MIDL Meditation 31-36

In MIDL Mindfulness Meditation Training 31/52 you take the foundation of loving kindness developed in the two previous training, to embrace all beings. This is done by first generating the loving feeling towards yourself and those close to you, then gradually widening it to your neighbours, suburb, city, country, world to the whole universe. In this way loving kindness is cultivated to be unconditional and not only focused towards those that you can benefit from. When decondtioning defensive habitual patterns it is necessary to replace these habits, once weakened, with positive qualities of heart if we are to live a meaningful life. 

In MIDL Mindfulness Meditation Training 32/52 it is time to develop forgiveness towards yourself and others in order to put down the pain of the past. Forgiveness does not say that what happened is ok, but rather it says "What has happened, has happened and I can not change it; I will not suffer over this anymore". As long as we do not forgive our self or others we will be living a life conditioned by our relationship to the past. By putting down our pain through forgiveness, the pains of the past come to an end and awareness more easily dwells within the present experience creating the conditions for wisdom to arise 

In MIDL Mindfulness Meditation Training 33/52 you intentionally bring awareness towards the simple things within your life in order to cultivate a sense of gratitude. While forgiveness is concerned with healing your relationship towards the past, gratitude is concerned with establishing awareness within the present experience through removing longing for the future. When gratitude is not present we lose sight of what is important within our life and start focusing on how we feel things should be. This creates a divide between reality and our desires causing suffering to arise. 

 In MIDL Mindfulness Meditation Training 34/52 you cultivate the MIDL skill of abandoning the desire 'to do' within your mind, by engaging and abandoning the desire to move within different parts of your body. Through this softening doorway you will learn how to observe the resistance that arises within your body from the desire to react and also the peace that arises within your body and mind when that desire is abandoned. 'Lifting / dropping' is also used as a MIDL Softening Technique for lowering the symptoms of anxiety when based on habitual chronic fear due to past trauma. 

In MIDL Mindfulness Meditation Training 35/52 you cultivate the skill of using slow, diaphragmatic breathing to borrow the deflation of the out-breath in order to bring about deep physical and mental relaxation as a basis for the MIDL Softening skill. Once this skill of 'abandoning' with the deflation of the out-breath has been developed it can be used in seated meditation for calming the five hindrances to meditation and in daily life as a way of deconditioning harmful habitual patterns of reaction. 

In MIDL Mindfulness Meditation Training 36/52 you cultivate the skill of slowly releasing the out-breath through your nose, as if sighing, in order to experience deep mental relaxation as a basis for 'abandoning' participation with all experience. Extending the length of the out-breath slowly through your nose has the effect of relaxing the frontal lobes of brain creating the conditions for mindful non-participation. This Softening skill is also used for deconditioning the unpleasantness attached to memories.