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Re: [jhana_insight] Mindfulness of the breath during conversations

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  • Culadasa
    Hi Michael and Daniel, Daniel, sadhu, sadhu, sadhu to you for such excellent advice. I d like to expand a bit on what you have already said in an attempt to
    Message 1 of 8 , Mar 15, 2012
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      Hi Michael and Daniel,

      Daniel, sadhu, sadhu, sadhu to you for such excellent advice. I'd like to expand a bit on what you have already said in an attempt to make it a bit more accessible for Michael and others, and because I feel it is so important.

      Being mindful in daily life, during conversations and while engaged in intellectual activities, is a common challenge. An even greater challenge is to be mindful in emotionally intense and highly charged situations, and when a lot of different things are happening at once. And the latter are the circumstances when mindfulness actually matters the most. Many of us somehow learn to do this as a result of meditating, but usually without quite knowing how. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how we do it, so that we can teach it to others. This is what I have learned:

      We have two different ways of "knowing" things that usually go on simultaneously - attention, and peripheral awareness. Mindfulness really means using peripheral awareness to be introspectively aware of what is going on in our own minds, and also the larger context of the situation we're in. Attention focuses in on details, so it can't observe the mind in an ongoing way, and it can't provide context. In conversations, intellectual tasks, and any kind of emotionally intense situation, attention becomes hyper-focused and peripheral awareness disappears. That is what causes us to lose mindfulness!

      The second instruction Daniel gave you is all about this. It is quite possible to be observing your own mind in peripheral awareness at the same time that attention is focused on something else, like a conversation. When you do this, it gives you the feeling of "watching the mind" even while the mind is engaged in carrying on the conversation, or whatever else it is that attention happens to be engaged in. In other words, two ways of knowing, happening at the same time, provide the "mirror". It allows the mind's activities to be illuminated from "behind", or "within" or "above", or however you might like to describe it.

      It takes practice to get good at doing this. And being grounded in body awareness is a great way to get into this place. But no amount of practice and skill will get you very far in intense emotional situations, because attention sucks up all of your capacity for consciousness, leaving none behind for peripheral awareness. This is where meditation really helps. The mind becomes more powerful, so, providing you have developed the habit of introspective peripheral awareness, you are able to mindful even in situations where you might otherwise not be.

      The reason that some of us have acquired this skill at sustaining peripheral awareness and this enhanced conscious power of the mind is that we have been using it all along to help us succeed in our meditation. Early on, we noticed that when we became too focused, we either forgot what we were doing or we got dull and dozy. So we learned to avoid becoming hyper-focused by sustaining peripheral awareness while we focused. Then, the way we ultimately overcame dullness and distractions was by recognizing them as soon as they arose so that we could correct for them. And we did this by converting our peripheral awareness into introspective awareness so that we always knew what was happening in our minds. Eventually, not only introspective peripheral awareness, but the correcting process itself became automatic, and we were good meditators as a result. But sustained introspective peripheral awareness as a habit spills over into daily life as well. So we also found ourselves being much more mindful, even while working and talking to people and fighting with our partners. This was, of course, a tremendous bonus, and actually leads to Insight.

      Those of us who have acquired this skill and ability have done it largely by accident. I know that my own successes in both meditation and life would have come about much more quickly if someone had explained these details to me. So that is why I am so happy to pass it along to you. Cultivate peripheral awareness both on and off the cushion. learn to sustain peripheral awareness even when you are focusing very closely. Transmute peripheral awareness from being all about what is happening outside of the mind to being about what is happening inside the mind as well. Then you can:

      1. Apply your attention fully to the conversation (or other activity), while at the same time
      2. Remaining grounded in the present circumstances, aware of your body, and aware of what is going on in your mind - i.e. what you are feeling and doing or saying or thinking, why you are doing or saying or thinking it, and whether or not it is really what you want to be doing or saying or thinking. In other words, clear comprehension, rooted in a habitual matrix of awareness, that has been perfected in meditation.
      3. When you have achieved unification of mind and single-pointed concentration in meditation, you will be experiencing powerful, perfectly focused attention (i.e. directed and sustained attention) coupled with equally powerful introspective awareness of the ongoing state and activities of your own mind (i.e. mindfulness with clear comprehension). These are jhana factors, and are naturally accompanied by the other jhana factors of joy and happiness. They transfer quite readily to daily life, although obviously without the same intensity as in meditation. The result in daily life is not only powerful mindfulness, but happiness, tranquility, and equanimity.

