and mind is the way to create “Sati” (awareness). After you can observe the objects, i.e. your thoughts, reactions, inner thoughts, without judgment and without desire to adjustment on them, you are neutral to the objects.

If you like and want to keep any feeling or emotion, the current object to be observed is your like or your desire to adjust them. If you dislike and want to change or stop any feeling or emotion, the current object to be observed is your dislike or your desire to change or stop them.

When you focus on the breathing, please do not put your mind into the breath. Your mind is the knower or observer, your breathing body or the breath is the object. If you put your mind into the object, there is no observation. Why do we focus on breathing? So that it is easy for us to know once the object is changed (from the breathing body or the breath) to another object.

4. I hope you may now understand more on the observation. Next step I will explain how the wisdom is created by Vipassana. “Wisdom” herein does not mean peace or clam (that will be for Samadhi, not for Vipassana). Wisdom herein means seeing (again, not by eyes) our mind and body truly and our mind accepts their true conditions/natures. Wisdom is created by we see the three characteristics common to all conditioned things (Samannalakkhana) in our body and mind (which are objects in our observations).

The common characteristics are:

- ‘Anicca’ meaning our body and mind is unstable and impermanent. It breaths in and then has to breaths out. It has to breath. Parts of body have to move from time to time. Our feelings change all the times. Our thinking change all the times.

- ‘Dukkha’ meaning our body and mind cannot standstill. It is difficult for them to stay in the same condition but have to change all the times, so, they are suffered. If they are not suffered, they will be able to stay in the same condition for long or forever.

- ‘Annatta’ meaning our body and mind are not self. We cannot control them. If we can truly order and control our mind, we should order it to think about only happy matters and do not think about unhappy matters for our whole life. But, in reality, we cannot do it. Our body moves by it own, works by it own and feels by its own. We do not order our body to breath, it breaths by its own. We do not order our heart to beat, it beats by its own. We do not order our mind to think, it thinks by its own. We do not order our mind to change the objects, it changes the objects by its own.

By feeling/seeing (by our mind not by thinking) these three common characteristics truly on our body and mind, one day in the future, our mind have sufficient knowledge and wisdom, our mind will truly accept and understand that our body and mind are ‘Anicca’, ‘Dukkha’, and ‘Annatta’, and our body and mind are not ours. For a person who reaches to this stage, his mind understands and accepts the Four Noble Truth in the beginning stage, and we will call him/her as the “Stream Winner”. As a practitioner, we should set our goal to achieve at least the Stream Winner in this life.

The Stream Winner will continue practicing the same and gain more wisdom, until one day he can drop the attachment on his body. We will call him the "Non-Returner". The Non-Returner will continue practicing the same and gain more wisdom, until one day his mind truly and wholely understands and accepts the Four Noble Truth, then he can drop the attachment on his mind. We will call him "Alahan". Then, he finishes his work in Buddhism.

We do not force or control our mind to drop attachments. By doing that we do it to support another desire or attachment, we will have to drop such another desire or attachment, this will be never ending. They way of Buddhism is that we teach (or train) our mind to have wisdom. Once it has sufficient wisdom, it will drop attachments by itself (and we also cannot prohibit its dropping).

5. So, in brief, the practice (for Viappassan) from the beginning until the end of the route is to observe our mind and body. Observation is easer than adjustment. If I ask you to observe a football match, it is easier than I ask you to go to join such football match and change the score as needed. However, many people do not want to see the real things but want to adjust the things and see the things as they like. They like to see only good things, and dislike to see bad things, so they adjust them. That is made by desire.

I intentionally explain the whole route above so that you can see the clear route to go. At this stage, do not expect too far. Otherwise, you may practice by desire. If you have desire, it is not good for practice. If you have desire, and you may aware of or observe it, your mind will be neutral to it and it will not be able to control you. So, please continue your practice and just add one thing as I mentioned in 1. above. If you have additional questions, your questions are welcome here.

Kind regards

[BrianGoldsmith]

I'm curious about other people's experience with practicing mindfulness, what is it like for you personally? Thanks

Hi Tristan,

For me, practising mindfulness in my everyday life means noticing my thoughts, feelings and reactions - and remembering to bring my attention back to the here and now. This includes awareness with breathing if my mind is unsettled.

There's a booklet I recommend - "Mindfulness - the Path to the Deathless " by Ajahn Sumedho which is very helpful. It includes Anapanasati instruction.

http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/deathless.pdf

with kind wishes,

Aloka

[mypharmalife]

Hi Tristan Jay,,

I'm new to practicing mindfulness and I'm finding it rather difficult. As soon as I start talking my awareness seems to switch off, which is rather disturbing. Once I started to observe my actions and reactions, I realised that I don't like some of them and I found that quite depressing to start with.

I encourage myself by thinking that I am at the beginning of a journey. This time next year I will be more mindful simply by continuing to do what I am already doing. I read, I keep kindness at the forefront of my mind and I come here for advice and a sense of community...

It sounds like you've had a really positive experience which is great! Isn't it hard to verbalise your experiences? I'm sure that there are words in eastern cultures for what you are feeling. I hope that you have many more insights on your journey.

