Practice in your car. No waiting. No shopping. For real, all the sounds and sights and barks are a part of the mindfulness.
*** For my new Dhammapada centric podcast Now, Dhammapada (mentioned at the end of this episode) try here:
awakewax.substack.com
Soon, you should be able to find it on your favorite podcatcher ***
Understanding the difference, the conditions of your practice, compared to not practicing with the podcast. Also very different than being in a class. Mindfulness of body, often is the place to begin and end, regardless of conditions. What to try, when you have too much energy or perhaps too little energy whist sitting. Awake AND relaxed. Not sleeping. Not hyper alert. Mindfuling...
Practicing outside is different. Especially in the Fall. What is available, obvious? Work with it. Practice every day, not like this but like with what you really have going on. Sound meditation. Awake. Standing is wakeful.
Keywords: Lite, Light, Dressed, Cold, Cool, Sound,
Can you be mindful while walking the dog? What are you doing? Pretty complicated if you... are trying to do too much. Simplify and pay attention to your companion. Walking the dog is doing something very complicated compared to sitting and you are likely very connected to a very different sort of being with a very different set of interests! Amazing.
Keywords: Canine, coffee, walk, nosey, tension, attention, mindfulness, woof
Prpacticing standing meditation outdoors is just awesome. Real and
potentially confusing. Keeping it relatively still you will see a crazy mind, becalmed over time! Even
amidst a pandemic there is great flexibility being developed.
Keywords: Insight, Presence, conditions, mindfulness, sound, heartmind
Listening outside, a lot to contact with the shifting weather. Sound is a type of contact and with a podcast we can share this slice but there is more...
Keywords: ambient, rain, sound, feel, object, collecting attention,
Practicing awareness of sound outside sitting on a bench. Sitting differently than you might usually sit, on a bench, matters. Working with what actually is and focusing attention. Simple practice, but not easy...
Cultivating ease and awareness from a relatively still body to a body in contact to a body investigating with the same sort or ease and awareness allows a peaceful seeing and perhaps knowing.
keywords: body, sound, field, bird, contact, movement, conditions and investigation
Working with the pleasant sonic conditions is not the same as just enjoying. Awake and relaxed in a collected moment to moment presence is practiced.
Keywords: Mindfulness, sound, birds, dinosaurs, distraction, pleasant, noise, rooster, flicker, cardinal
Ambient object. Spring is a doodling. Being outside being with what ya got. Not a listening and flowing more of an active movement to moment hearing and let-go-ing into hearing. Again and again. Quite rich in these New England conditions. Bright red cardinals, deep blue jays, the swoosh of automobiles in the distant wash. Oh, and surprise a canine bell! Standing. Wet wooshes.
Keywords: mindfulness, roosters, loud sounds, unexpected, change, totality, standing, posture
Practicing outside in the snow. A very fluffy marshmallow world is one way of describing these conditions. So, I work with what I got. You? Probably different for you but you do have conditions. Perhaps subtler. A fan. Contact is the object.
Keywords: epidermis, body, mindfulness, clear, intention, crunchy, future, past, ease, wakeful
Walking outside after a snow storm. Formal meditation, under these conditions, the sound of walking is really prominent. We can work with this. Not an exploration, it is a focused easeful practice that is appropriate for these conditions. Listening as a podcast your practice will be a bit different but you can still use sound as an object.
If the timing is right an online retreat opportunity: February 14, 9am - 12pm EST, please go to www.ssimc.org/registration for more info. Perhaps I will see you there!
keywords: mindfulness, meditation, northeast, snow, weather, body, owls, presence
Mindful of a cold, wind-licked body. For a little bit. Easy to notice and to be with, but ya don't have to make yourself ill. If your inside this practice of weather upon the body may be more difficult but less uncomfortable. Inside you can safely stay with the practice. Outside in relative challenging conditions less time can be the wise practice.
Keywords: awareness, foundational, wind, weather, mindfulness, snow, crunch, quick
An edited recording of an online (errr, pandemic still raging) class concerning Wise View offered on the day of the storming of the US Capitol by the profoundly deluded. The Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path and a whole lot of examples of how to get to know discontent and its HUGE range. Guided meditation occurs deep in the recording.
Keywords: Buddha, outrageous, reality, life, conditions, don't like, ssimc, knowing, ignorance, experience, story, dukkha, sukha, sedition, cat, dog
Not present in the relaxed sense of awareness is a hallmark of being in anticipation. There is a feel, a feeling-tone to anticipation. It is a form of disconnect and discontent when it persists. Notice how it feels in the body, in the mind and in the heart and just being with the breadth is known for its peace. Anticipation happens, but you have a choice in how much it occupies your heartMind.
Keywords: COVID, mindfulness, meditation, practice, breathe, body, awareness, holidays
Ever fresh is this practice. Regardless of conditions. Time disappears. The story recedes. Ease of body, mind, heart in parity. Awake. A different kind of sitting is this meditation. Wakefulness. Tired happens but Pandemic Fatigue is optional.
Keywords: Meditation, quiet, language, refrain, sensations
Not simply thinking better. Not simply calming down. Not just after working out. Insight into the workings of your mind. Your heart. Your body.
Keywords: Basketball, rest, clarity, sitting, quiet, open, eyes, quiet
Sound concentration out in the woods. Many distractions may present. Can't control the world, shouldn't expect sameness.
Keywords: Nature, standing, sound, variables, distraction, fascination, present
Using the sound of Fall as an object. Outside meditating. Standing, maybe sitting. Keep it coming back to the sound that is available. White Oak, Red Oak, Blue Jays and combustible engines. It's all good, as they say and it is if you keep it simple, present and wakeful.
Keywords: Tree, Forest, Tradition, Quercus, Leaves, Bell, Acorns, Doggos
Practice daily a little bit. A pop song's timing, what will fit comfortably on the B side, or even the A side. You have to get regular, daily. Gradually this will grow in time and maybe even frequency. Eventually you will WANT to practice intensively for hours of the days but start slow and steady. Meditate. You don't have to turn it into a big production to get started but eventually don't be surprised if your sitting for sides of long players, CD lengths even, Operatic Cycles...
Keywords: Ramones, Wire, Buzzcocks, Breath, anapanasati, Buddha
Outside and going easy on the knees but still in a squat and listening to the leaves fall down. Soft gaze, not scanning, relaxed and at ease in and width. A short practice.
Keywords: knees, earth, close, easy, fall, listening to what comes and goes, traffic, crickets, birds, outside, connected
Pain is inevitable for all but the tiniest fraction of humans. Get to know it through practice, s l o w ly, over time and it does not get worse. It doesn't morph into suffering. But you have to practice when the pain is relatively low but a real physical experience.
Keywords: dukkha, mindfulness, meditation, cabinetry, caffeine, allergies, foggy, neti, sensation, foundation, breath
The option other than "thinking" your way out of anxiety takes practice. Mindfuling is that practice.
Keywords: Dog, Past, Obsessions, preparation, overdoing-it, meditation, breath, body, posture, ease, awareness
Gathering your attention with the help of light. Using the sense door of sight encounter light, and notice when you have started to leave the light. Not a figuring, out or in.
Keywords: Concentration, sight, definition, phenomena, ease, insight, ssimc, classes
Ah, to sit outside. How divine, under a majestic oak tree, to meditate. But then— that sound, that sound and that sound. Working with what is in the available ambience of your now.
Keywords: mindfulness, presence, concentration, nature, ambience, ease, acorn, dog, practice, fear, cyber security, business, bitter, quercus, pendunculate oak