      I hope this is helpful.
      Much love and joy to you both,
      Culadasa




      From: Daniel B. <drbf2@...>
      To: jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com
      Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 9:17 AM
      Subject: Re: [jhana_insight] Mindfulness of the breath during conversations

       

      Hi MIke,

      Mindfulness is an activity of the attention that requires volition. So is the conversation, or anything else you might be doing. Whereas simple physical activities will usually allow you to split you intentions resulting in a very rapid oscillation of intentions between those pertaining to the activity and the maintaining of mindfulness, unfortunately intellectual labor of any sort will not allow this. Or at least requires a much finer level of training, possible but harder.

      There are some other options, which in my experience that can reduce this inner perceptual split.

      1/ Apply your full attention consciously into the conversation process. Make the thinking and conversing very intentional and conscious. 

      2/ Spend time setting up a restructured matrix of awareness that can become habitual and used for such times, such as relaxing into and remaining grounded in your body, or experiencing phenomena as if in the mirror of awareness, or running a mantra etc. When these are well trained they cease to require much volitional attention and can be trained to serve as a broader ground or base of awareness that will blend into and contain intellectual activities in a way that seemingly lights them up from "behind" or "withing". It will never be perfect, but the activities of the intellect can become in this way much more integrated into the knowingness of awareness. 

      3/ If you are doing a lot of samatha practice, you can get the jhana factors up and running in your life, these can be consciously used as the matrix for activities and experience, so for example when you are speaking you can allow your conversation and thought to be permeated with tranquility or happiness. You conduct it through the body and the mind lie a kind of energy that permeates. 

      Much love,

      Daniel


      --- On Mon, 3/12/12, mjchu76 <mjchu76@...> wrote:

      From: mjchu76 <mjchu76@...>
      Subject: [jhana_insight] Mindfulness of the breath during conversations
      To: jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com
      Date: Monday, March 12, 2012, 11:40 AM

       


      I find the practice of mindfulness in the breath during conversations among the hardest of the mindfulness practices as my mind could quite easily get carried away with thoughts or, at other times, I would get too obsorbed in the breath and become too detached to the conversation. I would appreciate some tips if you have success in this practice.

      Thank you,
      Mike



    • Debra Tsai
      Thanks you so much Culadasa. It is very helpful!   Debra ________________________________ From: Culadasa To:
      Message 2 of 8 , Mar 15, 2012
      • 0 Attachment
        Thanks you so much Culadasa. It is very helpful!
         
        Debra

        From: Culadasa <culadasa@...>
        To: "jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com" <jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com>
        Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2012 2:47 PM
        Subject: Re: [jhana_insight] Mindfulness of the breath during conversations
         
        Hi Michael and Daniel,

        Daniel, sadhu, sadhu, sadhu to you for such excellent advice. I'd like to expand a bit on what you have already said in an attempt to make it a bit more accessible for Michael and others, and because I feel it is so important.

        Being mindful in daily life, during conversations and while engaged in intellectual activities, is a common challenge. An even greater challenge is to be mindful in emotionally intense and highly charged situations, and when a lot of different things are happening at once. And the latter are the circumstances when mindfulness actually matters the most. Many of us somehow learn to do this as a result of meditating, but usually without quite knowing how. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how we do it, so that we can teach it to others. This is what I have learned:

        We have two different ways of "knowing" things that usually go on simultaneously - attention, and peripheral awareness. Mindfulness really means using peripheral awareness to be introspectively aware of what is going on in our own minds, and also the larger context of the situation we're in. Attention focuses in on details, so it can't observe the mind in an ongoing way, and it can't provide context. In conversations, intellectual tasks, and any kind of emotionally intense situation, attention becomes hyper-focused and peripheral awareness disappears. That is what causes us to lose mindfulness!

        The second instruction Daniel gave you is all about this. It is quite possible to be observing your own mind in peripheral awareness at the same time that attention is focused on something else, like a conversation. When you do this, it gives you the feeling of "watching the mind" even while the mind is engaged in carrying on the conversation, or whatever else it is that attention happens to be engaged in. In other words, two ways of knowing, happening at the same time, provide the "mirror". It allows the mind's activities to be illuminated from "behind", or "within" or "above", or however you might like to describe it.