Fee

[Trikaduliana]

Hello Tristan

The Buddha separated 'mind' into three aspects:

1. Consciousness (vinnana) or bare awareness

2. The knowing intellect (mano) - the spiritual eye (dhamma cakku)

3. The mind-heart (citta), which creates thoughts & emotions

Thus, as meditation develops, these respective functions of mind can certainly develop a sense of separateness from each other

It is especially the conscious quality that is to develop its objective nature in observing objectively the thought formation aspect (citta)

Kind regards

Element

[replicajoy]

Moderators Note:

The Beginners Forum's aim is just to give general information and guidelines to people exploring Buddhism.

Opinions and personal ideas can be discussed in the other forums on the website.

The next posts in this thread have been moved to the Meditation Forum as "Mindfulness and Thoughts"

[infarrelisam]

Kaarine's note doesn't mean that this thread is closed, just that guidelines for answering beginners posts should be remembered by other members.

In other words keeping on topic , avoiding long complicated replies and unfamiliar terminlogy - and not turning beginner questions into debates between other members.

More feedback on this thread is very welcome, especially from Tristan

[goatteatromiag]

I was wondering why the thread got closed...

[didrexx]

Hi Deshy,

Was just to prevent more posts from the discussion between you and Bundokji while you discover the other thread opened for you.

[fiettariaps]

Hey everybody, I'm still here, and I very much appreciate everyone's responses so far. Ngodngam in particular I want to thank for taking the time to type all that all, I'll keep coming back to it. Would you be willing to restate with different wording the point in #1 that you suggest adding to my practice, with maybe a paragraph's-worth of expansion? I want to make sure I understand what your getting at from a couple of angles, if that makes sense.

I was startled but not put off by the topic thread that spun-off from this one, I don't think that's ever happened with any of my threads before. I went in there to get a feel for how the conversation evolved, and it did go over my head quite a bit! I'll visit it again periodically, as I practice more, and assimilate more concepts, knowledge and experience.

The book I'm currently reading through did bring up the point of not getting too lost in a barrage of new information to process, and I kept an eye on it in my practice. My mind is easy to distract and overwhelm, and I feel comfort in not feeling obligated to rush too far ahead before I've manage to work with my busy mind and seeing if a measure of calm will can be cultivated from the basic practicing.

The very best to you all, and thank you for the responses.

[Hervams]

Hey everybody, I'm still here, and I very much appreciate everyone's responses so far.

The very best to you all, and thank you for the responses.

You are welcome Tristan,

[attackDoold]

Dear Tristan

For more details, I would recommend you to read this book.

http://usa.learndhamma.com/pramote/b...Guide_book.pdf

What I write in my comment above is for your practing for years already. Anyway, if you have more questions, please feel free to ask at your convenient time.

[pissmanvd]

Virtually all Buddhist traditions employ the methods of vipassana/shamatha meditations. They go by slightly different names while the techniques are quite similar - sometimes even combined into one single practice. There is no one way that is good for everyone because of the differing conditioning which all of us have. In good time, it will be a natural way of living which will include the wisdom it teaches about what is observed instead of just only questioning everything you think and hear. The wisdom aspect of all this "mindfulness" is critical to a satisfactory way of being.

Ngodngam's instructions are exactly right for the kind of teaching school it represents. But while reading a book or a dozen of them is helpful, I do want to stress the importance of finding a good teacher because it will shorten the time that one suffers from the delusions of conditioning. In doing any one method of meditation, questions should absolutely arise almost immediately. It is exactly the mind that has these questions which arise from exactly that conditioned delusion. A teacher knows this and you and I don't nor does a book. A teacher can see right through the problems of the mind that is the problem in the first place. It is the mind that needs a little re-training and which can be quite a good ally.

If you don't have questions right away, a teacher will actually induce them for all the right reasons. It is not to make you uncomfortable but is to show your mind to itself in just the way that ngodngam suggests you to understand the observer and the observed. Also you should very soon begin to ask just how conceptual all this observer/observed activity actually is and whether a conceptual understanding is the real thing (It is not!). A teacher can see this too and can help move you out of the very concepts that are torture ....for example the 'usual' Christian concept of God. Being imprisoned in the default of conceptual thinking, as we all are initially, is a dead end and a painful one too.

_()_

[annouhMus]

I do want to stress the importance of finding a good teacher

Yes, I agree that its important to try to find an offline meditation group with an experienced meditation teacher.

However, some people have work and family commitments and/or dont live anywhere near an offline group, so therefore they have to do the best they can with other resources.

Therefore, here in the Beginners forum and in the Meditation sub-forum we try to suggest basic methods and resources which are suitable for everyone whatever they decide to do offline.

(Nobody has been appointed to take on a formal teaching role on the website because that is not our policy, we are a Buddhist debate/discussion/chat site).

[invasuant]

Yes, I agree that its important to try to find an offline meditation group with an experienced meditation teacher.

However, some people have work and family commitments and/or dont live anywhere near an offline group, so therefore they have to do the best they can with other resources.

Therefore, here in the Beginners forum and in the Meditation sub-forum we try to suggest basic methods and resources which are suitable for everyone whatever they decide to do offline.

(Nobody has been appointed to take on a formal teaching role on the website because that is not our policy, we are a Buddhist debate/discussion/chat site).

Certainly agreed - never intended to say this or any (most?) online forums have no worth!

_()_

[StarsWorld]

never intended to say this or any (most?) online forums have no worth!

Hello stoneflow - I know that and I wasn't suggesting that you did !