Decondition The Mind Section
Contains: Mastery 5, Skillset 7, Meditation Skills 28-34
MEDITATION SKILL 31
Relax the Eyelids
MEDITATION SKILL 32
Relax the Frontal Lobes
MEDITATION SKILL 33
Learn to Decondition Mind
MEDITATION SKILL 34
Decondition Emotions
MEDITATION SKILL 35
Abandon Within Breathing
MEDITATION SKILL 36
Abandon Within Body
Simple Instructions:
Allow your eyelids lids to droop close, partially open them and allow them to droop close again. Repeat until they won't open.
Purpose:
Benefits:
Caution:
During this meditation we intentionally trigger painful memories to develop understanding of the relationship between our body, breathing and mind. If you are currently experiencing anxiety only practice this technique under the guidance of a trained professional.
Summary:
In this meditation, you learn the subtle skill of relaxing your eyelids and eyes to directly bring about deep relaxation within your mind. There is a direct correlation between the alertness of the eyes & eyelids and hyper-vigilance of the fight / flight response. When in a hyper alert state due anxiety or trauma the eyes open wider searching for danger. Relaxing the eyelids and intensity of 'looking' has the affect of temporarily turning off this fight / flight response and allowing the mind to find safety within the experience of Stillness. During this process deep healing can occur.
Instruction:
Meditation is practiced in a seated position.
The Four Stages:
1. Ground your awareness within the experience of your body as it sits.
2. Bring a difficult memory to mind and observe within your body, breathing and mind.
3. Intentionally relax your eyelids, allow them to droop. Open slightly and allow them to relax again.
4. Observe the effect that relaxing your eyelids has on your body, breathing and mind.
How Often?
Practice daily for 1 week by bringing your awareness to the experience of your whole body as it sits. Bring a difficult memory to mind and observe the effect it has on your body, breathing and mind. Observe any tension with your mind, the response within your body and the acceleration of the thinking process. Settle the resistance of your mind by slowly relaxing and opening your eyelids. Pay attention to the feeling of heaviness, allowing your eyelids to droop. As your eyelids become heavier gradually lesson how wide your open your eyelids until you can not open them anymore. Observe your mind drop into still awareness and the function of your mind come to a stop.
Investigation:
Observe effect on your mind with the gradual relaxing of your eyelids. Take interest in how your body conditions your mind and how your mind conditions your body. Observe how this softening door affects the intellectual functioning of the mind.
Simple Instructions:
Slowly extend the breath out through the nose while gently focusing on the frontal lobes and feel them relax.
Purpose:
Benefits:
Caution:
During this meditation we intentionally trigger painful memories to develop understanding of the relationship between our body, breathing and mind. If you are currently experiencing anxiety only practice this technique under the guidance of a trained professional.
Summary:
In this meditation, you learn the deeper Softening skill, of relaxing the frontal lobes of your brain in order to abandon all mental participation. This becomes powerful if you combine all previous softening skills to relax the frontal lobes of your brain. There is a direct correlation between mental activity, such as thinking, and the experience of tension in the area of the frontal lobes. The 5 softening doors when brought together, temporarily close down the functions of the intellectual mind allowing the midl meditator to decondition painful emotional charge from memories.
Instruction:
Meditation is practiced in a seated position
The Five Stages:
1. Ground your awareness within the experience of your body as it sits.
2. Practice the first four softening doors and learn to combine them as one.
3. Bring a difficult memory to mind and observe within your body, breathing and mind.
4. Using the four softening doors relax the frontal lobes on each out-breath
5. Observe the effect that combining these softening doors has on your body, breathing and mind.
How Often?
Practice daily for 1 week by bringing your awareness to the experience of your whole body as it sits. Practice re-engaging the diaphragm, lengthening the out-breath and relaxing the eyelids as one. Align awareness with the natural expansion and deflation of your body with each breath. About all effort with each deflation. Bring a difficult memory to mind and observe the effect it has on your body, breathing and mind. Observe any tension with your mind, the response within your body and the acceleration of the thinking process. Settle the resistance of your mind by slowly relaxing and opening your eyelids. Pay attention to the process of abandoning all participation. Observe the effect this abandonment has on the emotional charge and feeling tone attached to the memory.
