Oakville Zen Meditation
Be Here Now
Picture this: we've just finished a meditation session,the bell goes off, we get up from our cushion and move on with our day. Yet even in that brief transition, from the cushion to daily life, we may have already lost touch with the breath and the presence we cultivated during meditation. Awareness of the body fades, sensations go unnoticed, thoughts carry us away, and the breath is no longer at the forefront of our attention.
Why does this happen?
One reason is that we tend to compartmentalize our lives. Meditation has its place and time; breakfast has its place and time; work, laundry, and errands each have theirs. Once meditation is finished, we unconsciously leave mindfulness behind and move on to the next activity.
Then why do we practise meditation?
Certainly, meditation may help us relax, reduce stress, or improve concentration. These are valuable benefits, but they are not the ultimate purpose of practice. In the Buddhist tradition, meditation is a way of understanding reality more clearly and, ultimately, of bringing an end to suffering.
With this understanding, life itself becomes the practice. Every moment becomes an opportunity to be present and aware of the body, our feelings, our state of mind, and the many experiences that arise in awareness.The aim is not simply to be mindful while sitting on a cushion, but to bring that same awareness into the rest of our lives.
What does it mean to be present?
The present moment is all there is. We use clocks, calendars, and time zones to organize our lives, and this conventional time is incredibly useful. But when we look closely at our actual experience, we can only ever experience what is happening now. The past has already passed, and the future hasn’t come yet. What we call the past and future appear in our experience as memories and expectations arising in the present. When we remember the past, the remembering is happening now. When we imagine the future, the imagining is happening now.
The present moment is both fleeting and real: it is the only moment we can actually experience, and yet it is constantly changing. To be fully present is to be in touch with what is actually happening, rather than living in the stories our minds create about the past or the future.
We practise meditation so that the understanding and awareness cultivated in practice gradually transform the way we live. One way this happens is by learning to be present for more of our life, rather than being continually lost in thoughts, stories, and distractions.
With that spirit in mind, we are going to try a simple experiment: each week, a mindfulness exercise will be emailed to the group. This exercise will serve as a particular focus for the week. We will be drawing from the book How to Train a Wild Elephant & Other Adventures in Mindfulness by Jan Chozen Bays, MD, using its practices as a way to bring mindfulness into everyday life.
This does not mean we will limit mindfulness to a single exercise. We can continue to be mindful while walking, eating, showering, working, or engaging in any other activity. Rather, the weekly exercise will give us a specific practice to explore and help deepen our awareness throughout the day. More information will follow. In the meantime, consider this: What would change if we treated every moment of our lives as part of our meditation practice?