        It takes practice to get good at doing this. And being grounded in body awareness is a great way to get into this place. But no amount of practice and skill will get you very far in intense emotional situations, because attention sucks up all of your capacity for consciousness, leaving none behind for peripheral awareness. This is where meditation really helps. The mind becomes more powerful, so, providing you have developed the habit of introspective peripheral awareness, you are able to mindful even in situations where you might otherwise not be.

        The reason that some of us have acquired this skill at sustaining peripheral awareness and this enhanced conscious power of the mind is that we have been using it all along to help us succeed in our meditation. Early on, we noticed that when we became too focused, we either forgot what we were doing or we got dull and dozy. So we learned to avoid becoming hyper-focused by sustaining peripheral awareness while we focused. Then, the way we ultimately overcame dullness and distractions was by recognizing them as soon as they arose so that we could correct for them. And we did this by converting our peripheral awareness into introspective awareness so that we always knew what was happening in our minds. Eventually, not only introspective peripheral awareness, but the correcting process itself became automatic, and we were good meditators as a result. But sustained introspective peripheral awareness as a habit spills over into daily life as well. So we also found ourselves being much more mindful, even while working and talking to people and fighting with our partners. This was, of course, a tremendous bonus, and actually leads to Insight.

        Those of us who have acquired this skill and ability have done it largely by accident. I know that my own successes in both meditation and life would have come about much more quickly if someone had explained these details to me. So that is why I am so happy to pass it along to you. Cultivate peripheral awareness both on and off the cushion. learn to sustain peripheral awareness even when you are focusing very closely. Transmute peripheral awareness from being all about what is happening outside of the mind to being about what is happening inside the mind as well. Then you can:

        1. Apply your attention fully to the conversation (or other activity), while at the same time
        2. Remaining grounded in the present circumstances, aware of your body, and aware of what is going on in your mind - i.e. what you are feeling and doing or saying or thinking, why you are doing or saying or thinking it, and whether or not it is really what you want to be doing or saying or thinking. In other words, clear comprehension, rooted in a habitual matrix of awareness, that has been perfected in meditation.
        3. When you have achieved unification of mind and single-pointed concentration in meditation, you will be experiencing powerful, perfectly focused attention (i.e. directed and sustained attention) coupled with equally powerful introspective awareness of the ongoing state and activities of your own mind (i.e. mindfulness with clear comprehension). These are jhana factors, and are naturally accompanied by the other jhana factors of joy and happiness. They transfer quite readily to daily life, although obviously without the same intensity as in meditation. The result in daily life is not only powerful mindfulness, but happiness, tranquility, and equanimity.

        I hope this is helpful.
        Much love and joy to you both,
        Culadasa



        From: Daniel B. <drbf2@...>
        To: jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com
        Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 9:17 AM
        Subject: Re: [jhana_insight] Mindfulness of the breath during conversations
         
        Hi MIke,
        Mindfulness is an activity of the attention that requires volition. So is the conversation, or anything else you might be doing. Whereas simple physical activities will usually allow you to split you intentions resulting in a very rapid oscillation of intentions between those pertaining to the activity and the maintaining of mindfulness, unfortunately intellectual labor of any sort will not allow this. Or at least requires a much finer level of training, possible but harder.
        There are some other options, which in my experience that can reduce this inner perceptual split.
        1/ Apply your full attention consciously into the conversation process. Make the thinking and conversing very intentional and conscious. 
        2/ Spend time setting up a restructured matrix of awareness that can become habitual and used for such times, such as relaxing into and remaining grounded in your body, or experiencing phenomena as if in the mirror of awareness, or running a mantra etc. When these are well trained they cease to require much volitional attention and can be trained to serve as a broader ground or base of awareness that will blend into and contain intellectual activities in a way that seemingly lights them up from "behind" or "withing". It will never be perfect, but the activities of the intellect can become in this way much more integrated into the knowingness of awareness. 
        3/ If you are doing a lot of samatha practice, you can get the jhana factors up and running in your life, these can be consciously used as the matrix for activities and experience, so for example when you are speaking you can allow your conversation and thought to be permeated with tranquility or happiness. You conduct it through the body and the mind lie a kind of energy that permeates. 
        Much love,
        Daniel
        --- On Mon, 3/12/12, mjchu76 <mjchu76@...> wrote:

        From: mjchu76 <mjchu76@...>
        Subject: [jhana_insight] Mindfulness of the breath during conversations
        To: jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com
        Date: Monday, March 12, 2012, 11:40 AM

         
        I find the practice of mindfulness in the breath during conversations among the hardest of the mindfulness practices as my mind could quite easily get carried away with thoughts or, at other times, I would get too obsorbed in the breath and become too detached to the conversation. I would appreciate some tips if you have success in this practice. Thank you, Mike
      • Michael Chu
        I want to thank you and Daniel for your kind advices and detailed guidances.  I am truly grateful.   If you have time, would you please explain the
        Message 3 of 8 , Mar 15, 2012
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          I want to thank you and Daniel for your kind advices and detailed guidances.  I am truly grateful.
           