Investigation:
Observe effect on your mind with while individual practicing the first four softening doors. Observe the effect on the intellectual function of your mind and the closing down to pure awareness when all five softening doors are combined together. observe the fading of emotional charge against the difficult memory when all five softening doors are applied to it as one softening skill.
Simple Instructions:
Bring a memory to mind and notice the feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness that arises, soften into your relationship.
Purpose:
Benefits:
Caution:
This is a high skill, MIDL technique, and during this training mindfulness meditation becomes very real. We intentionally trigger painful memories to develop understanding of the heart / mind and to decondition Vedana (feeling tone) from these memories.
If want to try this MIDL deconditioning technique, do so at your own discretion. If you have not done the earlier training and developed your mindfulness, concentration and softening skills then you are likely to become lost within the emotional charge and resist the unpleasantness. In this case you either need to commit to the MIDL systematic training or have someone skilled in this technique to guide you to develop this skill.
Summary:
In this meditation, you develop the higher MIDL skill of deconditioning the emotional charge, attached to thoughts and memories. Our mind has a simple survival sorting mechanism in which it uses feeling tone (Vedana), to sort memories as dangerous or safe. It attaches pleasant feeling to signify safe memories or unpleasant feeling if the memory is perceived as being dangerous. Through using the MIDL Softening skill you can experience and soften your relationship of attraction or aversion towards the feeling, deconditioning the strength of the feeling tone attached to the memory.
Instruction:
Meditation is practiced in a seated position.
The Four Stages:
1. Ground awareness within your body and the experience of your hands touching.
2. Observe what it feels like to be present, within your body – here, now - safe.
3. Bring to mind a memory from the past, observe change in the experience of your body.
4. Observe the feeling tone that underlies it and using six slow softening breaths, soften your relationship towards the feeling tone.
**Note: During this guided meditation we take a soft approach and also access pleasant memories, in actual application this is not the case.
How Often?
Once understood, practice weekly as a seated meditation and introduce this MIDL skill of deconditioning into all aspects of your life. In seated meditation start by bringing awareness to the experience of your whole body as it sits. Next ground awareness in the touch of your hands. Observe the experience of just sitting here, the simplicity, no past no future just here. Notice the safety of being present.
Observe the experience of presence within your body. Next bring to mind a predetermined painful memory of the past. Observe the change of the experience of your body in regards to sensations and feeling tone. Use six slow, deep softening breaths to soften into it, lengthening the out-breath through the nose to mentally relax and provide mindful non-participation. Follow this cycle six times, at the end of each softening checking your progress with three simple questions:
“Is the emotional charge in my body stronger, the same or weaker now that I have softened then it was when I first brought the memory to mind?”
If the emotional charge is stronger then you need to refine your mindfulness and softening skills, do not practice this meditation further. If the emotional charge is the same you need to develop your softening skill, there is still some resistance present. If the emotional charge is weaker now then your softening and mindfulness are strong enough. Apply five more cycles of deconditioning to this memory.
Investigation:
Be curious about the relationship between memories and the feeling tone present. observe that when a memory is brought to mind a corresponding feeling is released within your body. Observe the undeniable urge to escape from unpleasant feeling, to search for pleasant feeling and to stop paying attention when neutral feeling is present. Observe that when you soften / relax all resistance or attraction against that feeling that the feeling and emotional charge attached to the memory start to fade.
Simple Instructions:
Bring a memory to mind and notice the feeling of pleasantness or unpleasantness that arises, soften into your relationship.
Purpose:
Benefits:
Caution:
This is a high skill, MIDL technique, and during this training mindfulness meditation becomes very real. We intentionally trigger painful memories to develop understanding of the heart / mind and to decondition Vedana (feeling tone) from these memories.
If want to try this MIDL deconditioning technique, do so at your own discretion.
If you have not done the earlier training and developed your mindfulness, concentration and softening skills then you are likely to become lost within the emotional charge and resist the unpleasantness. In this case you either need to commit to the MIDL systematic training or have someone skilled in this technique to guide you to develop this skill.
Summary:
In this meditation, you apply the higher MIDL skill, of deconditioning the emotional charge attached to thoughts and memories. Our mind has a simple survival sorting mechanism in which it uses feeling tone (vedana), to sort memories as dangerous or safe. It attaches pleasant feeling to signify safe memories or unpleasant feeling if the memory is perceived as being dangerous. Through using the MIDL Softening skill you can experience and soften your relationship of attraction or aversion towards the feeling, deconditioning the strength of the feeling tone attached to the memory.
