Learning to Be!
First off, I don’t want to get too caught up in this polarity of negative and positive. Just because we may not agree with what someone says sometimes doesn’t make them negative. It’s the same with information, simply because information may show that something going on is wrong, also doesn’t mean it’s negative.
Is your biggest challenge in meditation or mindfulness your inner dialogue? Do you become easily distracted by the noises around you? Then this article is for you!
The Importance of Being Present
Mindfulness is a Buddhist meditation technique involving attention to the present moment, acceptance to whatever the present is and withholding judgment; to simply allow whatever presents in awareness to be as it is. This meditation technique gained a great deal of recognition in western medicine and mental health proving an extremely helpful tool for a whole host of conditions including chronic pain and depression.
1. Let Go Of The Ego And Just Be Yourself
“Take time to be an impartial observer of life particularly when an ending is causing despair.” Lao Tzu
We don’t need to be anything or anyone. We need to impress no one. As a society we have become concerned with having the latest fashions, how we look and impressing others. What for? Who cares? We are trying to fulfil other people’s expectations of us. That doesn’t really make any sense. It just drives us to distraction, always trying to prove ourselves to others.
No-Self
In Buddhism one of the ‘Three Characteristics’ is No-Self (the other two are impermanence and suffering which are closely associated with this). This refers to the illusion of reality having a permanent and separate self.
There is this notion that there is a permanent “I” or “me,” which is a separate entity that can be found. The obvious assumption of we are our body sounds good until we look at it and say “this is my body,” which implies at that moment that whatever owns the body wasn’t the body.
Desire can run our entire life; desire for pleasant experiences, tastes, sounds, sensations and scenarios. We can work with these desires to see them for what they truly are, and how they take us away from present moment completeness.
The thing with desire is the “if only” mind. The wanting mind that wants what is not here. If only I had time to meditate more in the morning. If only I could be more present. If only I’d eaten less. If only I looked younger.
The journey on the path of life is not always an easy one. However, it can bring you much joy if you know how to navigate it effectively.
Whenever you are feeling deep despair, or feeling as though your job assisting others is too large a task to accomplish, just remember to focus on the Now moment. When you are in that Now moment, it does not matter what is going on outside your window, or even what is happening tomorrow; all that matters is how you act and react in the Now.