Skill in Mindfulness

During this meditation you will keep the touch of your thumbs within your mind, gently remembering it, in order to strengthen and increase the continuity of your mindfulness in both mindfulness of breathing and in your daily life.

Habitual forgetting, the opposite to mindfulness, refers to habitual forgetting your present experience, forgetting what you are doing now. This can be observed when you realise that you have driven your car two blocks without being completely aware of it.

Mindfulness in this sense refers to clearly comprehending what you have been experiencing, and how you have been relating to it, over a period of time.

This meditation skill weakens: 

• MH 04: Habitual Forgetting: Habitually forgetting your meditation object.

This simple act of remembering the touch of your thumbs will strengthen your mindfulness, making you more present, and weakening any habit your mind may have of forgetting what you are doing/experiencing now.

By practicing this meditation skill separately for a few days and then bringing awareness of the touch of your thumbs into your daily mindfulness of breathing you will weaken and eventually remove the mental habit of forgetting during meditation.

• Meditation Object: The simple experience of your thumbs touching each other. 
• Developing Insight: See if you can notice how little effort it takes to remember this touch, and whenever your attention wanders away from it.

• Hindrance Weakened: MH 04: Habitual Forgetting: Habitually forgetting your meditation object.
• Length: 30 min. 

Your meditation is the same except that once you are physically and mentally relaxed, you bring awareness to remembering the touch of your thumbs to develop your mindfulness. 

Step 1:  With hands in your lap, thumbs lightly touching, begin your meditation with mindfulness of your body in Meditation 02.

Step 2: Use slow, softening breaths to relax as in Meditation 03-04.

Meditation Additions:

Step 3: Bring awareness to the touch of your thumbs. 

Step 4: Put gentle effort towards keeping that experience within your mind, remembering it, and noticing anytime your attention wanders away from it.

Step 5: Apply the GOSS formula when your attention wanders.

You are ready to progress when:

• You understand how to keep the touch of your thumbs within your mind through relaxation rather than through effort.

Note: it is important to note that 'distraction' describes when you become lost within your thinking and forget what you are doing, wandering refers to when you attention moves to thoughts, but you don't become lost within them.

After your daily meditation, make a commitment with yourself to keep a general awareness of your body in the background throughout the day. 

Keeping some mindfulness of your body in this way will protect you from getting completely lost and make you more aware of habitual patterns.

Do this by following the simple formula you learnt above:

• GOSS: Ground --> Observe --> Soften --> Smile.

Six tips to make meditating in daily life successful.

Tip 1: Your body is always present:

• Your body is always here and now, where your mind has the ability to create realities of past and future. Your body knows nothing of past or future and can always be trusted to be anchored in reality.

Tip 2: Loosen up your attention:

• Don't forget to loosen up your attention and allow it to wander, insight isn't developed by fighting your mind but by developing understanding about its behaviour.

Tip 3: Your attention will wander:

• At some stage during the day, you may notice that your attention has wandered from your body, or that you have forgotten that you are trying to be meditating in daily life. Wonderful, this is an opportunity for insight.

Tip 4: Observe it happening by itself:

• Insight means to notice that your mind does some things autonomously, without your help. The term for this is: anatta: anna-tar = not-self. It means that many things like when your attention wanders, or you become lost within thoughts, when watched can be seen to be happening autonomously, by themself.

Tip 5: Reward your mind for good behaviour:

• Noticing your mind's autonomous nature leads to a sense of freedom and peace. "I don't have to control this anymore; relax." Simply noticing the wandering or forgetting of your mind and smiling to celebrate this remembering, rewards your mind for coming back to mindfulness. Your mind will learn new behaviour more easily if you celebrate the noticing instead of criticising the forgetting.

Tip 6: Acknowledge with a smile:

• If you do notice that your mind has wandered, smile, and become aware of your body again, in a general, relaxed way, and continue your day. Check in every so often and ask: "Am I still being mindful of my body?" Repeating this in a precise, yet relaxed way, combined with the support of your daily meditation, will develop positive results that you will begin to clearly see.

From your foundation of GOSS, you can begin to train attention skills learnt in seated meditation, into your daily life.

This Meditation in Daily Life:

1. As you move through your day keep a general awareness of your feet touching the ground.
2. Moving around during the day, check-in and notice when your attention wanders from this.
3. Soften interest in the distraction and simply bring awareness back to your feet again.