15 days meditation challenge (Jan-2025) Mindfulness, Wisdom and compassion - John Dunne (Upaya Zen Center)

 

Mindfulness (Sati):

Mindfulness is bringing in a separate attitude to what is happening. It brings the Samatha = tranquility. We are not caught by distractions and mental travel using the sensation of the here-now, breathing as an anchor. We are aware of the quality of our awareness (meta-awareness) and meeting the present moment with that fresh, calm, open, kind, compassionate, curious, and undistracted attitude.  After all sensation and experience only happen in present moment.

Wisdom (prajna):

Mindfulness teaches us to pay attention to our thoughts, feelings, and sensations without judgment, allowing us to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us. The mindfulness leads us to insight, wisdom = vipassana. 

Thought of strawberries can bring bodily reactions and our mouths can water. But in the time being when we think of it as just as a thought of strawberry as a thought of strawberry, the bodily sensation fades away. Seeing thought as thought is wisdom.

Do the same exercise with thoughts about yourself. Some thought you do not like. See the person that is you and the thought as a thought. Just as the idea of strawberry is not strawberry and you cannot eat it. You are not your thought. Bring that mindful attitude of open awareness and kind attitude. Accept it. The stories that we tell about ourselves are not about us!

Gratitude and Compassion (Mitta):

May this being be happy.
May this being be free of mental anguish.
May this being be free from physical suffering.
May this being live life with joyful ease.

( From the one near and dear to us to neutral and the one with whom we have animosity.)

Practicing in daily life:

Little moments multiple times.

Having a beginner's mind.

It's all about the mind training. It is just like muscle training. Chitta matra ( Mind only) and Tathagatagarva ( Buddha nature)

The baseline should be from non-harm (ahimsa) to compassion (karuma) to loving-kindness ( mitta).

"Be where your feet are." If you are sitting, "Be where your cushion is." " Be where your body is."

 

Meta-awareness is the awareness of the awareness. We are aware that we are aware.  It is called emotional granularity in cognitive science. Emotional granularity is the ability to pay attention to the feeling without being caught in the habitual way of categorizing the emotions. 

For example the feeling of anger. If we interpret it as anger we are combative but if we interpret it as hunger we just go and eat.

If we see a feeling and describe it with another and yet another word, the feeling changes. And how about seeing the feeling/experience as just an event in the body-mind-consciousness. We can see this in moments of stress when we feel that the situation is overwhelming our resources and then we register it as a threat and get ready for something and we take it as stress rather than a challenge.

Visualize a bulb of light above the head and nectar is flowing down it cleansing your head, neck, shoulder, torso, and limbs and you are finally transformed.

Day 1: Learning About Monkey Mind

Find a relaxed but alert posture.  Simply sit and be present.  But don’t be disheartened if this isn’t easy—that’s what we’re discovering. Notice when the attention is captured by a thought, memory, or feeling. 
Let go of any judgmental attitude and remain open to whatever is happening in your experience, even if it is unpleasant. We are simply interested in what’s happening so that we can learn about our minds. We can allow thoughts and feelings to arise and, when it feels appropriate, gently let go of them to return to the breath.

Duration: 1 minute
Find a place and a time that will work for meditation more often than not.
Be present, notice when you have become distracted, then return to your present-moment experience.
Let go of any judgmental attitude and be receptive to your experience. We are simply noticing how the mind is right now.

Day 2: Introducing an Anchor

To support a steady and undistracted attention, it is helpful to have an anchor: an object of experience upon which attention can rest. When we have an anchor, there’s a clearer distinction between being distracted and remembering our meditative task to stay with the breath.

Duration: 5 minutes
Introduce the breath as an anchor. Rest your attention on the inbreath and the outbreath, notice when attention is taken elsewhere, then return to the anchor.
If the breath is not a supportive object for you, try the sense of contact between your body and the seat or ground, or sounds in your environment.
Let go of any judgmental attitude and be receptive to your experience. We are simply noticing how the mind is right now.

Day 3: Awareness of Awareness

This time we’re going to pay special attention to the quality of awareness. This is what we call meta-awareness: awareness of awareness. Are we really attending to the breathing, or is the breathing faintly in the background while monkey mind is freely at play? Is there any resistance or impatience around? If so, it’s worth simply noticing this quality of our attention.

Duration: 5 minutes
Rest your attention on the breathing, or another suitable object.
Notice the quality of your attention.
Let go of any judgmental attitude and be receptive to your experience. We are simply noticing how the mind is right now.

Day 4: Extending Your Meditation Sessions to 10 minutes

Day 5: Short Moments, Many Times

As you go about your day, remember to practice short moments of mindfulness at suitable junctures. This could be pausing to rest with the breath between tasks at work, but it could also be noticing the sensations of contact with the ground as you walk, or checking on the quality of your awareness from time to time. This is a practice that can bring mindfulness directly into the heart of our lives.

See if you can drop into brief moments of awareness amid your day.
What effect do these moments of mindfulness have?


Day 6: Heedfulness

Practice as usual today, but notice if you are thinking about practice or directing the practice through thinking. If so, is it possible to attend to experience and to keep our purpose in mind with a silent intention? Try to be honest with yourself but also keep it light and nonjudgmental. We are simply interested in what’s happening.

