Category: 2016

I had a friend who always kept a bag of cheesies in her desk drawer at work. When the day warranted a pick-me-up, she would open the drawer, remove the black clasp, carefully unroll the bag, take out a cheesie and slowly eat three.

She would sigh happily, carefully roll the bag back up, secure it with the clasp and return the bag to her desk drawer.

“How is it possible to eat only three cheesies?” I asked her, my mouth open in amazement.

“I savour them,” she said simply.

I couldn’t grasp how she could do that. I tried a few times with potato chips but I was always through the bag before I remembered that oh, right, I was going to try and eat just a few this time.

I stopped comparing myself to my friend and accepted the fact that she was just super disciplined and I wasn’t. Besides, chips were my guilty pleasure and what was the point, after all, of having a guilty pleasure if I wasn’t going to full-on enjoy it.

This was before I started developing the practice of meditation and before I understood the concept of mindfulness. My first eating meditation exercise rocked my world. I could honestly say I was sated after three bites of my veggie burger.

I still buy bags of potato chips. And I still love eating them. But the other day I noticed there was over half a bag of chips left in the bag before I rolled it up and returned it to my guilty pleasures cupboard.

Hmmmm. Maybe I am becoming disciplined after all.

Being present will do that for you.

Carol J.

I love that this week’s theme is “Letting Go of Burdens”. By getting in tune with my body through mindfulness, I have this opportunity to better see the ways I automatically add on to experiences which in turn can create burdens.

Sharon reminds us that we naturally categorize our thinking and things we take in with our senses as one of pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. But wait… pleasant can be a burden? Well, yes…

Here’s a simple example: When I was a student in university, I lived in a west-facing apartment. I would see the most spectacular sunsets. (Saskatchewan has the motto “land of the living skies” for good reason!) Pleasant, right? But there was a burden there: I would take picture-after-picture of sunsets (and this was in the pre-digital camera era too), in a hopeless attempt to hold on to that elusive beauty.

Sharon says, “Mindfulness allows us to enjoy pleasant experiences without that extra thing we do, which is grasp at the pleasure in an attempt to keep it from changing.” So that aspect of clinging to a pleasant experience adds a burden to it. I couldn’t fully enjoy the sunsets because I had this sub-conscious yearning to make the transient stay.

Sharon says,

When we can’t let the moment in front of us be what it is (because we’re afraid that if it’s good, it will end too soon; if it’s bad, it’ll go on forever; and if it’s neutral, it’ll bore us to tears), we’re out of balance. Mindfulness restores that balance; we catch our habitual reactions of clinging, condemning, and zoning out, and let them go.

Now, when I see a beautiful sunset, I can see it, catch that habitual clinging and let go of that burden. Then I can more deeply appreciate the pleasant experience, by being in tune and in balance, through mindfulness.

With best wishes for week two,
Andrea G

I’ve been meditating for just over a year, with a focus these past two months on developing a daily meditation practice. I’ve felt encouraged by my progress, grateful for our teacher and our local retreats, and appreciative of our community.

But there was something about my breathing during meditation that didn’t seem quite right to me. It felt like I was pushing my breath, but the guided meditations kept referring to  following the breath.  Since I only knew one way to breathe,  I just kept focusing on the breath. I worked at concentrating and continued my daily practice, grateful for whatever tools, tips, resources and exercises were offered.

Then about a month ago something clicked. Like that moment when you’re learning to ride your bike and you realize your Dad has let go and you’re actually pedaling yourself.

It was during one of our weekly guided meditations. I don’t know if it was our teacher’s words, how she said them, or if it had anything to do with where I was at that moment – or maybe all of the above – but I experienced it.

I realized I was resting in the breath.

Ahhh. So this is what they meant.

It was gentle. Easy. Soft. No pushing or pulling. I was just being one with my breath. I actually was resting in the breath.

I’m pretty sure the sun broke through the clouds and I’m pretty sure I heard organ music.

It was another reminder of what I am constantly learning to be true: that if I keep practicing, if I keep developing and deepening with the help of our teachers and community, if I keep doing all of this, then whatever needs to come, will come.

It starts with the breath and it keeps going with the breath.

It is in me.

Carol J.