          If you have time, would you please explain the significance of a mind that stops thinking?  If you are busy, which  I know you very often are, I would do my own research.  Or, if you like, you can point me to a good reading on this subject.
           
          Thank you.
           
           
          Michael Chu

          From: Culadasa <culadasa@...>
          To: "mjchu76@..." <mjchu76@...>
          Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2012 5:48 PM
          Subject: Re: [jhana_insight] Mindfulness of the breath during conversations
          Hi Michael,

          Your ordinary mind is incapable of thinking in any other way but in terms of objects that either exist or don't exist. That is a limitation of the ordinary mind. You, like everyone else, feel like a separate object that has some some sort of continuous existence right now. When you think about the future, your mind can only conceive of two possibilities - it (meaning "you") will either continue to exist, or cease to exist. If someone says no you won't continue, the only conclusion your mind can draw is that you (it) will be annihilated in the future. If someone says, no you won't be annihilated, your mind naturally assumes you will continue to exist.

          Now you seem to have narrowed it down to either you are going to exist as a reincarnated separate being who is eternally trapped in a cesspool of blind beings, or else "you" are going to dissolve into some other self-existent "thing" that is the cesspool itself. The third alternative, which must already have occurred to you at some point, is to achieve some sort of blessed annihilation that frees the self-existent you from the self-existent cesspool forever. I doubt that any of these three is very appealing to you.

          The good news - they are all equally nonsense. Nonsense based on some false assumptions that your ordinary mind cannot help but making. There is a much greater truth waiting to be discovered. But it can only be discovered when your mind STOPS. So quit trying to figure it out. That's a waste of time. Accept that no matter how your mind chooses to look at things, it's not only wrong, but produces a pretty nasty picture. Follow your own advice:

          "Instead of spending so much time on speculations, I should be focusing on my meditation and figure it out myself."

          Much love,
          Culadasa
          From: "mjchu76@..." <mjchu76@...>
          To: culadasa <culadasa@...>; FRANK KUAN <FCCKUAN@...>; Tracy Young <cestlabonnevie@...>
          Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2012 4:11 PM
          Subject: Re: [jhana_insight] Mindfulness of the breath during conversations
          It is very well put. But I really, really, REALLY don't want to one with the universal cesspool! Can I opt out? If I am one with it already, I like to be free from it.
          Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®
          From: Culadasa <culadasa@...>
          Sender: jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com
          Date: Thu, 15 Mar 2012 14:47:03 -0700 (PDT)
          To: jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com<jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com>
          ReplyTo: jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com
          Subject: Re: [jhana_insight] Mindfulness of the breath during conversations

           
          Hi Michael and Daniel,

          Daniel, sadhu, sadhu, sadhu to you for such excellent advice. I'd like to expand a bit on what you have already said in an attempt to make it a bit more accessible for Michael and others, and because I feel it is so important.

          Being mindful in daily life, during conversations and while engaged in intellectual activities, is a common challenge. An even greater challenge is to be mindful in emotionally intense and highly charged situations, and when a lot of different things are happening at once. And the latter are the circumstances when mindfulness actually matters the most. Many of us somehow learn to do this as a result of meditating, but usually without quite knowing how. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how we do it, so that we can teach it to others. This is what I have learned:

          We have two different ways of "knowing" things that usually go on simultaneously - attention, and peripheral awareness. Mindfulness really means using peripheral awareness to be introspectively aware of what is going on in our own minds, and also the larger context of the situation we're in. Attention focuses in on details, so it can't observe the mind in an ongoing way, and it can't provide context. In conversations, intellectual tasks, and any kind of emotionally intense situation, attention becomes hyper-focused and peripheral awareness disappears. That is what causes us to lose mindfulness!

