by Venerable De Hong
PART I - YOUR ENVIRONMENT
Let’s take a few deep breaths. Allow your body to settle into its posture. Make sure that your posture is proper and stabilized. Feel the contact between your posture and the chair/cushion that you are sitting on. Relax your body and mind with a smile.
A gentle smile is a skillful way for a meditator to relax the body and mind. It makes you feel good naturally; it relaxes the body and mind; and it gives you a sense of alertness that you are meditating. Be mindful that the feeling and relaxation are fading away as well. It helps to smile throughout the day.
NOTE: nobody can take away from your ability to smile.
Let’s check in with your surrounding-the spaces around you. You can start from your left (or right) and make a 360-degree circle, the space above your head, and the space underneath the chair. Notice the room temperature.
Check in with your mind-how busy (with thoughts) or restless (wandering around)
What you experience with your eyes closed
Your sense of hearing-knowing you cannot shut down your hearing consciousness
Your sense of smell
Your sense of taste
Your sense of touch-how the clothes that you wear feel on your body
This is one way to cultivate awareness when you step into a new or different environment; so you can remain calm, don’t get thrown off or easily distracted.
PART II - BODY SCAN
As you scan your every part of your body, be mind of any sensation, tension, tightness, or physical pain.
Let’s bring your attention to the top of your head.
Be aware of your whole head, your hair, the back of your head, then to your face
Your forehead, both sides of your temples
Your eyebrows, your eyes, eye lids, eye lashes
Let pay attention to the spot between your eyebrows. Notice that when you are thinking, even during meditation, that spot becomes tense. As you observe the spot (between your eyebrows) and smile, you relax it, letting go of your thinking.
Be aware of your ears, ear lobes
Your nose, your nostrils, be mindful of the sensations of your breath at the nostrils
Your lips, your jaws, gums, teeth, and your tongue. Notice how your tongue is positioned effortlessly. Make sure your jaws are not clenched together. When you suppress your negative emotion, such as anger, your jaws are locked in tightly. It can become a habit. If you smile, you can relax and release your jaws.
Be aware of your chin, your cheeks, basically the muscles on your face. When you think, your facial muscles become tense. You can relax them with a smile and letting go of your thinking.
Pause
Scan your throat
The front of your body
Collar bones
Your chest
Your lungs
And your heart. See if you are able to notice your heart beats
Continuing to your tummy/stomach
Be aware of all the internal organs in your tummy
Feel the movements of the air in your tummy as you breathe in and out. When you breathe in, air (oxygen) comes in, your tummy is expanding (we call it, “rising”). When you breathe out, air (carbon dioxide) leaves your tummy, it is shrinking (we call it “falling”). The movements in your tummy can be your source of focus (if you cannot focus in your breath) when you practice concentration.
Pause
Let’s bring your attention to your left arm
Be aware of your biceps and triceps, tendon, muscle, and skin
Connecting to your elbow, noticing tendon, ligament, and skin
Connecting to your forearm, tendon muscle, and skin
Connecting to your wrist, tendon, ligament, and skin
Connecting to your left hand: all five fingers, fingernails, the ligaments on each finger, the contacts between the fingers.
Do the same thing with your right arm
Feel the sensation of your hands, holding together or touching your body. The sensation may be warm or cool depending on your body.
Pause
Bring your attention to your neck and shoulders. Notice any tension, tightness, or pain in your neck and shoulder.
As a metaphor, think of your awareness (or attention) as light shining on your body. Light does not talk; it doesn’t react. It shows you what it sees.
So whatever (sensation, tension, or pain that) you notice, just be present with it. As you are present with it, notice the “physical felt sense.”
Scan your whole back, noticing your spine, ribs, bones, muscles, tendon, and skin.
Notice your tailbone, your hip and pelvis, and your buttocks
As you are sitting, feel the contact between your posture and the surface that you are sitting on
Pause
Continuing to your left and right tights. This is the major muscles of your body. Notice the bones, tendon, muscles, and skin
Connecting to your knees. Notice both sides of each knee, your knee cap, the ligaments, and skin
Connecting to your lower legs. Notice the shins and calves, the bones, tendon, muscles, and skin
Connecting to your ankles, the ligaments, and skin
Connecting to your feet, your toes, toenails, the ligaments on each toe, the contacts between your toes
The bottle of each foot, the sole, the arch, the heel
With both feet on the ground, feel the stillness/stability of the ground
Or you can start from your toes all the way to your head. You can certainly add more relevant parts of the body to the practice.