Unlike most working adults, I look forward for Wednesdays. It is in the middle of the week when the wonderful insight meditation community of Saskatoon meet up to sit down and check within. And I love it… It is like an oasis of peace in the middle of what is usually a hectic week. I try to make it every Wednesday, even in the winter nights where it can be -40C (yeah, C as in “Celsius”). I believe practice does not end on the cushion though… The ultimate objective is to develop the skills to implement mindfulness where we need it the most, that is in everyday life where we deal with the angry boss, the stubborn partner, the moron driver that cuts you off. We also need it to be fully present in those little moments of joy, to let them permeate our hearts and open fully to a beautiful experience. All in all, we practice to cultivate the oasis of peace I mentioned earlier so it can be accessible any time; not just on Wednesday nights.

And this is why I decided to share my experience taking my practice off the cushion into everyday life. After two years of having that conscious intention, sometimes I wonder if I had made any progress at all (any of you on the same boat?). Case in point:
I am a lazy cook, but really enjoy cooking with my partner, mainly because he usually volunteers to do the dishes afterwards, haha. Recently, he went out of town for a week and I found myself looking for places close to work for lunch. I found a Wendy’s half a block away and indulged in the spicy chicken sandwiches every single day. By Friday I was feeling somewhat guilty with my eating habits, so I decided to go to this delicious organic bakery for a salmon sandwich instead. I was on my way thinking about my projects at work, planning and setting deadlines. I was already in the venue when I realized that the place looked slightly different than I remembered, but somewhat familiar. Then I saw the flashy menu featuring the spicy chicken sandwiches. I was at Wendy’s! I was on auto-pilot, too immersed in my thoughts to even realize where I was heading.

I was embarrassed, I mean, I am supposed to be somewhat mindful after two years of practice, right? But then I recalled Tara Brach’s teaching that thinking is just what minds do: “Just as the body secrets enzymes, the mind generates thoughts”. One teacher once told me that our minds are like taking care of a child in an international airport… The moment you get distracted they are are already boarding a plane to Asia. Please make the conscious effort to not beat yourself up if this happens. Moreover, never use a stick to discipline yourself so you “get it right the next time”. There is no such thing. Such experiences are not an obstacle to the practice, they ARE the practice. Wherever you are -sitting on the cushion, at work or at home- Just smile 🙂 and start again… As long as we are still breathing we can always start again, and get the salmon sandwich.

Catalina.

When I first started to practice I understood the breath as a simple tool. A means to achieving the vaguely perceived ends of a meditation practice. However, I have learned that, as with so many aspects of meditation, there is a complex simplicity at work.

Recently I read a note on a friend’s calendar of daily thoughts. “Why fear death? When you are present death is not.  And when death is present you are not.”  So to borrow and adapt that idea to our breath, “When the breath is present you are.  When it is not you are not.”  A constant and beautiful companion. Always there, an anchor and a haven, ready to remind us that we live.  Available to bring us into the moment and to our life.

As with a meditation practice there are so many connections, circles and layers that come through breath.

Intimate connections.  How many parents have sat beside their sleeping child watching their small chests rise and fall and wondering at the miracle? How many of us have lain awake listening to the breathing of an intimate partner and felt blessed?  How many times have we comforted another who, torn by grief, sobs and gasps for air?

Communal connections. The collective breath of a sangha meditating to the voice of a teacher.   The intake of breath from a crowd awed by an amazing performance.

Sacred connections. The breathing of the planet swallowing in through its green lungs carbon dioxide and expelling the oxygen that give us life.

When my father lay dying in a bed that had been placed in his dining room because his own bed was too uncomfortable, the nurse told us to listen to his breath. “At the end you will hear its rhythm and sound change. And there will be the final few gasps.”  Sharing that moment with my father I think now of how I might spend those last few moments of my life and if I will be aware of the first and final departure of my faithful companion.

We too often take our breath for granted by not acknowledging how special it is. Through meditation I am learning how to deepen my relationship with my constant companion.

Rene R.

When I heard that this week’s focus was “the art of starting over”, I knew immediately what I wanted to share for my blog post today – my favourite technique for “starting over”.

Starting over has always been somewhat of a challenge for me in meditation. I find it all too easy to get caught up in self-judgement, many times without even realizing it, when I am focusing on the breath and my mind ends up walking down some other path. This is even more apparent when I try to apply mindfulness to my everyday life. I often find myself spending the majority of the day in walking sleep, with only brief periods of awareness. When I do awaken, the first thought that appears is some self-chastisement for not being aware for so long. I needed a kind way of re-directing myself back to this moment, without attaching any unnecessary baggage to it.