          The second instruction Daniel gave you is all about this. It is quite possible to be observing your own mind in peripheral awareness at the same time that attention is focused on something else, like a conversation. When you do this, it gives you the feeling of "watching the mind" even while the mind is engaged in carrying on the conversation, or whatever else it is that attention happens to be engaged in. In other words, two ways of knowing, happening at the same time, provide the "mirror". It allows the mind's activities to be illuminated from "behind", or "within" or "above", or however you might like to describe it.

          It takes practice to get good at doing this. And being grounded in body awareness is a great way to get into this place. But no amount of practice and skill will get you very far in intense emotional situations, because attention sucks up all of your capacity for consciousness, leaving none behind for peripheral awareness. This is where meditation really helps. The mind becomes more powerful, so, providing you have developed the habit of introspective peripheral awareness, you are able to mindful even in situations where you might otherwise not be.

          The reason that some of us have acquired this skill at sustaining peripheral awareness and this enhanced conscious power of the mind is that we have been using it all along to help us succeed in our meditation. Early on, we noticed that when we became too focused, we either forgot what we were doing or we got dull and dozy. So we learned to avoid becoming hyper-focused by sustaining peripheral awareness while we focused. Then, the way we ultimately overcame dullness and distractions was by recognizing them as soon as they arose so that we could correct for them. And we did this by converting our peripheral awareness into introspective awareness so that we always knew what was happening in our minds. Eventually, not only introspective peripheral awareness, but the correcting process itself became automatic, and we were good meditators as a result. But sustained introspective peripheral awareness as a habit spills over into daily life as well. So we also found ourselves being much more mindful, even while working and talking to people and fighting with our partners. This was, of course, a tremendous bonus, and actually leads to Insight.

          Those of us who have acquired this skill and ability have done it largely by accident. I know that my own successes in both meditation and life would have come about much more quickly if someone had explained these details to me. So that is why I am so happy to pass it along to you. Cultivate peripheral awareness both on and off the cushion. learn to sustain peripheral awareness even when you are focusing very closely. Transmute peripheral awareness from being all about what is happening outside of the mind to being about what is happening inside the mind as well. Then you can:

          1. Apply your attention fully to the conversation (or other activity), while at the same time
          2. Remaining grounded in the present circumstances, aware of your body, and aware of what is going on in your mind - i.e. what you are feeling and doing or saying or thinking, why you are doing or saying or thinking it, and whether or not it is really what you want to be doing or saying or thinking. In other words, clear comprehension, rooted in a habitual matrix of awareness, that has been perfected in meditation.
          3. When you have achieved unification of mind and single-pointed concentration in meditation, you will be experiencing powerful, perfectly focused attention (i.e. directed and sustained attention) coupled with equally powerful introspective awareness of the ongoing state and activities of your own mind (i.e. mindfulness with clear comprehension). These are jhana factors, and are naturally accompanied by the other jhana factors of joy and happiness. They transfer quite readily to daily life, although obviously without the same intensity as in meditation. The result in daily life is not only powerful mindfulness, but happiness, tranquility, and equanimity.

          I hope this is helpful.
          Much love and joy to you both,
          Culadasa



          From: Daniel B. <drbf2@...>
          To: jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com
          Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 9:17 AM
          Subject: Re: [jhana_insight] Mindfulness of the breath during conversations
           
          Hi MIke,
          Mindfulness is an activity of the attention that requires volition. So is the conversation, or anything else you might be doing. Whereas simple physical activities will usually allow you to split you intentions resulting in a very rapid oscillation of intentions between those pertaining to the activity and the maintaining of mindfulness, unfortunately intellectual labor of any sort will not allow this. Or at least requires a much finer level of training, possible but harder.
          There are some other options, which in my experience that can reduce this inner perceptual split.
          1/ Apply your full attention consciously into the conversation process. Make the thinking and conversing very intentional and conscious. 
          2/ Spend time setting up a restructured matrix of awareness that can become habitual and used for such times, such as relaxing into and remaining grounded in your body, or experiencing phenomena as if in the mirror of awareness, or running a mantra etc. When these are well trained they cease to require much volitional attention and can be trained to serve as a broader ground or base of awareness that will blend into and contain intellectual activities in a way that seemingly lights them up from "behind" or "withing". It will never be perfect, but the activities of the intellect can become in this way much more integrated into the knowingness of awareness. 
          3/ If you are doing a lot of samatha practice, you can get the jhana factors up and running in your life, these can be consciously used as the matrix for activities and experience, so for example when you are speaking you can allow your conversation and thought to be permeated with tranquility or happiness. You conduct it through the body and the mind lie a kind of energy that permeates. 
          Much love,
          Daniel
          --- On Mon, 3/12/12, mjchu76 <mjchu76@...> wrote:

