Mindfulness

Responding rather than reacting

Normally, when you experience something, you automatically react to that experience according to your past conditioning. For example, if you think, ‘I still haven’t finished my work’, you react with thoughts, words and actions in some shape or form. Mindfulness encourages you to respond to your experience rather than react to thoughts. A reaction is automatic and gives you no choice; a response is deliberate and considered action.

Shamas Alidina, Mindfulness for Dummies, 9

Fullkommen i ufullkommenhet

Jeg ser først og fremst meditasjon som en DYPTGRIPENDE KJÆRLIGHETSHANDLING, en indre gest av velvilje og godhet overfor oss selv og andre, en gest av hjertet, som erkjenner vår FULLKOMMENHET selv i vår åpenbare ufullkommenhet, med alle våre feil og mangler, våre smerter, våre bånd, våre ergrelser og vår inngrodde, vanemessige uppmerksomhet. 

Kabat-Zinn, 108 leksjoner, 13

Å bli pustet

Du behøver ikke gå på kurs for å lære å puste. Du har pustet hele livet. Med oppmerksomhetstrening (OT) er du ikke interessert i å puste på en bestemt måte, men du er oppmerksom på pusten som den er. Det er starten på OT: du observerer dine spontane pustebevegelser. Kroppen ved meget godt hvordan den skal puste, men du må ikke komme i veien med dine meninger om hvordan det skal gjøres. Når du blir oppmerksom på dine naturlige pustebevegelser, blir pusten automatisk rolig, jevn og dyp. Oppmerksomhet i seg selv har en beroligende effekt.

...

Alt går helt av seg selv. Du puster ikke, men blir pustet. Det pustes, det er ingen som gjør noe spesielt.

Andries Kroese, Fint å bli eldre med oppmerksomhetstrening, 42-43.

Det må ikke nødvendigvis skje noe

Det forbløffende er, og det strider virkelig mot vår intuisjon, AT DET IKKE NØDVENDIGVIS MÅ SKJE NOE MER. Vi kan gi opp å forsøke få noe spesielt til å skje. Ved å gi slipp på ønsket om at noe spesielt skal hende, kan vi komme til å oppdage at noe svært spesielt ER I FERD MED Å SKJE, og at det skjer hele tiden - nemlig at ditt liv folder seg ut i hvert eneste øyeblikk AV OPPMERKSOMT NÆRVÆR.

Kabat-Zinn, 118 leksjoner, 12

Alltid fremme

Meditasjon er en væremåte, ikke en teknikk. Meditasjon handler ikke om å forsøke å komme til et annet sted. Det handler om å la deg selv VÆRE AKKURAT der du er og som du er, og om å la verden være akkurat som den er i nettopp dette øyeblikket. 

...

Ved ... å SITTE NED I RO, kan du forandre deg selv og verden. Ja, ved å sitte ned i ro har du faktisk på beskjedent, men ikke ubetydelig vis, allerede gjort det. 

Jon Kabat-Zinn, 108 leksjoner i mindfulness, 9-10

Intervju med Jon Kabat-Zinn (Aftenposten 13. mai 2011)

Intervjuet med Jon Kabat-Zinn i Aftenposten 2011 kan (forhåpentligvis) nås via denne lenken, "Meditasjon. Fra hippier til Facebook"  ;-)

Essentials

Essensen av mindfulness er å være fullt bevisst opplevelsene våre i hvert eneste øyeblikk, åpen for hva enn livet måtte tilby, og fri for dominans av vanemessige, automatiske, kognitive rutiner som ofte er målorienterte og, i en eller annen form, knyttet til ønsket om at ting er annerledes enn de er.

 John Teasdale, gjengitt i Egeland, Lev livet nå, 17

 Bevisst tilstedeværelse er en måte å bli venn med seg selv og sine opplevelser på. 