Instruction:
Meditation is practiced in a seated position.
The Four Stages:
1. Ground awareness within your body and the experience of your hands touching.
2. Observe what it feels like to be present, within your body – here, now - safe.
3. Bring to mind a memory from the past, observe change in the experience of your body.
4. Observe the feeling tone that underlies it and using six slow softening breaths, soften your relationship towards the feeling tone.
How Often?
Once understood, practice weekly as a seated meditation and introduce this MIDL skill of deconditioning into all aspects of your life. In seated meditation start by bringing awareness to the experience of your whole body as it sits. Next ground awareness in the touch of your hands. Observe the experience of just sitting here, the simplicity, no past no future just here. Notice the safety of being present.
Observe the experience of presence within your body. Next bring to mind a predetermined painful memory of the past. Observe the change of the experience of your body in regards to sensations and feeling tone. Use six slow, deep softening breaths to soften into it, lengthening the out-breath through the nose to mentally relax and provide mindful non-participation. Follow this cycle six times, at the end of each softening checking your progress with three simple questions:
“Is the emotional charge in my body stronger, the same or weaker now that I have softened then it was when I first brought the memory to mind?”
If the emotional charge is stronger then you need to refine your mindfulness and softening skills, do not practice this meditation further. If the emotional charge is the same you need to develop your softening skill, there is still some resistance present. If the emotional charge is weaker now then your softening and mindfulness are strong enough. Apply five more cycles of deconditioning to this memory.
Investigation:
Be curious about the relationship between memories and the feeling tone present. observe that when a memory is brought to mind a corresponding feeling is released within your body. Observe the undeniable urge to escape from unpleasant feeling, to search for pleasant feeling and to stop paying attention when neutral feeling is present. Observe that when you soften / relax all resistance or attraction against that feeling that the feeling and emotional charge attached to the memory start to fade.
Skillset 8 Abandoning Meditations
Meditation Skills 35-38, begin training in disentangling awareness from sensory objects. Stillness meditation uses nirvikalpa samadhi (objectless unification), to accelerate the inclination of the mind towards abandoning, and to accelerate the disenchantment that arises from insight. This process if followed until awareness completely disentangles from all six sense fields.
About These Meditations
Stillness meditation is the simple practice of sitting still and allowing the functions of your mind to slow down by not adding anything to them. Like a fire that can only survive as long as it is being fed fuel, the fire of your mind can only burn fiercely when fuel is being added to it. Through not adding to the activity of your mind it will naturally start to settle down and become still. As your skill in stillness deepens you will notice a gradual lowering of defensiveness and anxiety within your daily life.
MEDITATION INSTRUCTIONS
1: Create Your Posture for Stillness
For Stillness meditation it is necessary to create a balanced posture that you can maintain for the period of time without moving. This will give you the stability needed to allow your body to relax without fear of slumping forward. It is helpful in the beginning to un-round your shoulders by bringing them forward, raising them up, bringing them back and then dropping them down again. Also tucking your chin under slightly and extending the crown of your head towards the ceiling helps with balance. Once you have taken a balanced posture for your meditation, the first thing you do is to allow your eyelids to close slowly until they lightly touch.
2: Become Aware of Sounds
If there is any sound present become aware of it; allow the sound to start to anchor your attention. Notice your attention drawn out towards the sound. Focus on its flow, its changing nature. Allow the change within the sound to hold your attention present. This is always sad to hear, because the escape they are seeking is not found in more ‘doing’ but rather in learning how to ‘not do’, to actually be with what they are experiencing. Learning how to mentally rest, sit back and actually enjoy their life.
3: Warmth & Coolness
Gently bring awareness to the experience of warmth & coolness within your body as it sits. In a very general way, experience the sensations of warmth & coolness, keeping them gently in mind.
4: Touch of Your Hands
Within the experience of your posture start to include points of touch: The touch of your hands resting within each other. The touch of your body as it rests on the chair or floor and the touch of your feet. Keeping these points of touch gently in mind.
5: Experience Your Whole Body
As your mind settles, open your awareness to take in your whole body: warmth, coolness and touch. Your whole body just sitting here. Start to become aware of the general experience of heaviness that arises as your body starts to relax. Giving up all effort it becomes heavier, so heavy. Allow the chair or floor to take the full weight of your body. Allow your body to relax into this support.