          From: mjchu76 <mjchu76@...>
          Subject: [jhana_insight] Mindfulness of the breath during conversations
          To: jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com
          Date: Monday, March 12, 2012, 11:40 AM

           
          I find the practice of mindfulness in the breath during conversations among the hardest of the mindfulness practices as my mind could quite easily get carried away with thoughts or, at other times, I would get too obsorbed in the breath and become too detached to the conversation. I would appreciate some tips if you have success in this practice. Thank you, Mike
        • Daniel B.
          Dear Culadasa, Thank you so much for this very elegant and detailed elaboration! I would never have thought to apply the word peripheral to consciousness,
          Message 4 of 8 , Mar 16, 2012
          • 0 Attachment
            Dear Culadasa,

            Thank you so much for this very elegant and detailed elaboration! I would never have thought to apply the word "peripheral" to consciousness, but it does work. I have often symbolized consciousness to myself as a king of self-luminous and malleable lens, not unlike the lens in the human eye, but more flexible and being its own "light" source. It can throw its focus forward to a fine point, or broaden out seemingly endlessly (two extremes of attention) or can turn inward and focus in whatever plane within it wishes. It also has the capacity to simply rest int its own self-luminous transparency, and simply be itself. It can see how its own experiences are contained within it. It can become absorbed in its own emptiness or in its own content, or in any quality thereof. This is not the whole story as there will still tend to be a primary organizational focus. This focus becomes less of boundary and more of a ? i have no word for this? . The metaphor is not perfect because a  lens has boundaries, but it works for me, and might be a bit closer to what the brain, working as a whole actually does, working as an integral whole.

            with metta,

            Daniel

            --- On Thu, 3/15/12, Culadasa <culadasa@...> wrote:

            From: Culadasa <culadasa@...>
            Subject: Re: [jhana_insight] Mindfulness of the breath during conversations
            To: "jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com" <jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com>
            Date: Thursday, March 15, 2012, 5:47 PM

             

            Hi Michael and Daniel,

            Daniel, sadhu, sadhu, sadhu to you for such excellent advice. I'd like to expand a bit on what you have already said in an attempt to make it a bit more accessible for Michael and others, and because I feel it is so important.

            Being mindful in daily life, during conversations and while engaged in intellectual activities, is a common challenge. An even greater challenge is to be mindful in emotionally intense and highly charged situations, and when a lot of different things are happening at once. And the latter are the circumstances when mindfulness actually matters the most. Many of us somehow learn to do this as a result of meditating, but usually without quite knowing how. I've spent a lot of time trying to figure out how we do it, so that we can teach it to others. This is what I have learned:

            We have two different ways of "knowing" things that usually go on simultaneously - attention, and peripheral awareness. Mindfulness really means using peripheral awareness to be introspectively aware of what is going on in our own minds, and also the larger context of the situation we're in. Attention focuses in on details, so it can't observe the mind in an ongoing way, and it can't provide context. In conversations, intellectual tasks, and any kind of emotionally intense situation, attention becomes hyper-focused and peripheral awareness disappears. That is what causes us to lose mindfulness!

            The second instruction Daniel gave you is all about this. It is quite possible to be observing your own mind in peripheral awareness at the same time that attention is focused on something else, like a conversation. When you do this, it gives you the feeling of "watching the mind" even while the mind is engaged in carrying on the conversation, or whatever else it is that attention happens to be engaged in. In other words, two ways of knowing, happening at the same time, provide the "mirror". It allows the mind's activities to be illuminated from "behind", or "within" or "above", or however you might like to describe it.

            It takes practice to get good at doing this. And being grounded in body awareness is a great way to get into this place. But no amount of practice and skill will get you very far in intense emotional situations, because attention sucks up all of your capacity for consciousness, leaving none behind for peripheral awareness. This is where meditation really helps. The mind becomes more powerful, so, providing you have developed the habit of introspective peripheral awareness, you are able to mindful even in situations where you might otherwise not be.

