I sat outside on a lovely early summer morning. The sun played hide-and-seek with the clouds, who in turn were playing chase with the breezes. The garden had turned a rich green from the recent rains, and the strawberry flowers whispered of treats to come in a couple of weeks. I set my meditation timer for 24 minutes, and set an intention to be aware of the arising and passing of sensations.
As the sun came out, I felt my skin warm. As the breeze played tag, I felt my skin cool. Birds of many types sang from unseen places, although sometimes they passed before my eyes. A male and female cardinal eyed me suspiciously as they considered the bird feeder nearby. Their suspicion proved well-founded once they realized there was nothing in it. The sound of cars arose and passed. I tasted my coffee, and savored the bitterness tempered by the teaspoon of sugar I had added. I noticed the heat of the coffee through the cup, and also saw the feeling of dislike arise as the heat felt like a threat. I quickly put the cup down, but later picked it up again just trying to feel the arising of heat without judging it as aversive. I watched my thoughts sometimes follow my experiences, and sometimes lead them.
Perhaps this sounds like a "good" meditation session. What surprised me was the thing I called "my experience." I was aware of each of these aspects of life's flow around and within me. How disappointing. I was aware of each of them. One. At. A. Time.
This thing we call our experience is only a tiny slice of what we are actually experiencing. When noticing the breeze upon my skin, I wasn't also noticing the birds or the color of the grass. In fact, I wasn't even noticing the breeze upon my skin - I only noticed it on certain parts of my skin where I focused my attention. I was actually feeling it on my whole body, but only attended to how it cooled my legs or chest. Once it passed, I noticed the sound of some bird, but just that one - not all the other sounds, such as the wind in the trees, the myriad birds farther away, the sound of my heart beating, or the strawberries flowering. Tasting my coffee clouded all awareness of sights, sounds, feelings. Yet, all of these experiences were occurring at once. Why do we believe experience is singular?
Attention is like a spotlight - it can focus on only one thing at a time. Worse still, it's a very narrow beam of light. It can pick up only about 1% of what is happening at any given moment. To put it another way, that means that our understanding of what is occurring at any moment is 99% wrong! And still we persist in the belief that we are always right and know what's going on.
How would it be if we could truly experience the emptiness and multiplicity of experience, without the constant narrowing, labeling, and solidifying?
As the sun came out, I felt my skin warm. As the breeze played tag, I felt my skin cool. Birds of many types sang from unseen places, although sometimes they passed before my eyes. A male and female cardinal eyed me suspiciously as they considered the bird feeder nearby. Their suspicion proved well-founded once they realized there was nothing in it. The sound of cars arose and passed. I tasted my coffee, and savored the bitterness tempered by the teaspoon of sugar I had added. I noticed the heat of the coffee through the cup, and also saw the feeling of dislike arise as the heat felt like a threat. I quickly put the cup down, but later picked it up again just trying to feel the arising of heat without judging it as aversive. I watched my thoughts sometimes follow my experiences, and sometimes lead them.
This thing we call our experience is only a tiny slice of what we are actually experiencing. When noticing the breeze upon my skin, I wasn't also noticing the birds or the color of the grass. In fact, I wasn't even noticing the breeze upon my skin - I only noticed it on certain parts of my skin where I focused my attention. I was actually feeling it on my whole body, but only attended to how it cooled my legs or chest. Once it passed, I noticed the sound of some bird, but just that one - not all the other sounds, such as the wind in the trees, the myriad birds farther away, the sound of my heart beating, or the strawberries flowering. Tasting my coffee clouded all awareness of sights, sounds, feelings. Yet, all of these experiences were occurring at once. Why do we believe experience is singular?
Attention is like a spotlight - it can focus on only one thing at a time. Worse still, it's a very narrow beam of light. It can pick up only about 1% of what is happening at any given moment. To put it another way, that means that our understanding of what is occurring at any moment is 99% wrong! And still we persist in the belief that we are always right and know what's going on.
How would it be if we could truly experience the emptiness and multiplicity of experience, without the constant narrowing, labeling, and solidifying?
I keep coming back to this; it feels a bit like being between a rock and a hard place.
ReplyDeleteA narrow focus, attention on that one thing, that spotlight, I see the problem in losing the other 99%. Absolutely.
However (you knew one of these would be coming...) isn't broadening of that attention, of that beam of light, the oh-so-dreaded (especially when it comes to mindfulness and meditating...): multitasking? *gasp*
I realize that being aware of too many things at once can function to eliminate them all, also, but... how to find some sort of happy medium? Is 50% too much, too little?
When I'm... sorting the socks, and I'm one with sorting the socks, it is meditative, it is restful and actually enjoyable, I am doing nothing but sorting, noticing the colors, the textures, the patterns, and joining the single socks into pairs. My focus encompasses the socks in all of their sockiness, and they have my attention, the spotlight.
But... were I broadening that beam, and noticing that there is dust on the light bulb and a thread on the bed and the carpet should be vacuumed and that book I read last night and and... the socks will be mismatched. At the very least, sorting socks will not be a pleasant task because of the distractions, it will be something I hurry through to get on to something else.
I've been meditating daily for a bit over a year, very definitely a newbie. I love the increasing ability to notice the multitasking, and stop it. I am much more able to appreciate the leaves, let alone the trees and the forest.
Is it learning when to use the narrow or broad beam? Is one really wrong, and the other right?
Thank you for this question. A distinction is sometimes made between mindfulness and awareness. Mindfulness is the ability to focus and sustain attention – to collect your attention on an object. Awareness is the broader mind-space in which mindfulness occurs. As you focus on your breath, you can still be aware of the sounds arising, of your posture, and of your environment. This distinction is important because awareness is the faculty you are using when you recognize that your attention has wandered. It can see the bigger picture and know what you are being mindful of.
DeleteChogyam Trungpa Rinpoche described the distinction this way: "Mindfulness is the process of relating with individual situations directly, precisely, definitely. You communicate or connect with problematic situations or irritating situations in a simple way. There is ignorance, there is restlessness, there is passion, there is aggression. They need not be praised or condemned…Mindfulness is like a microscope; it is neither an offensive nor a defensive weapon in relation to the germs we observe through it. The function of the microscope is just to clearly present what is there. Mindfulness need not refer to the past or the future; it is fully in the now…
"Awareness is seeing the discovery of mindfulness. We do not have to dispose of or keep the contents of mind. The precision of mindfulness could be left as it is because it has its own environment, its own space… Mindfulness provides the topic or the terms or the words, and awareness is the grammar which goes around and correctly locates the terms. Having experienced the precision of mindfulness, we might ask the question of ourselves, 'What should I do with that? What can I do next?' And awareness reassures us that we do not really have to do anything with it but can leave it in its own natural place… So awareness is the willingness not to cling to the discoveries of mindfulness, and mindfulness is just precision; things are what they are… So mindfulness and awareness work together to bring acceptance of living situations as they are." (The Myth of Freedom and the Way of Meditation, pp. 64-65)
Mindfulness is the process of focusing and maintaining your attention and then re-collecting it, balancing this focused attention within the broader perspective of awareness.
Does this help?
Yes, it does help, I was confusing the three words, and this helped sort them. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteHmmm... only part of this made it.
DeleteMy intention to sort my socks, it does encompass texture, color, length, patterns, etc. Were I not taking them in concert, were I noticing them individually, I would have been missing the important 99%, and not matched them correctly.
Thank you!