6: Relaxing Your Forehead
Now gently bring awareness to your forehead and allow the muscles in your forehead to relax. Feel them becoming heavier, smoothing out. Experience the sense of ease as it arises.
7: Relaxing Your Eyelids
Allow the relaxation from your forehead to flow down into your eyelids and eyes. Relaxing your eyelids, feel the eyelids droop, becoming heavier. Allow them to become so heavy it feels like you’re falling asleep. Feel the mental relaxation arising from this.
8: Relaxing Your Cheeks & Jaw
Feel the relaxation flow down through your cheeks and into your jaw. Allow your jaw to open slightly. Feel the relaxation coming to the whole of your face, filling your face, becoming so relaxed.
9: Head, Shoulders & Upper Back
The relaxation starts to flow from your face around to the back of your head and neck. Slightly adjust your head if needed so that it feels balanced on your neck. Feel this relaxation flowing into your head and release any tension you feel, becoming so relaxed. The relaxation then starts to flow down your neck into your shoulders. Allow them to drop slightly. It then starts to fill your upper chest and upper back. Mentally feel the deep relaxation coming to your whole upper body. The sense of ease within your upper body.
10: Relaxing Your Arms & Hands
The relaxation flows down your arms into your hands. Relax your fingers. Allow your arms to hang loosely from your shoulders.
11: Chest, Belly & Breathing
Relax your chest & belly. Feel the breathing flowing freely within your body. The gentle flow of your breath. Allow your breathing to become calm. To become so relaxed that you can barely feel it moving at all. The sense of ease within your body deepens.
12: Relaxing Your Hips, Legs & Feet
Slightly release your hips and allow the relaxation to flow down your legs into your feet. You can use some gentle Softening breaths until your whole body feels deeply relaxed; so heavy.
13: Creating Your Meditation Object
This deep relaxation of your whole body will become your meditation object for your mind to access Stillness. Allow the chair or the floor to take the full weight of your body. Give up all effort within your body. Feel the effortlessness of it all, the effortlessness of not having to do anything. Feel this deep sense of ease fill every cell within your whole body. Allow the sense of ease to grow.
14: Experiencing Physical Relaxation
Bring full awareness to the deep relaxation and ease within your body and allow them to start to fill your mind. Abandon all mental effort at this stage; just allow. The deep relaxation and ease starts to fill your mind. Allow it to sink in. Feel your mind sinking deeper down, deeper as the sense of ease, of effortlessness fills it. At this stage allow your mind to drift, to float around. Allow thoughts to come and go. You will drift in and out of thoughts. Gradually the thoughts will change from directed thinking with a subject, to random, floaty thoughts without meaning. Allow yourself to bounce in and out of this mental activity.
15: Experiencing Mental Relaxation
Start to become aware of the mental relaxation and ease arising within your mind. Allow this sense of ease to fill your mind until it becomes the experience of the awareness itself. You can use a few gentle Softening breaths as learnt earlier to relax any effort that arises within your mind; to soften any desire to do. Your task at this stage is to not add anything to the processes of your mind, no longer feeding the fire; just allowing the fire to burn itself out. Allowing the processes of your mind to cease and Stillness to arise.
Inclination to Abandon Section
Contains: Mastery 5, Skillset 8, Meditation Skills 35-38
Simple Instructions:
Use your skill in softening: re-engage the diaphragm, lengthen out-breath, Relax eyelids and abandon effort to enter stillness.
Purpose:
Benefits:
Summary:
In this meditation, you use your softening skills developed in the previous mindfulness training to bring about mindful non-participation in order to enter stillness. Stillness arises when all participation within the processes of the mind are abandoned. The result of skillful softening as refined in the previous training, is always the arising of stillness. The development of stillness is based on a process of systematic abandoning of effort, first physical then mental. This process of abandonment directly challenges the habitual defensive processes of mind.
Because of this it is necessary to do this training daily for a period of four weeks, lengthening the period as you gradually remove layers of defenses until your mind finds safety within the stillness of not-doing itself. Once your mind learns the pathway to stillness it will naturally enter it when you soften into mindful non-participation. Even though the depth of stillness that arises after softening is sometimes brief, the impact through creating gaps within the conditioned patterns within the mind is great and part of the process of mindful deconditioning. This cultivates into the ability to be aware of awareness itself.