The practice of the body scan helps you to be mindful of your bodily movements. It helps you to be aware of any sensation or issue that the physical body may experience (that you are not aware of without the practice).
However, there are certain parts in the body that you have repressed due to past traumatic experiences. When you practice the body scan, you may not physically feel anything, or you may notice something that can make you feel overwhelmed. If this is the case, you can stop. Perhaps, you can go back and feel the sensation again. If not, talk to your therapist. It’s important that you do.
One reason that you repressed the sensation in your body is that, most likely, your body experienced a certain traumatic experience, you couldn’t deal with it and as a result, repressed that painful experience.
PART III - CONCENTRATION-YOUR BREATH
Bring your attention to your breath and practice concentration by observing (be present with) the in-breath and the out-breath. If possible, note the change of direction from the in-breath to the out-breath, and the out-breath to the in-breath. The change of direction is very subtle to be noticed.
Concentration means that your attention is focused on the breath-here you are cultivating concentration of the mind. You still are aware of thoughts and noise but you ignore them-you cultivate mindfulness as well.
When your mind wanders away or reacts to your thoughts, you patiently bring the mind back to the breath; no need to judge or condemn yourself. You are cultivating patience as well.
If you cannot focus on the breath, you can count your breath. For each in-breath and out-breath, count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, then reverse count, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. This is one way to ground the mind in your breath.
When your mind wanders away or reacts to your thoughts, you patiently bring the mind back to the breath; no need to judge or condemn yourself. Start at 1.
Or you can say “in” as you breathe in, “out” when you breathe out.
Or you can say “happiness” as you breathe in, “stress” when you breathe out.
Or you can recite a prayer or a mantra and focus on your breath.
Whatever that works for you to keep the mind with the breath.
If your mind is restless, meaning that it goes from one place to another, nonstop. Or that your body cannot sit still. You can practice yoga [to slow down your bodily movements and just pay attention to the movements] or walking meditation [to ground the mind in your footsteps]. These are different options to cultivate mindfulness and concentration.
The longer your mind stays with the breath, the greater your concentration, the deeper your mindfulness. Your mental strength and resilience are stronger in dealing with your stress and people. It also means that you can focus better when performing a task, and you are more aware.
PART IV - CONCENTRATION-YOUR THOUGHTS
Bring your attention to your breath and using the breath as your anchor. You can now be aware of the thoughts. This practice enables you to process and sort thru most thoughts in your conscious mind. This will help you to better practice concentration and mindfulness once your mind is cleared of much thoughts in the conscious mind.
First, notice the speed (how fast) that each thought arising and passing away. This indicates the busyness of your mind. A thought can be an image, a picture, a conversation, an experience, an encounter, a sentence, or a phrase-all of these are considered thoughts.
All these thoughts appear because you have either ignored or suppressed them. Allow each thought to rise, accept it and let it go. Notice the next thought.
When you realize that you react to a thought, let it go and patiently come back to the breath.
If you notice your plan, put it aside and not engage in your plan.
When you see your desire, if your desire is not practical and feasible, abandon it. Don’t try to hold on to any desire, even though it makes you feel good, because it will cause suffering.
Continue to process the thoughts in your conscious mind. There comes a time (20-30 minutes later), less thoughts will arise. Meaning that it takes a bit longer for a thought to come up. See if you are able to notice the end of one thought and the beginning of the next one. See graphic below:
If you are able to notice the gap between two thoughts, this is what we called, “pure awareness.” See if you are able to expand that gap. But it’s also very subtle and can be difficult to notice.
NOTE: all thoughts appear (out of nowhere) and disappear (into nowhere). Thoughts don’t last and don’t stay. They are not who you are. So don’t identify yourself with thoughts.
Over time, with practice, your mind is settled, less thoughts, you will notice this deep sense of mindfulness and concentration. This will help you to become mentally strong and resilient in dealing with difficult people/situations.
PROCESSING YOUR TRAUMATIC EXPERIENCES
When your mind is cleared of conscious thoughts, and you feel calm and peaceful, this is the time in which some of your traumas (traumatic experiences) surface to the conscious mind. The reason is that you have repressed your traumas in the unconscious mind. When your mind is settled, your traumatic experiences may come up (to the conscious mind). Your traumatic experiences may also appear in your dreams; or it comes up when you are being triggered by a certain event, sound, or someone. You may feel overwhelmed, upset or depressed (similar to past traumatic experiences of freeze, fight, or flight). If it is too much, then stop.