I found the perfect technique for this in Ezra Bayda’s book, Being Zen. The practice is to simply ask the zen koan “what is this?”, whenever we come out of waking sleep. Just like other zen koans, there is no answer to be found in the conceptual mind. Instead, it lies in our current experience, whatever that may be, a twinge in the neck, tightness in the chest, or the cascade of sound frequencies detected by our ears. Not only does this technique draw us back into the present moment experience without getting caught in self-judgement, it encourages us to approach the present with “beginner’s mind”. This is a concept in Zen that means approaching the moment with sincere curiosity and without preconceptions (see below for more ways to cultivate this). It is from this place that we can come to see our experience for what it actually is, instead of all the interpretation and significance we are adding on to it.

So, next time you awaken after being caught up in your stories and emotions, I encourage you to ask “what is this?” to bring you back into the here and now. I hope that, whatever the answer is, it is illuminating for you in some way.

All the best with your practice this week!

Keith

P.S. I was not able to find any online articles about this technique by Ezra Bayda. However, there is a ZenCast Episode by Gil Fronsdal where he talks about meditating using a very similar technique. He simply asks himself, “how are you?” Here’s a link to that talk:

https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/audio_player/4722.html.

Here’s a link to an article with some other useful tips for cultivating beginner’s mind:

https://tricycle.org/magazine/cultivating-beginners-mind/.

Before I started this practice, if you had asked me what “concentrating” looks like, I would have recalled childhood evenings sitting at the kitchen table, a tough homework assignment in front of me; forehead furrowed, one hand’s fingers tracing the words on the assignment page, and the other hand clenching a pencil tightly; my mind zooming over the details while coming up with the “right” answer.

Fast forward a few decades, when I am introduced to mindfulness of breathing. “Concentrate on your breathing,” I’m told. So initially, I approach that task in the same way I approached my homework. Sitting erectly. Breathing in. Breathing out. My mind zooming over the details, looking for the “right” answer.

But wait… this is breathing. Something I’ve been doing since the day I was born… Is there a “wrong” way to breathe? My mind wants to intervene… Here, try a longer in-breath. Okay now hold it a bit. Now exhale. A little longer. Okay. Now breathe in again. … Slow it down! Wait, I lost count. … Jeepers, I’m not very good at this: I better try harder.

Quite frankly, if my mind were in charge of my breathing, I think I’d be dead by now. 🙂

I’ve tried various techniques to bring concentrated attention to breathing. Different teachers/books suggest various ways to relax the mind’s wish to control the breathing. Some say to pay attention to the subtle feeling at the tip of the nose — because it’s so subtle there, it’s hard to control, and one really has to pay attention. Others say to feel the sensation of breathing in multiple areas – chest expanding/contracting, belly rising/falling, the temperature variations between the in-breath and out-breath — because the focus is on multiple things, the mind has to loosen its laser-like focus (and control) on one thing and take in a bigger view of the process; plus by paying attention to so many things, the mind will be less inclined to get bored and wander off to plan next summer’s vacation.

All those techniques are useful, but I’ve learned the most about concentrating on breathing from my dogs. As I snuggle with them on lazy weekend mornings, I watch them breathe: deep, slow, relaxed. As I concentrate on their breathing, I find that the control my mind wants to have on my own breathing relaxes too. So I can bring focus to my own sensations. I’m inspired by this poem from Thich Nhat Hanh:

In, Out.
Deep. Slow.
Calm. Ease.
Smile. Release.
Present moment, Wonderful moment.

There’s a kindness to this kind of concentration. A sense of happiness. Of peace.

Just this moment. Just this breath.

With best wishes for your first week of practice,
Andrea G

Hello everyone,

The Saskatoon Insight Meditation Community is pleased to be blogging for to the 28-Day Meditation Challenge in 2016.

We are a community of practitioners in the Vispassana (Insight) meditation tradition, located in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. Our community is lead by Jeanne Corrigal. With her encouragement, we had an engaged group who blogged last year, and this year, we are pleased to have another group from our sangha joining in again. Through sharing our experiences, successes, and challenges, it is our hope that we can encourage our fellow sangha members, both locally and around the world, to begin a regular meditation practice, or to deepen their practice.

We look forward to sharing this practice with you in February.

– Andrea G, Carol J, Catalina, Keith, Maeve, and Rene