Jon Kabat-Zinn, 108 leksjoner i mindfulness, I

At home in our bodies (interview with Jon Kabat-Zinn)

Jeg kom tilfeldigvis over et svært interessant intervju fra 2002 med Jon Kabat-Zinn, som fokuserer på smertelindring, se http://www.bemindful.org/kabatzinnart.htm

Noen highlights:

Om smertens forskjellige dimensjoner: "There are really three dimensions to pain: the physical or sensory component; the emotional, or affective component, how we feel about the sensation; and the cognitive component, the meaning we attribute to our pain."

Om å endre sitt forhold til smerten: "You change your relationship to the pain by opening up to it and paying attention to it. You "put our the welcome mar.' Not because you're masochistic, but because the pain is there. So you need to understand the nature of the experience and the possibilities for ... learning to live with it," ... If you distinguish between pain and suffering, change is possible."

Når smerten oppleves umulig å håndtere: "You have a number of choices. Let's say you have lower back pain. You can say, "I'm going to try to focus on my toes, even in the presence of back pain. The back's always there; I'll get to it sooner or later. Why don't I see if I can really learn to focus my attention where it's being asked to focus". Often, when you do that, the felt sense of the pain in the back lessens."
    But if the pain is too great, you can go to the region where the pain is and let the breath merge with it. Breathe in and feel the breath, or in your mind's eye see the breath moving down into the lower back. Then on the out-breath, as the breath lets go, see if you can allow the mind to let go. You're not trying to shut off the sensations from the lower back—just to experience the fullness of whatever happens as you let go.
    Then in the next moment, the sensations and the feelings and the thoughts might all come flooding back, and you've got the next in-breath to work with So it's a practice."

Om å observere smerten: "Basically, you're intentionally bearing witness to the pain rather than distancing yourself from it; we're not teaching mindfulness as a dualistic practice. Nevertheless, there's a sense that there's the pain, and there's the observing of the pain. It's important to understand that as an intermediate step toward ultimate liberation. It means that I can rest in awareness, then ask myself, "Is the awareness in pain in this moment?" And the answer invariably is, "As I look at it right now, the awareness of the pain is not in pain.'' When you realize you can rest in this awareness, the pain may be just as intense, but you're now cultivating equanimity and clear comprehension. You're seeing the pain as it is, as sensation. There is a knowing that it is nor pleasant. But the interpretation that the pain is killing me, or ruining my life, and all the emotions and stories that go with that, are seen for what they are. In that seeing, they often go into abeyance."

Om forventninger: "When you think that your practice should be working, then you've already fallen out of your practice and into expectations that the practice is going to achieve some kind of prefigured, desirable result. This need to get rid of is its own form of ignorance, and we need to look at our "I" statements. A worthy object of attention and inquiry is: Who is suffering? Who is in pain? We can ask that, but rather than coming up with an answer qua thought, we can drop into not-knowing and experience simply being aware."

De-conditioning

Meditation techniques are mental disciplines that allow us to calm, focus, and examine the mind. This de-conditioning process is a slowing down and observation of the usual mad-monkey stream of thoughts, perceptions, reactions, feelings. Usually we are dragged along by our desires, prejudices, conditioning, and instincts. Meditation is practicing being clear and alert, freeing ourselves from conditioned reactions to the constant flow of events and mental process.

... meditation leads to the clear perception of three things: impermanence, suffering, and the lack of an abiding self. As the mind becomes concentrated and observant, the constant change of all physical and mental phenomena is realized. Absolutely all we know, see, hear, feel, think, smell , and taste--even the ´watcher´, the knowing of these--is changing from moment to moment. As this constant flow is seen more fully, any involvement or attachement becomes clearly undesirable, a cause of suffering. The meditator sees all events of the mind and body as an empty process that happens by itself. He sees that there is no one, no ´self´ behind it. ...

To see this clearly ... is enormously freeing. The mind becomes detached, clear, and radiant. It is the illusions of permanence, of happiness, and especially of self-hood that bind us to the world of duality and keep us separate from one another and from the true flow of nature. A deep perception of the void, the emptiness of all conditioned phenomena, undercuts our desire to grasp and hold on to any object or mind-state as a source of lasting happiness. Final happiness comes from this non-attachement, this balance. ...

Jack Kornfield, Living Dharma: Teachings of Twelve Buddhist Masters, 2-3