The benefits of practising mindfulness meditation on a regular basis are well documented and include, amongst others, improvements in depression, anxiety, stress, insomnia, exhaustion, irritability, chronic pain, addiction, tinnitus, relationships, emotional reactivity, immune functioning, well-being, information processing speed, and the ability to focus attention. However, these advantages to health are only the outer, quantifiable manifestations of the power of mindfulness meditation – its true power is immeasurable.
To be mindfully meditative is very simple: it is to know our relationship to life – aware of how we are relating to life in this moment. Although simple, it’s not always easy because our minds have become conditioned to be anywhere other than our experience of the here and the now. The mind is distracted and busy planning, desiring, fearing, resolving, remembering, reminiscing, hoping, doing, achieving, arguing, ruminating – it’s consumed by the past and the future, and rarely aware of the present.
From our time in the womb (and before), our experiences and perceptions of life have caused imbalances in our mental, emotional, and physical energy bodies – our thoughts, emotions, and physical body are out of balance. These imbalances cause us to lose sight of our true nature, which results in suffering that manifests as mental, emotional, and/or physical illness.
Mindfulness meditation guides us back to our natural, balanced state of being – it heals the underlying cause (of which illness or dis-ease is a symptom) by expanding our awareness so that we become conscious of true nature.
Our true nature is the true nature of all – it is Life, Creation, Divinity, Truth, The Great Mystery, Oneness, or whatever you want to call it. To be consciously aware of this is to be enlightened; fully conscious and therefore liberated from the unconscious imbalances within the mental, emotional, and physical energy bodies – it is to be free from disturbance, inner conflict, suffering, whatever life brings. As such, freedom from suffering (true healing) doesn’t necessarily mean the cure of the ailment, although it often does; it means in inner peace, whatever is.
Life, and therefore enlightenment (our true nature), exists in the present moment, the here and the now; which is the reason that the spiritual masters of the last few thousand years have been teaching us to be present, aware of what is. It is by being present in the moment that we awaken to (become consciously aware of) the truth of existence, the truth of who we are. We are life, life is now, and so, we are now – we are the present moment. And it is only by being consciously aware of our true nature (the present moment) that we are in balance, at one with the harmony that is life. And it is by being in harmony with life that we cease to suffer.
The enlightened master is free of all unconscious influence because they have no unconscious – they are fully conscious; fully aware of the present moment, their true nature. We are all capable of this; it is, after all, who we are. Even if that awareness doesn’t last for very long, we can know the stillness and peace of our true nature in every moment that we are present. From there, it’s just a case of allowing those moments to expand and become more frequent; until one day (in this lifetime or another), they are all we know as we exist in a permanent state of enlightened bliss.
To be present is to be mindfully meditative, aware of our relationship with life in the moment, that we realise that we are life in that moment. We relate to life through our physical senses (touch, sight, sound, taste, and smell), our thoughts, emotions, actions (the physical movements of the body and the words we speak), and our sensations (such as hunger, thirst, and the movement of energy within the body). So, it is by cultivating an awareness of our senses, thoughts, emotions, actions, and sensations that we become aware of our relationship to life, that we become present and realise the truth of who we are, and it is in that realisation that we cease to suffer. In other words, by being aware of how we are relating to life in the moment, that relationship dissolves and we become conscious that we are life.
Practicing mindfulness meditation is usually divided into two main categories: the first is generally referred to as ‘meditation’, and involves sitting with eyes closed, and the second is commonly known as ‘mindfulness’, and can include all other activities during the day. Every moment (EVERY MOMENT!) is an opportunity to be mindfully meditative of what is, aware of the truth of who we are – to be free of suffering.
And as we shall see in the following posts, the key to that is to maintain a relaxed inner focus of our senses, thoughts, emotions, actions, and/or sensations, because it is that focus which stills the thinking mind and allows our awareness to open to truth.
The experience of mindfulness meditation is ours alone; there are books and teachers to help us find our way, but only we can experience it – only we can know it for ourselves, and we can only know it by doing it.