Welcome, Anne! About "forgetting mindfulness." Posted by John on January 11, 19100 at 15:23:27:
In Reply to: Re: INSTRUCTIONS FOR BEGINNING THE NEW SEMESTER HERE. posted by Douglas on January 08, 19100 at 22:41:03:
Hi, Anne! Thanks for letting us know that you're here.
>I started with the first kindergarten lesson tonight and will continue.
Good for you! I hope you'll enjoy the rest of those basic classes.
Taken as a group, they provide an array of "ways to be awake," using
your five ordinary senses. The idea is to provide you students with
simple, basic ways to be awake that you may remember . . . and practice
. . . if you'd like to.
>I have been working (playing?) on being mindful for a few months after Jon Kabat-Zinn came here to speak . . .
Well, we call it "playing" around here, but in most approaches it is
called "working." Either way, it takes time to get the hang of it, and
some weeks or months to get a personal practice going that works for
you.
>. . . but keep forgetting to be mindful!
Yes, that's the *normal way it is when learning to practice mindfulness.
In the beginning (and for a long time afterwards) most of one's daily
life is spent in "sleep," or *unmindfulness. That's the ordinary human
condition. And in mindfulness training, we are learning to "chip away"
at this pervasive ordinary condition of sleep, little by little, in
order to be more and more mindful for little minutes, here and there,
and, with practice, little episodes of life along the way, in which we
can be mindful.
By being "more mindful," I am NOT saying that any of you students are
going to be able to learn to be mindful all of the time. That is a
hypothetical ideal . . . (which, however, teachers and masters do
espouse in "the Literature.") And it's not necessary, either, to be an
active mindfulness practioner. For our purposes here in Classroom Talk,
I would say "forget about the idea of being mindful all of the time."
As far as I have ever been able to tell, even the greatest masters are
not mindful all of the time. And I certainly am not, at my low end of
the totem pole as a "coach."
What matters is that you learn to be mindful *some of the time! That is
already a *victory in this kind of work/play! Instead of focusing on
the great preponderance of your daily hours that are passed in sleep,
focus, instead, from the very beginning, on the little bit of your life
that you can manage to bring into mindfulness as a beginner. And "keep
your eye on the ball," by focusing on new moments that you can add-in to
your life, day by day, week by week, moments that you *like to pass,
doing whatever it is that you are doing, while being mindful, too!
That's what this school is about.
One week, mindful while walking around in the house, next week, mindful
while doing the laundry, next week, mindful first thing in the morning
when you open your eyes, next week, mindful as you go out the front door
into the world, . . . . . these are the simple kinds of things you are
working on, or "playing with," as you are "building a mindfulness
practice," "building a mindful life." As it keeps adding up over the
days, weeks, and months, little by little one becomes mindful more and
more during the days, able to be reminded to wake up more often on the
exercises you've been practicing (!), and able, from the practicing you
are doing, to stay awake and dwell in mindfulness more easily for
somewhat longer periods, as well.
That is how the learning of this skill proceeds in a student's life.
Jon Kabat-Zinn's set of experiential exercises is great for this! (A
few years back I hopped the wall at Miraval Resort to attend a workshop
he gave for the Staff and Guests there — It's a little too expensive
for me to register.) Jon's stuff *works great! I know it from my own
experiece! And, the exercises in our Kindergarten classes here are
"tried and true." Mix-and-match, Kiddees! — Do a Gurdjieff exercise!
Do a Zen exercise! Do a Gnostic exercise! Do a Kabat-Zinn! Play the
awareness game! — Fundamentally, it's all the same stuff. Be mindful
while you're doing *all these experiential exercises. Be aware—within
and around! Turn your senses on, *vividly! And see and experience in *
high relief!
Be mindful when you remember during the days to practice these same
experiential exercises that you tried out first in Kindergarten . . .
for a minute or two here and there along your path. Practice these
exercises in different situations—alone, with others, during varied
events and activities during the days, "in good times and in bad." This
is how mindfulness will be cultivated in your life.
Along the way, then, you can learn to observe how human behavior works,
both in you and in the other people you meet and know. Whenever you'd
like to, you can practice being mindful observing that. That's when the
play of the awareness game gets keen, and interesting, and invigorating,
learning to play for peace, against the odds, in a world filled with
"personality wars." This is some exciting challenge, at times, Kiddees!
. . . . . But that comes along a little later, for a beginner.
There are two "problems" in learning how to practice mindfulness —once a
beginner has caught on clearly to the experience of what mindfulness is,
that is. (I call your attention to my next class coming up here, and
Douglas' important observations about "splitting the attention" that
I'll be discussing). The first "problem" is how to remember mindfulness
more and more often during the passing days. And the second "problem"
is how to cultivate the ability to remain centered and present in
mindfulness for longer periods, whenever mindfulness *is remembered . .
. . . coming out of "walking around in sleep" . . . . . "coming to" in
present awareness, and remaining awake and going on observing life "in
high relief."
In those five basic classes in the Kindergarten, you will find many
pointers which ought to be helpful in giving you more of an orientation
to "practicing mindfulness." And as you see, Anne, the other students
here know that my first priority in this class is to help newcomers,
like you, to become acclimated to getting a little practice going in
your life—if you'd like to. And I'll be happy to answer any questions
about mindfulness that you have, as best I can. And others here will,
too.
I'm glad to see that some have already piped in to welcome you here.
You will find that—although we each are greatly different as people
around this class—we are all here for a few simple, basic purposes
(according to "the lesson plan," heh-heh), which are to learn how to
remember mindfulness more and more often, how to become able to dwell in
mindfulness more and more easily, and how to be able to use mindfulness
skillfully to have insights about life which may help each of us to find
our own talented way in peace and in harmony with others.
It takes time. One must be patient. In the beginning one must focus on
the little bits of their daily life that they *can learn to bring into
the light of mindfulness. Little by little, with this kind of practice,
mindfulness grows in our lives.
But, FIRST . . . there are those five basic Kindergarten classes with
experiential exercises to try out and practice a little, on the way to
catching on to the inward-outward experiential posture of mindfulness,
itself. Then it comes to learning to build a daily practice. And any
and all of us can participate with you when it comes to learning this,
Anne . . . if you wish to, that is.
So, good luck in Kindergarten! And let us hear from you whenever you'd
like.
Coach
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Archived February 13, 2000