Practical applications of mindfulness
You don't have to be a Buddhist to benefit from mindfulness. One of my passions is to demystify and secularise concepts that would otherwise be out of reach for anyone who may not belong to or be interested in understanding a specific religious affiliation.
It is now well known that certain Buddhist concepts can be very helpful in aiding us to be more happy, balanced, and in control of our emotional responses. One of these concepts is that of 'equanimity'.
Equanimity is the capacity to see our own suffering and that of others with compassion without becoming either overwhelmed by it or indifferent to it.
It is the capacity to look at all that surrounds us with the eye of a curious and compassionate observer. It is watching what goes on within us and outside of us with an open heart and without judgement, remembering that all that exists rises and passes away, all is impermanent, including joy, sorrow, pleasant and painful events, people, buildings, animals and nations;
It is being able to let yourself rest amid everything that is impermanent while remaining balanced and peaceful; It is the capacity to extend loving kindness to all living beings without becoming enmeshed in their own drama, accepting the things that cannot be changed, having the courage to change those we can and cultivating the wisdom to know the difference.
Imagine being a judge at a court case: you are not indifferent to what you witness but you are not personally invested in it either. You are even and balanced. You are not disturbed by either chasing after pleasure or avoiding pain. You are simply present to what is without having to change it adjust it or control it in any way. Another word for this is 'detachment'.
When we practice this capacity to lift up and "abstract' ourselves from ourselves, it is as if we could look in on ourselves from the outside; in this way we stop identifying with our own emotions thoughts and feelings and we can choose how to respond consciously, rather than 'react' automatically to what we experience. This is the basis of emotional intelligence.
Mindfulness Exercises to Create the Life you Want
If we want to create change in our lives we must first accept where we are right now and take responsibility: we need to realise that we are creators.
We can either be created by our unconscious thoughts words and behaviours or we can consciously choose to create what we want to experience more of. We are the inheritors of all the causes and conditions that have brought us here now.
The thoughts and actions we have engaged in your life have created the outcomes we are now experiencing in our lives.
So what if we stopped wasting our energy blaming others or alternatively giving ourselves a hard time and putting yourself down ?
What if instead we chose to be compassionate with ourselves , forgave ourselves and learned whatever we can from our experiences ?
Perhaps this way we could put our energy and focus to better use. We could be helping ourselves to become more aware of our automatic reactions, thoughts and emotions; we could then be practicing to focus our intention and attention towards conscious choice so we create the life we want.
Find inner balance
As creators of our own 'karma', we need to learn how to care for others without becoming overwhelmed and developing empathy fatigue (and subsequently indifference). If we clearly look at the world, the struggles and suffering we see will make us sad. If instead of trying to avoid this we stay with the discomfort we will experience the wish to be of help to others.
If the need to be of benefit to others is rooted in love, we can learn to relax with the discomfort we experience and as a result we will be able to use the sadness to motivate us to help others whether through art, prayer, activism, charity or simply by being kind to those around us.
It is important to remember that no matter how much we may care we cannot live other people's lives for them. So while taking the "three thousand year" view of things we must practice remaining with an open heart, practice loving kindness towards all living beings and remember that our responsibility in making the world a better place ends there.
We can wish fellow humans to learn to see the arising and passing of all things with equanimity and balance, while being as much as possible an example to them of such an attitude and perspective.
One of the practical ways to cultivate this quality of being 'a witness' to life is to practice being internally flexible, curious and learn how to focus and concentrate.
Meditation Techniques:
5 Exercises that foster concentration and presence
Mindfulness of breath, body, sounds thoughts and feelings meditation"
to develop self awareness
Strong Determination Sitting Meditation
to develop concentration and focus
Being a mountain visualisation
to develop absorption, riveting attention and to establish a sense of presence
Investigating our Experience Reflection
to gain insight into what's pulling us off balance, by examining our beliefs.
Calming the Emotions Suggestions
to find a balanced mind and a peaceful heart
You can find examples of these in the video on equanimity below or you can get in touch to experience them first hand with me.
Click to play
If you are interested in knowing more about Mindfulness check out these articles
