The subtle mind is all about breathing, if you still the breath you still the mind. A peaceful breath is a peaceful mind. The first concentration is to use your breath as your focal point. My mind runs a million miles a second! I tried to settle into the natural ease of my body, returning my mind back to the breath. We are supposed to witness things without reacting to them. In our witnessing consciousness or healthy psychology, we can stop, see, understand, make choices about our thoughts and feelings and have clearer intentions.
We can see it/things/thoughts/feelings/images, what’s in our head rolling around, our mental activity, but not grasp it, just see it. We can still our mind. Not hold on to the mental activity, just see it and let go of it and let it fade away and just witness it come and go. We can control the mental chatter, shut it down, turn it off and be in stillness again focusing on breath only.
If I were to compare the Loving-kindness practice, with the subtle mind exercise, I like the first one more. In the loving-kindness practice, it is enjoyable to think of a loved one, and open my heart to their thoughts. I do not like to think about the bad sensations, as it suggests, but, I try not to grasp at it.
Observing and not grasping. Loving myself, feeling a natural rest, ease, and openness is hard for me, but necessary according to the loving kindness practice. I have thought of others more in my life and turning it to myself is harder for me.
Both practices do not allow grasping the thoughts, feelings and/or images of the mind, but, just observation. The natural home is awareness of and not the grasping of what we observe with our mind.
I take the mind-body connection to mean that we need to keep our mind stable, not upset or stressed, but under complete control. Our body and the way we treat it, needs to be controlled. If we don't control what we eat, we will end up weighing 400 pounds. If we do not eat healthy, we could get cancer or die of a heart attack, or high blood pressure. Our exercise, diet, habits, all need to be balanced with our mind and emotions to have a flourishing life.
Howdy!!!
ReplyDeleteI agree that it gives you the warm and fuzzies to think about or alternatively do something nice for someone else. I usually derive more pleasure from doing something for someone else than I do doing something nice for myself. For me, I think it has something to do with sharing the experience with someone.
Hi Nicole,
ReplyDeleteBreathing really was an important part to the subtle mind. I really had a hard time at first controlling my mind from running all over the place like most everyone's does. I was trying to see and feel my thoughts but they were changing so much it was hard to keep up!