Instruction:
Meditation is practiced in a seated position
The Four Stages:
1. Ground your awareness within the experience of your body as it sits.
2. Take five slow diaphragm breathes to re-engage diaphragm and settle the mind.
3. Gradually abandon effort by relaxing your forehead, eyelids, cheeks and jaw.
4. Align awareness with each out-breath, abandon through your body to access stillness.
How Often?
Practice daily for 1 week by bringing your awareness to the experience of your whole body as it sits. Place your palms below your belly button and re-engage your diaphragm with five gentle breaths in order turn off the stress response and settle your mind. Next bring awareness to your face and gradually relax through it part by part. Use slow softening breaths through your nose to help you relax. Focus on relaxing your eyelids by allowing them to droop and gently opening and closing them a few times. Your focus is on giving up all effort.
When your whole face is relaxed and your mind quietens down then align your awareness with the natural flow of breath within your body. Every time your body deflates with the out-breath abandon all effort. Allow the heaviness to arise within your body and your mind to mentally sink into stillness. Once in stillness allow your mind to drift and settle by itself, avoid any doing as this will stir up the mind. The only thing you may do at this stage is relaxing with a slow breath out through your nose whenever your attention is drawn back out to engage with the world. Sit back and enjoy the process as your mind returns to its simplest form, pure awareness.
Investigation:
Observe effect on your mind with while using the individual softening techniques in particular be curious as to what it means to abandon into mindful non-participation through the four softening doors. Develop of the process of the mind transitioning into stillness through abandoning all effort and be curious in regards to the natural arises of stillness within the mind through not adding any energy / doing to it.
Simple Instructions:
Relax through your body part by part until heaviness arises, use this deep relaxation as meditation object to enter stillness.
Purpose:
Benefits:
Summary:
In this meditation, you gradually develop the simple skill of allowing the deep relaxation that arises through not doing. This is a beautiful practice of sitting still and allowing your body to relax part by part starting from your forehead, moving down through your body to you feet. You then mentally feel the sense of ease with the deep physical relaxation allowing it to enter your mind.
This process will challenge and gradually remove defensive armours produced by your mind. Through repetition your mind will gradually allow the relaxation to access deeper levels of defenselessness until all defensive armour is removed and safety is experienced within the stillness of the mind itself. It also creates a basis for continuity and establishing of mindfulness with daily life.
Instruction:
Meditation is practiced in a seated position
The Six Stages:
1. Ground your awareness within the experience of your body as it sits.
2. Gradually abandon effort by relaxing your forehead, eyelids, cheeks and jaw.
3. Gradually abandon effort by relaxing your shoulders, chest, upper back and arms.
4. Gradually abandon effort by relaxing your hips, legs and feet.
5. Experience the sense of ease within your body and allow it to fill your mind.
6. Relax all effort within your mind to engage with any experience or to do anything.
How Often?
Practice daily for 1 week by bringing your awareness to the experience of your whole body as it sits. Next bring awareness to your face and gradually relax through it part by part. Use slow softening breaths through your nose to help you relax. Focus on relaxing your eyelids by allowing them to droop and gently opening and closing them a few times. Your focus is on giving up all effort. Allow this relaxation to flow down into your cheeks and jaw. Experience the heaviness within your face.
When your whole face is relaxed allow the relaxation to flow down through your neck into your shoulders, chest and upper back. Then down into your arms, hips, legs and feet. Allow the chair or the floor to take the whole weight of your body, give up all effort within your body. Start to be aware of the heaviness of your body, the sense of ease that comes from not doing anything at all. Take this sense of ease as your meditation object and allow it to fill your mind.
At this stage you do not need to do anything at all, just allow your mind to sink, for mental processes to slow down and stop. Allow the heaviness to arise within your body and your mind to mentally sink into stillness. Once in stillness allow your mind to drift and settle by itself, avoid any doing as this will stir up the mind. The only thing you may do at this stage is relaxing with a slow breath out through your nose whenever your attention is drawn back out to engage with the world. Sit back and enjoy the process as your mind returns to its simplest form, pure awareness.
Investigation:
Observe effect on your mind with while relaxing different parts of your face and body. In particular be curious as to what it means to abandon into mindful non-participation. Investigate the process of the mind transitioning into stillness through abandoning all effort and be curious in regards to the natural arises of stillness within the mind through not adding any energy / doing to it.
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