The Practice of Mindfulness
From TheBuddhism.Net
The meditation method taught by the Buddha is called Satipatthana or mindfulness meditation. This simple but profound technique removes greed, hatred and delusion by the application of systematic and sustained mindfulness to one’s own mental and physical processes.
To begin the practice of Satipatthana one must focus the mind first on the body. One method widely used is to contemplate the rising and falling of the abdomen as one breathes in and out.
This method is suitable for a beginner because the abdominal movement is always present and easily located (by placing the hand on the belly if necessary). The movement of the abdomen should be noticed continuously from beginning to end. Though beginners will not succeed at once, they should try their best to concentrate on the movement.
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Breathing is important and yet many cannot breath in the correct and right method. When we do it correctly it will calm our mind and as mentioned in the article, it can train us to be mindful. How wonderful. Something that I should learn to calm my monkey mind.
This breathing meditation can really calm our mind.
Very simple and that is a focus point – the belly enable us to get our consciousness back when it started to hallucination.
It also made us more focus and more aware after trying this meditation.
In the Yin Yoga classes that I previously attended, we were also taught to focus on the breathing in order to bring back the awareness of the self to the present moment, aware of the surrounding but not be distracted by it. It did sound easy, but it was not easy to put into practice and to enter into the state of mindfulness without thoughts or emotional arising but just focus on the present.
Our mind has become so busy and distracted that we only focus on what we like and dislike. When we it comes to our body the mind will focus on good sensations such as when we eat, how we see, how we sit. Everything is about comfort and avoiding discomfort. The mind is busy reacting to and increasing good sensations while rejecting bad sensations. The meditation is one of the powerful tool to calm the mind and make it focus on the right things, not to lose ourselves.
To be aware is to be truly alive and living in the moment.
Thank you for sharing this simple but profound meditation. It is amazing to see how our mind responds when we are focusing on something that we never notice- breathing. It is wonderful. The effects are there as mindfulness increase, your focus increases, your greed will lessen, your carelessness will lessen