Notice the quality of your attention. In particular, can there be a silent intention guiding the practice, rather than thinking about the practice?
Let go of any judgmental attitude and be receptive to your experience. We are simply noticing how the mind is right now. 

Day 7: Freshness

See if you can bring an attitude of interest and freshness to the experience. Can you appreciate that each breath is new, and will never be seen again? Can you really begin to appreciate this opportunity for practice and see the moment with new eyes? Think of the image of a child entering a cathedral for the first time.

Bring a sense of openness and freshness to your experience.

For a few moments, relate to the experience as though you’ve never seen it before. And actually, you haven’t!

Day 8: Noticing mental time travel

Wisdom is seeing things as they actually are. There are many aspects to wisdom, but a key element—one that also helps us to develop tranquility—is the kind of wisdom that recognizes the nature of thoughts. Today, we will become aware of how thoughts and distractions often take the form of mental time travel.

Be with the mind: a fresh and open awareness, kind, and curious.
Notice when you are distracted, and when those distractions involve thoughts about the past or future.
What does it feel like when you are caught in mental time travel? Just try to notice what it’s like without being judgmental.
When you are ready, continue resting your attention on the anchor and repeat the process when you become distracted.  

Day 9: Thoughts as Thoughts

When our minds wander to the past and to the future, often focusing on problems or intense situations, our bodies respond as though we were really living through those events. This can make us feel stressed, overwhelmed, and depleted. Mindfulness helps us to step back from mental time travel in a constructive way. Practicing the skill of seeing a thought as a thought. This enables us to take the reality out of troubling thoughts, memories, and projections.

Be fresh and open, kind and curious.
Notice when attention is captured by a thought. You can also bring a thought to mind, such as the image of succulent strawberries. Vivid visualization will make your mouth water. Then, deliberately see the thought as a thought. It is not reality, it’s a mental representation. The bodily reaction will fade away.
What happens when you see thought as a thought?
When you are ready, continue resting your attention on the anchor and repeat the process.
In the last few moments of your practice, just rest your mind in open awareness.


Day 10: Experiencing Yourself Without Stories

Wisdom is seeing what’s really happening, what’s really here. One of the ways in which we experience suffering is by getting stuck in the story of ourselves. We frequently identify with thoughts about who we think we are instead of looking with wisdom and awareness to see what our actual experience is like.  

Day 11: Who Am I?

The wisdom aspect of mindfulness tells us we are not the self-referential thoughts and stories that come and go in the mind. So . . . who are you then? One way to speak about who we are is to bring that fresh, kind, open awareness to experience itself. This process of being aware, this experience, has an intimate quality. It isn’t simply a thought about yourself. Let’s rest in this naturally awake awareness.

Day 12: Mindfulness Without an Object

We may be getting a sense that we are not our thoughts. Yet there is a subtle but powerful sense that we are the one who is seeing out of our eyes, sensing what we are sensing, that there is someone who is “in control.” This is also misleading. One way to bring wisdom to this sense of self is to practice mindfulness without an object. In this way, we experience awareness in a way that doesn’t create such a clearly defined sense of being a subject who is attending to an object, someone who is “in charge.” Let’s give this a go.

Day 13: Who Is Aware? What Is Aware?

Yesterday we practiced mindfulness without an object. This may not be a familiar way of practicing to us, and, indeed, we spend much of our lives focusing quite intently on objects, people, and ideas. So let’s give this practice a little more time and space to develop. There’s no need to make anything special happen, we’ll simply steady the mind on an object and then let go of that object. Then we are left with this experience of awareness. But what’s that like? Is there a self who is aware, or is there simply awareness of experiences coming and going?

Find moments in your day when you can drop into awareness. Use an object such as the breath to briefly tune into the present moment. Practice this movement of letting go of the anchor and yet remaining present and aware, try this a few times.
Who is aware? What is aware?

Day 14: Directing your practice. (Summary)

One of the skills of being a meditator is sometimes choosing to respond intuitively to the moment with an approach that would create an opportunity for growth. Feel free to meditate in ways that develop tranquility, if that feels supportive. You might include one or more of the following aspects of wisdom in your practice:

• Noticing mental time travel
• Seeing thoughts as thoughts
• Seeing thoughts about yourself as thoughts
• Dropping ideas about yourself and resting in awareness
• Mindfulness without an object
• Who is aware? What is aware?

Day 15: Loving-kindness meditation:

Loving-kindness for this being

Allow the following phrases to ride on the breath.

May this being be happy.
May this being be free from mental anguish.
May this being be free from physical suffering.
May this being live with joyful ease. 

Just breathe the phrases.

Loving-kindness for those nearby

Moving on from a focus on yourself to people nearby, in your vicinity, in your household . . .

May these beings be happy.
May these beings be free from mental anguish.
May these beings be free from suffering.
May these beings live with joyful ease.

Loving-kindness for everyone on the planet

Now, extending the mind further, encompassing the Earth. Breathing the phrases.

May these beings be happy.
May these beings be free from mental anguish.
May these beings be free from suffering.
May these beings live with joyful ease.Loving-kindness for everyone, everywhere

Now, extending the mind everywhere, above and below, front and back, left and right, in all directions, everywhere, encompassing all beings.

May all beings be happy.
May all beings be free from mental anguish.
May all beings be free from suffering.
May all beings live with joyful ease.

Bringing the practice to a close

To end this practice, bring forth the intention to embody loving-kindness.