MEDITATION & MINDFULNESS
For now, just rest in the experience of the breath and the body. Allow your mind to grow quiet and thoughts to settle. Feel the breath and body as deeply as possible. You may wish to put feeling-attention on the top of your head and the bottoms of your feet at the same time, thus grounding awareness in the body and using the breath as an anchor. Now, while feeling the breath and
body in this way, allow the emotion to arise within your awareness. You may use a visualisation for this if you wish. Remember an incident which made you angry within the last month and visualise the incident happening again. Allow the anger to arise within your body. Do not try to talk your way through it. If thoughts arise about the emotion, you are separating from the feeling. You are thinking about the emotion rather than experiencing it. If this happens, use the word ‘thinking’ to clear your awareness of the thoughts, and allow your awareness to be clear, vast, and open. Feel the breath evenly from the
nose to the abdomen, the sensations of the body from the top of the head to the bottoms of the feet, and the emotion at the same time. If you find your awareness moves into anger, and you lose the feeling of the breath and the body, you have gone too far to one side. Return to the breath and start again. If you find your awareness moves into the comfort of the breath and the body, and the anger fades away, return to the breath and start again. You may ask questions to direct your awareness, such as, “What does this anger feel like in my body?” or “What happens in my body when I feel anger?” You will know that you have felt the emotion completely and it has been discharged if you can visualise the incident which had been charged with anger and now it holds no charge. You visualise the incident, and you remain calm, still, and silent.
THE BENEFITS OF PRACTICE When we practise in such a way, we can learn what emotions feel like
72 MARCH | APRIL 2018
in the body. In doing this, we can become comfortable with our anger, loneliness, jealousy, or any other challenging emotion. Our emotions no longer threaten us, and so we no longer need to numb out from them, repress them or express them inappropriately. We are free to respond more fully to the present moment. Expression of emotions may indeed be an appropriate response to the present situation, but you will be acting in present-moment action, rather than action that is fuelled and charged by emotions which were encountered in the past but you did not have the capacity to feel fully.
//YOU VISUALISE THE INCIDENT, AND YOU REMAIN CALM, STILL, AND SILENT. //
When doing this type of meditation, while meditating on an experience in which I have felt lonely – for example, often when feeling the loneliness in my body, other memories have floated up that carry that same
feeling.These were memories which had long been forgotten, but the emotional charge was still stored in the body. This is a common occurrence. I recommend picking an emotion that
might be particularly challenging for you in life. Spend a month just on that one emotion, and see what happens. After a month, pick another emotion.
OFF THE CUSHION How do we practise feeling emotions during an interaction? Your boss yells at you at work for no
apparent reason, your spouse forgot your anniversary, or your co-worker forgot to put your name in for the long weekend as he said he would. Anger, frustration, and loneliness are just three examples of the very powerful emotions we tend to encounter as our
life unfolds. These and other emotions become easier to process in the present moment by doing the meditation practice described above. Your boss yells at you, and you feel
the anger in your body. Before doing anything else, feel your breath. Take just a few conscious breaths. Then allow your awareness to expand to include your whole body, from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet. Include the physical sensations of the anger. Oftentimes, memories of being yelled at for no reason will arise at this point. The habit of reaction is strong. Just feel the anger and the body and breath as one experience. Rest there. Remind yourself that you are human, and anger is a human emotion. Many people fight against emotions,
thinking that it is wrong to feel a certain way. This typically compounds the emotion further. It isn't wrong to feel anger. It is wrong
to punch someone out because you are uncomfortable with how anger feels in your body. It is equally unhealthy to repress the anger. Just feel the anger in the body. Do not try to change the sensations in any way. Using the breath as an anchor, allow awareness to include the sensations of the anger, all the other body sensations, and the sensations of the breath. Eventually, the interaction which
caused the emotional reaction will lose its charge and the anger will subside. You will feel a sense of peace at this point, and you will be able to visualise the incident later and remain in a calm, peaceful state. l
Connect with other readers & comment on this article at
www.livingnow.com.au
The above article is based on Such Sweet Thunder - healing the wounds between self and other, self-published by Christopher Luard on Amazon Kindle.
After witnessing the tragic events of September 11th in NYC, Christopher dedicated his life to the practice and teaching of peace.
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