From the vantage point of experience, the present alone is real. The past has happened and is just a memory, the future is yet to happen and can only be imagined. However, if this now is the boundary between the past and future, is it a boundary with width, or is it an indivisible, infinitely thin line? If it has width, then there must be a past and future within it and another now in this now and so on ad infinitum (the now getting ever smaller). It is very elusive for sure, constantly shifting as it does. Can we only "grasp" it as a fleeting memory and pretend that a "now" that constantly eludes us is "present" when it is actually gone? How can we be "in" the present when it never is "there" long enough? Yet, it is inescapable: we are always in the present moment for, after all, that is all there is.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Saturday, March 28, 2015
Just as it is: the meditative experience
Truth be told, all that we experience is just what is occurring in the present. Of course, to navigate through life and to make sense of it all, we construct out of these happenings a separation between ourselves and the world and put it all into a frame of past, present and future. This construction is pragmatic; it works for us, but that does not make it ultimately true or real. In meditation, we have an opportunity to connect with our experience just as it is, that is, with these happenings in the present moment. This is not a lofty attainment but the most ordinary. It only requires that we stay present with our experience.
Thursday, November 13, 2014
Experiencing the Dhamma by Bhikkhu Khippapanno
Experiencing the Dhamma by Bhikkhu Khippapanno is a compilation of lectures he gave at the Forest Refuge in Barre, Massachusetts in 2009 and in 2013. I helped edit the first edition and the most recent edition. It is a free Dhamma book but has been printed in a limited number of copies. It is now available as a pdf file. To obtain a copy, click on the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Experiencing-the-Dhamma-by-Bhikkhu-Khippapanno/359102370937660 or email worker@attentivemind.ca.
Tuesday, April 29, 2014
Friday, April 25, 2014
The website of Attentive Mind
I have been revamping my website, attentivemind.ca, which describes my psychology practice in Bancroft and Peterborough, Ontario. I am branching out with online services which are available to all residents of Ontario.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Bodily maps of emotions
I recently read a very cool article about a study in which participants mapped emotions in terms of activation and deactivation on the body. The study can be found here: http://www.pnas.org/content/111/2/646.full.pdf
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Opening to insight: the mundane and beyond
The word mundane has two meanings. According to one, mundane has to do with the secular, the wordly as opposed to the spiritual or otherworldly, the supramundane. Another meaning of mundane has to do with the ordinary, the everyday, and therefore, presumably, lacking interest or being boring. In respect to the practice of meditation, both meanings are relevant and the interplay of those meanings is worth exploring.
Meditation is associated with spiritual goals such as enlightenment, awakening, liberation, altered states of consciousness, supreme happiness, seeing reality as it really is, uniting with the divine within, or being in the "eternal now moment." These goals take us beyond the mundane. Yet, in the practice of mindfulness meditation, it seems like we are invited to become immersed in the mundane.
The usual path in learning mindfulness meditation is to begin most humbly with a focus on the breath and then opening to whatever may show up. We might begin the practice with a daily routine of sitting meditation, perhaps as short as a few minutes, and then increase the time slowly to something approaching 30 minutes to an hour, once, twice, or more times a day. We learn different postures of meditation. In addition to sitting, we learn walking, standing, and lying meditation. And we generalize the mindfulness we develop to everyday activities such as eating and going about our activities of daily living. For this type of everyday meditation, the more mundane the task the better as we discover that these very mundane tasks are especially effective for being mindful and present focused. If we go on retreats that allow us to practice continuously, we have an opportunity to develop a momentum in our mindfulness.
When we first start meditating, we may alternate between being bored and being excited. We might initially think that just sitting observing our breath would be very boring. What is so interesting about the breath anyway? But most people find that their first deep look at the mind and how it operates is quite interesting. We see that the mind is constantly active, going here and there, not subject to our control, very busy and anarchic. We wander and drift in and out of awareness of that wandering. We might find ourselves momentarily immersed in something that occurred to us years ago or just hours before. We might get caught up in the stories our minds tell us. We might see lights and beautiful moving shapes. Sometimes, we might find ourselves close to panic as strange sensations arise. Emotions that we have long suppressed may come to the surface and, inexperienced as we are, we might find them hard to handle and most distressing. But at other times the mind seems still and empty and we may lapse into blissful drowsiness or even sleep.
As time goes on, a lot of this excitement dies down. We learn how to let things go and not get caught up in the parade of mind moments. We easily release occurrences that we have repeatedly reviewed in the past and know so well. It takes a lot to perturb us now. This is a kind of equanimity and for many it provides a welcome relief from the drama of their inner lives. But it smacks of complacency and indifference and is not the spiritual equanimity that we may have sought. We are in the meditation doldrums.
In the secular, clinical form of mindfulness that has become so prevalent, the spiritual side of the practice is neglected, hence the doldurms. To get out of the doldrums, there must be an understanding of the spiritual path. Refocusing on the traditional purposes of meditation and dedication to going beyond the mundane hold the promise of renewed energy for our practice and deepening wisdom.
Meditation is associated with spiritual goals such as enlightenment, awakening, liberation, altered states of consciousness, supreme happiness, seeing reality as it really is, uniting with the divine within, or being in the "eternal now moment." These goals take us beyond the mundane. Yet, in the practice of mindfulness meditation, it seems like we are invited to become immersed in the mundane.
The usual path in learning mindfulness meditation is to begin most humbly with a focus on the breath and then opening to whatever may show up. We might begin the practice with a daily routine of sitting meditation, perhaps as short as a few minutes, and then increase the time slowly to something approaching 30 minutes to an hour, once, twice, or more times a day. We learn different postures of meditation. In addition to sitting, we learn walking, standing, and lying meditation. And we generalize the mindfulness we develop to everyday activities such as eating and going about our activities of daily living. For this type of everyday meditation, the more mundane the task the better as we discover that these very mundane tasks are especially effective for being mindful and present focused. If we go on retreats that allow us to practice continuously, we have an opportunity to develop a momentum in our mindfulness.
When we first start meditating, we may alternate between being bored and being excited. We might initially think that just sitting observing our breath would be very boring. What is so interesting about the breath anyway? But most people find that their first deep look at the mind and how it operates is quite interesting. We see that the mind is constantly active, going here and there, not subject to our control, very busy and anarchic. We wander and drift in and out of awareness of that wandering. We might find ourselves momentarily immersed in something that occurred to us years ago or just hours before. We might get caught up in the stories our minds tell us. We might see lights and beautiful moving shapes. Sometimes, we might find ourselves close to panic as strange sensations arise. Emotions that we have long suppressed may come to the surface and, inexperienced as we are, we might find them hard to handle and most distressing. But at other times the mind seems still and empty and we may lapse into blissful drowsiness or even sleep.
As time goes on, a lot of this excitement dies down. We learn how to let things go and not get caught up in the parade of mind moments. We easily release occurrences that we have repeatedly reviewed in the past and know so well. It takes a lot to perturb us now. This is a kind of equanimity and for many it provides a welcome relief from the drama of their inner lives. But it smacks of complacency and indifference and is not the spiritual equanimity that we may have sought. We are in the meditation doldrums.
In the secular, clinical form of mindfulness that has become so prevalent, the spiritual side of the practice is neglected, hence the doldurms. To get out of the doldrums, there must be an understanding of the spiritual path. Refocusing on the traditional purposes of meditation and dedication to going beyond the mundane hold the promise of renewed energy for our practice and deepening wisdom.
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