            The reason that some of us have acquired this skill at sustaining peripheral awareness and this enhanced conscious power of the mind is that we have been using it all along to help us succeed in our meditation. Early on, we noticed that when we became too focused, we either forgot what we were doing or we got dull and dozy. So we learned to avoid becoming hyper-focused by sustaining peripheral awareness while we focused. Then, the way we ultimately overcame dullness and distractions was by recognizing them as soon as they arose so that we could correct for them. And we did this by converting our peripheral awareness into introspective awareness so that we always knew what was happening in our minds. Eventually, not only introspective peripheral awareness, but the correcting process itself became automatic, and we were good meditators as a result. But sustained introspective peripheral awareness as a habit spills over into daily life as well. So we also found ourselves being much more mindful, even while working and talking to people and fighting with our partners. This was, of course, a tremendous bonus, and actually leads to Insight.

            Those of us who have acquired this skill and ability have done it largely by accident. I know that my own successes in both meditation and life would have come about much more quickly if someone had explained these details to me. So that is why I am so happy to pass it along to you. Cultivate peripheral awareness both on and off the cushion. learn to sustain peripheral awareness even when you are focusing very closely. Transmute peripheral awareness from being all about what is happening outside of the mind to being about what is happening inside the mind as well. Then you can:

            1. Apply your attention fully to the conversation (or other activity), while at the same time
            2. Remaining grounded in the present circumstances, aware of your body, and aware of what is going on in your mind - i.e. what you are feeling and doing or saying or thinking, why you are doing or saying or thinking it, and whether or not it is really what you want to be doing or saying or thinking. In other words, clear comprehension, rooted in a habitual matrix of awareness, that has been perfected in meditation.
            3. When you have achieved unification of mind and single-pointed concentration in meditation, you will be experiencing powerful, perfectly focused attention (i.e. directed and sustained attention) coupled with equally powerful introspective awareness of the ongoing state and activities of your own mind (i.e. mindfulness with clear comprehension). These are jhana factors, and are naturally accompanied by the other jhana factors of joy and happiness. They transfer quite readily to daily life, although obviously without the same intensity as in meditation. The result in daily life is not only powerful mindfulness, but happiness, tranquility, and equanimity.

            I hope this is helpful.
            Much love and joy to you both,
            Culadasa




            From: Daniel B. <drbf2@...>
            To: jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com
            Sent: Monday, March 12, 2012 9:17 AM
            Subject: Re: [jhana_insight] Mindfulness of the breath during conversations

             

            Hi MIke,

            Mindfulness is an activity of the attention that requires volition. So is the conversation, or anything else you might be doing. Whereas simple physical activities will usually allow you to split you intentions resulting in a very rapid oscillation of intentions between those pertaining to the activity and the maintaining of mindfulness, unfortunately intellectual labor of any sort will not allow this. Or at least requires a much finer level of training, possible but harder.

            There are some other options, which in my experience that can reduce this inner perceptual split.

            1/ Apply your full attention consciously into the conversation process. Make the thinking and conversing very intentional and conscious. 

            2/ Spend time setting up a restructured matrix of awareness that can become habitual and used for such times, such as relaxing into and remaining grounded in your body, or experiencing phenomena as if in the mirror of awareness, or running a mantra etc. When these are well trained they cease to require much volitional attention and can be trained to serve as a broader ground or base of awareness that will blend into and contain intellectual activities in a way that seemingly lights them up from "behind" or "withing". It will never be perfect, but the activities of the intellect can become in this way much more integrated into the knowingness of awareness. 

            3/ If you are doing a lot of samatha practice, you can get the jhana factors up and running in your life, these can be consciously used as the matrix for activities and experience, so for example when you are speaking you can allow your conversation and thought to be permeated with tranquility or happiness. You conduct it through the body and the mind lie a kind of energy that permeates. 

            Much love,

            Daniel


            --- On Mon, 3/12/12, mjchu76 <mjchu76@...> wrote:

            From: mjchu76 <mjchu76@...>
            Subject: [jhana_insight] Mindfulness of the breath during conversations
            To: jhana_insight@yahoogroups.com
            Date: Monday, March 12, 2012, 11:40 AM

             


            I find the practice of mindfulness in the breath during conversations among the hardest of the mindfulness practices as my mind could quite easily get carried away with thoughts or, at other times, I would get too obsorbed in the breath and become too detached to the conversation. I would appreciate some tips if you have success in this practice.

            Thank you,
            Mike



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