Image from The Darkpsyde.
Tuning in to your natural Happiness is one of the things that you can easily do everyday and it need only take 5 minutes! How?
Meditation.
The practice of meditation has deep and far-reaching benefits, too many to list here and some of which are too subtle to be expressed in words. If you haven’t already got into the practice, I would urge you too.
Let me share with you just one of the benefits of meditation practice.
When we bring the entire focus or attention of our mind to one single object, say our breath, we effectively allow all the mind’s preoccupations to fall away.
A useful analogy that is used in Buddhism is a glass of muddy water. Imagine such a glass. It is murky and lacks clarity. This is rather like the nature and quality of our ‘ordinary’ or ‘conditioned’ mind.
What if you left the glass to stand? If you did not disturb it at all, you would find that the mud settles in the bottom of the glass leaving clear water above it.
The same sort of thing happens with our mind. When we allow it to ’settle’, all our conditioned preoccupations – our fears, anxieties, hurts, guilt, regrets, anger etc – fall away, leaving a mind that radiates the qualities of its natural state – clear, peaceful, joyous, spacious, limitless and free. In short, it reflects your natural state of happiness!
How do you allow your mind to settle? Simple. Give it one object to focus on. The object that is most often used for many good reasons including its presence everywhere you are is the breath. Focus on your breathing WITHOUT effort, judgment, analysis or manipulation (changing it).
Simply place your gentle, soft attention on your breath. Learn to become the observer. That’s all you have to do.
Now, the mind being habituated/conditioned into thinking and jumping from one thought to another, creating all sorts of stories, will want to continue doing this. In other words, your mind is likely to ‘wander’ from your object of focus i.e. your breath, to all its favorite and often unhappy or troubling stories :)
Your job is to notice when it wanders and as soon as you do, to bring it back, gently and humorously to the breath. Now, you may have to do this 500 times in 5 minutes. It doesn’t matter. Each time you do bring it back, you will be allowing the ‘mud’ to settle, which is 500 more times than you’d ever done! With daily practice (or practising several times a day), your mind will wander less and you will enjoy the clear nature of your natural, unconditioned mind.
So simple to do really. Just remember that judging yourself, being impatient with yourself or being alarmed by the contents of your mind (especially your negative emotions and thoughts) are also what you can expect to happen and are themselves, the ‘mud’ that you want to allow to settle!
In other words, as soon as your notice yourself judging, being impatient or being alarmed, bring your attention back to your breath. Really, it is as simple as that!
In time, you will discover the futility and the harm in judging, being impatient and being disappointed or distressed with yourself. You will actually EXPERIENCE it rather than know about it as a piece of intellectual information! And once you EXPERIENCE it, you will be more inclined to avoid doing those things!
There you go! 5 minutes each day to an infinitely happier you!
Blessings!
Lucy Lopez
Tuning in to your natural Happiness!
I try to do this when I’m outside watching nature, but I’ll try your suggestion and focus on my breathing instead. Since I already feel a detachment maybe I can discover my true nature.
[...] often, people who are new to meditation practice may find the experience disconcerting. Take a client of mine, Jake, for [...]