Mindfulness in losing awareness
mockeymind
Veteran
After a short period of practicing meditation, I noticed that in some point in time I tend to lose my attention or awareness at the present moment. The mind sometimes just keep looking at the past - dealing with the future, maybe fantasizing thoughts occurs in a regular basis. Not just able to see what is here and now and allowing pattern of minds to take over, a sort of automatic reactivity of the mind. Does the mind really wanted to go in that direction? or just playing the "monkey mind" thing. If we lose mindfulness, I wonder what we are thoughts we are feeding?
The Buddha said - What the mind frequently ponder becomes the direction and inclination of the mind. I was able to identify with my own experience in my meditation few. One is when we are in pain. It seems very obvious that the focus was directed to the part or parts of the body experiencing pain. Another is when we tend to let our mind flows in day dreaming. I guess there is fine line in those areas that causes us to lose mindfulness. Anybody experience the same or similar experience? Any tips on how to proceed in this inquiry? Thanks.
Comments
Any tips on how to proceed in this inquiry? Thanks.
Maintaining mindfulness is a real challenge, and there are various techniques for re-establishing mindfulness. Some people return to the breath at regular intervals for example. I use simple labelling of experience.
@Shoshin @SpinyNorman
I tried not to put much mind on it- sometimes the mind makes it more magnified - even in tiny small (pain or discomfort) the mind can make it a big deal. I used what I heard and learn in a drama talk - making peace and welcoming pain - personally it works. I think of the mind being deceit sometimes.
It also helps to accept what is already here. I've seen the mind drifting cause by not satisfy with what is here now, or the failure not to acknowledge what is already unfolding. This, I need to guard mindfully - not to be judgemental, not to "look forward" that is not there yet....
I will try again in the next few days of meditation, practice makes perfect. Thanks for the inputs.
@mockeymind
I think all meditaters here will have their own versions of what you've described.
Meditation is largely a practice of not feeding our identity conditioned responses towards our sense gates of whatever we see, hear, smell, taste, feel and think.
Because most of our conditioned responses are actually a manipulation of one sense gate to the obscuration of the others, a meditation practice can simply be about being open to all the sense gates.
While it is common to equate thoughts with identity, this is just the deification of one sense over all the others.
Here a practice can just be your abiding within view of all the sense gate data streams until you notice any one of them getting obscured by another. Then it just time to widen your attention back up to include whatever sense gate has been excluded and carry on.
While there are many different ways of explaining it, only in practice can one be offered more than a theoretical explanation of it.
One poetic version I liked described the equanimity of meditation as
"becoming as the mountain whereon the tiger roams or as the ocean wherein the
dragon swims."
Nice
"Becoming as the mountain whereon the tiger roams or as the ocean wherein the
dragon swims."
Or becoming a Buddha facing assault from Mara aka the sense objects.
Note that His right hand is touching the Earth signifying being rooted in the here and now.
It is the power of the here and now.
losing focus is part of the experience of mindfulness. the mind cannot be forever concentrated. just the way the mind is.