Learn Buddhist insight meditation in your daily life.
MIDL (Mindfulness in Daily Life) provides a systematic way of practicing traditional Buddhist Insight Meditation (satipatthana vipassana) in daily life.
As an MIDL meditator you will learn to find the middle way by neither suppressing nor avoiding any experience, but rather softening/relaxing your relationship towards it to gently let it go.
In this section we will cover mindfulness of breathing meditation techniques designed for daily life. The foundation for your meditation will be based on developing skill in relaxation, calm & tranquility (samatha). Anything that hinders samatha is viewed as an opportunity for vipassana insight.
The structure of this course is simple.
How meditation develops.
Calm: During this course we will discuss how to develop mindfulness of breathing in a way that will create a momentum of letting go within your heart & mind. This doorway is accessed by developing your skill in relaxation & calm, while training your mind to perceive the pleasure in it.
Insight: Anything that hinders your ability to experience relaxation & calm during your meditation is used as a foundation for insight. Insight is developed by observing the by-itself-nature (anatta) of hindrances to relaxation & calm.
Letting go: Insight is enhanced by rewarding your mind with the pleasure of letting go to teach it to incline towards it in your daily life. Your skill in letting go will be developed by following a simple formula: GOSS: Ground > Observe > Soften > Smile > repeat. This circular process of insight & pleasure reward develops a momentum of letting go that will gradually decondition attraction & aversion from your mind.
Aware of being Aware: The way that mindfulness of breathing is practiced in MIDL is designed to gradually clarify peripheral awareness and the focus of attention as two separate, distinct experiences. This develops a shift in the meditators mind where they become continuously aware of being aware, experiencing space between experiences and experiencing. As they are no longer entangled in objects of awareness, it is within this shift that deepest insight occurs.
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Talk on the structure of MIDL from founder Stephen Procter.
A summary is given on how MIDL Insight Meditation unfolds when practiced in daily life.
Your first step is to cultivate your skill in mindfulness & letting go, by accessing the pleasure of relaxation & ease within your mind & body, creating a foundation for mindfulness of breathing.
Suitability: Beginner.
Purpose: Creating Your Foundation.
New to Meditation?
Course Lessons:
Support Articles:
Optional Meditation:
If you experience stress, anxiety, brain fog practice this first.
Your second step is to cultivate curiosity in balancing mental effort by developing insight into that which hinders the development of calm & tranquility.
Suitability: Intermediate.
Purpose: Insight into restlessness.
Course Lessons:
Support Articles:
Your third step is to cultivate your skill in stable attention during mindfulness of breathing, by including joy & tranquility as part of your attention.
Suitability: Skilled.
Purpose: Insight into dullness.
Course Lessons:
Support Article:
Your fourth step is to cultivate your skill in unified attention to develop access concentration.
Suitability: Accomplished.
Purpose: Develop access concentration.
Course Lessons:
Support Article:
Your fifth step is to cultivate your skill in meditative absorption (jhana), to establish equanimity.
Suitability: Proficient.
Purpose: Develop Factor of Equanimity.
Course Lessons:
This section is advanced and not necessary for completing the meditation course above. It may be offered to you as a support for calm & insight by a teacher or to create the conditions for higher insight paths once you are skilled in jhana (absorption) in Cultivation 05.
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