But if you are able to be present with the traumatic event, watch it for what it is (without feeling overwhelmed); you may be able to investigate and have a better understanding of how it happened and how it affected you. Write it down and keep a journal. Perhaps, you can share it with someone. When you do, you bring it from your unconscious mind to your conscious mind. This is how you process your traumatic experiences, one at a time.
You may not remember everything that happened to you. But if you make an effort, you may be able to recall a lot of the events, write them down; this can trigger you to remember something else. Over time, you will be able to connect the dots. You will be able to remember much of the traumatic experiences.
To move forward with your life, you can practice forgiveness (forgiving people who traumatized you, ask for forgiveness from those you hurt, and forgiving yourself). Practice gratitude, loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy, and equanimity. All of these can help you to become the “whole” person (with mental scars and possibly physical scars). You can lead a life of quality (with peace and happiness) by yourself and with your loved ones and friends.
You may not completely heal from all your trauma experiences but you can live your life fully and productively. You may still be triggered but you wouldn’t feel overwhelmed or frozen because of the trigger.
NOTES: This is one way to process traumatic experiences. There may be other methods. It’s important that you are not re-traumatized (feeling overwhelmed, upset or numb) as you go through it.
PART V - YOUR FEELINGS
First, let’s discuss feelings. A feeling arises when one of your six senses and its corresponding consciousness come into contact with an object.
| Feeling | |
Sense faculty | Sense Consciousness | Object |
Mind | Mental Consciousness | Mind objects (thoughts) |
Eyes | Visual Consciousness | Sights |
Ears | Auditory Consciousness | Sounds |
Nose | Olfactory Consciousness | Aroma |
Tongue | Gustatory Consciousness | Flavor |
Body | Touch Consciousness | Texture |
For example, when you (your eyes) see a flower (sight), associated with your visual consciousness, you feel good (pleasant feeling). Another example: an image of someone (mind object) you don’t like appears in your mind (sense faculty), with your mental consciousness, you may feel upset (unpleasant feeling). Most of our feelings are either pleasant or unpleasant; neutral feeling means we neither like nor dislike a person or an object.
Generally speaking, there are three types of feeling: pleasant, neutral, and unpleasant.
With mindfulness, you can further distinguish these feelings whether they are worldly (mundane) or unworldly (supermundane or spiritual). Thus:
Worldly Feelings | Unworldly Feelings |
Pleasant | Pleasant |
Neutral | Neutral |
Unpleasant | Unpleasant |
So when there’s a feeling arises, you want to be able to tell whether this feeling is worldly or unworldly (supermundane or spiritual). Worldly feelings mean they feelings are conditional (external), temporary, and they don’t last. For example, when someone you care about arises in your mind, you feel really good. But this feeling is quickly fading away; and if you crave for it, you will suffer or feel stressful (lonely or sad because you miss this person). You want to let go of this feeling.
Unworldly feelings arise from your understanding of the Buddha’s teachings and concentration. For example, you understand what “Impermanence or Change” means, you meditate and are able to focus on your breath, your mind is settled and doesn’t wonder; you naturally feel good. The longer is your mind concentrated, your unworldly pleasant feeling lasts longer. You don’t depend on anyone or anything. It comes from your meditation practice.
Let’s say, you understand what “Impermanence” is, but you cannot focus on your breath because your mind keeps wandering, you are not happy with your progress-this is unpleasant worldly feeling. You cause yourself suffering. Learn to let it go and diligently come back to your practice. With time, diligence, and patience, you will be able to focus on your breath and your mind will wander less. You can achieve some concentration and feel pleasant (unworldly). Believe in yourself!
Instruction
As you are sitting, bring your attention to your breath (using your breath as the anchor, meaning that when your mind wanders away, you bring it back to the breath). Just be aware of your feeling, notice how you feeling: pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant.
What causes this feeling?
Is it worldly or unworldly?
How long does it last?
Stay with your breath, notice how you feel next, if the prior feeling fades away. This is how you practice mindfulness of feeling (or feeling tone). You will have a deep understanding of your feelings and how to bring an end to the unpleasant mundane feelings; how you can have unworldly (spiritual) pleasant feelings.
Once you understand how you feel and how quickly that feeling fades away, notice the next feeling and what causes that feeling.