Your Body Knows the Answer by David I. Rome

Author:David I. Rome
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala Publications

Chapter 10

Mindfulness, Awareness, and the Sovereign Self

THE “MINDFUL” PART of Mindful Focusing derives from the Buddhist meditation tradition. The first exercise in this book—Grounded Aware Presence, or GAP—has its roots in my own years of practice and study with the Tibetan teacher Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. In this chapter, we will explore some of the principles behind grounded aware presence.

Mindfulness

Following in the footsteps of Eastern mind-body practices like judo, karate, and hatha yoga that became popular in the West during the twentieth century, Asian-derived techniques for developing mindfulness are now becoming known and practiced globally as we enter the twenty-first century. In part this phenomenon is driven by extraordinary developments in the field of cognitive neuroscience. With the advent of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and other new technologies for exploring the brain in real time, scientific evidence for the efficacy of these practices is accumulating rapidly. The Mindful Brain and Mindsight by Daniel Siegel, M.D., are two excellent examples of recent books describing and interpreting the newly emerging understanding of how the brain and nervous system function and the ways in which mindfulness-awareness practices can enhance their functioning.

In colloquial usage, mindfulness means paying attention, staying focused on a task, not getting distracted. In the context of meditation, or mindfulness practice, it denotes a particular quality of moment-to-moment attention. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the leading proponent of mindfulness in health care, defines it as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.” 1

Mindfulness practice involves periods of sitting still and training one’s mind to stay on a particular object, typically one’s own breathing. When thoughts, sensations, memories, emotions, and so forth arise in the mind, as they inevitably will, the practice is simply to make note of them without judgment and return one’s attention to the breath. As the practitioner does this over a period of days, weeks, and more, the mind’s natural tendency to become engrossed in a particular subject, or to jump impulsively from one object of attention to another, gradually subsides. The mind becomes unusually calm, at first intermittently but with regular practice in a more sustained way. At the same time, it becomes clearer, like muddy water that settles when left undisturbed. Mental contents are perceived more accurately, and concentration improves.

An important component of mindfulness is body awareness, really noticing the different parts, movements, and textures of our physical bodies and experiencing them from the inside. The first step in GAP, grounded, refers to the body’s earthiness, its substance and weight, and its felt connection to the external world as it rests on the earth anchored and supported by the force of gravity. Being grounded is the experiential foundation for feelings of stability, balance, ease, and uprightness.

Awareness

The kind of mindfulness that is cultivated in Buddhist meditation is frequently referred to as mindfulness-awareness or mindful awareness. Whereas the word mindfulness suggests the element of effort involved in deliberately placing and sustaining attention on a chosen object, awareness has more to do with the quality of consciousness itself.

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