“The skill of mindful awareness is actually a pre-skill, meaning that if you are good at it, you can use it to develop any other skill or capacity relatively easily.”
Dear Integral Meditators,
This week’s article is on the foundational components of effective mindfulness. If you enjoy it, feel free to join us for the Tuesday or Wednesday meditation class, where it will be a focus point.
I have now expanded my first book Engaged Mindfulness to an ‘Engaged Mindfulness Project’. On this page, you can:
Download the PDF copy
Buy a hard copy of Engaged Mindfulness
Follow the links to the training pages with guided meditations based upon the book, & the online live meditation classes.
Do visit the page, & stay tuned for more details!
In the spirit of engaged mindfulness,
Toby
Awareness, attention, intention – The holy trinity of integral mindfulness
This article is designed to encourage people to understand some primary elements of integral mindfulness practice, and to get practicing!
Component one – Awareness Mindfulness is essentially awareness training. Awareness is what is called in objectivist philosophy is called an ‘irreducible primary’. “An irreducible primary is a fact which cannot be analysed (i.e., broken into components) or derived from antecedent facts”. The quality of awareness or consciousness is something that we experience directly, and that cannot be broken down into smaller parts, hence primary. To be alive is to be aware, our only choice is whether we are consciously aware, or unconsciously aware. Thus the first task of mindfulness is to make the choice to be consciously aware, and to sustain that conscious awareness. Put another way: “Mindfulness is the choice to be consciously aware as we go through life, rather than unconscious, and to direct our awareness consciously and skilfully.” The skill of mindful awareness is actually a pre-skill, meaning that if you are good at mindful awareness, then you can use that awareness to develop any other skill or capacity relatively easily. Lacking the skill of awareness impairs the development of all other capabilities and skills in life. The capacity for mindful awareness sets you up for success in any given area of life. Lack of awareness impairs that potential.
Component two – Attention The second foundation is conscious attention. The aim with mindfulness practice is to develop the capacity to direct your awareness where you want it to go, using your attention. “What am I trying to focus upon? And where do I need to focus my attention?” Are two fundamental mindfulness questions. Exactly where you need to focus your attention optimally is going to vary from task to task, but good quality mindful attention generally consists of a balanced combination of focus and relaxation. This combination is what I call the mindful-flow state, where we practice the skill of holding our attention on our chosen objects/activities with high quality, relaxed, focused attention.
Component three – Intention Component three is intention. Like awareness and attention, we have an intention present within our mind almost all the time. This intention can be conscious or unconscious. The idea with integral mindfulness is that we become as mindful of our intentions as possible, and are generating them purposefully. ‘Why am I doing this?’ is a fundamental question, mindfully speaking!! There are an infinite number of specific intentions, but a good place to start is cultivating three general levels of conscious intention with regard to self, other and the world. Underlying all of our other intentions, we hold the intention to:
Be of benefit to ourself
Be of benefit to our community
Be of benefit to the world
These three benevolent intentions can be the guiding light for most of our actions during the day.
So, putting these three together then gives us a kind of ‘holy trinity’ of integral mindfulness. All integral mindfulness trainings are designed to improve your awareness, attention and intention. These in turn are fundamental pre-skills that enable you to develop any other skills, and meet your life challenges more effectively.
As a practice to get started, simply take as your object of conscious awareness your breathing as you find it. Focus upon it with focused relaxed-attention (mindful flow), with the intention to:
Benefit yourself by calming and centering
By calming and centering, be of more positive influence to your community
By influencing your community in this way, being of benefit to the world
And there you go; you are practicing the holy trinity of integral mindfulness.
Related reading: Page 4 of Engaged Mindfulness that you can download as a free PDF of purchase as a hard copy
The ‘three C’s’ are three qualities you can apply to your mindfulness practice to make it more engaged, effective & creative. In the article below I explain how to begin…
In the spirit of engaged mindfulness,
Toby
Applying the Three C’s of Engaged Mindfulness
In my book Engaged Mindfulness I outline ‘the three C’s of Engaged Mindfulness’. These are curiosity, courage & care. These three qualities make the quality of our mindfulness more dynamic and pro-active. They actively shape the way in which we encounter our life in each moment, encouraging us to assert ourselves benevolently in the way we respond to our every-day challenges. What I want to do here is to outline how each of these three C’s can be applied in a practical way, enabling you to be confident enough in your understanding to start practising yourself! Each of the three C’s will be contrasted with an unhelpful mental attitude that we, often unconsciously, approach our life with. With this in mind, lets proceed…
1. Replacing indifference & jadedness with curiosity – It’s all too easy to fall into a habituated way of experiencing our world, where we cease to do our everyday activities with awareness. We become indifferent to ourself & others around us. We cease to feel alive. Indifference & a sense of mental fatigue clouds our capacity to see the opportunity for small joys and connection to life in the moment. Today I went to my barber for a haircut. I always go to this man for my hair because he cuts with attention to detail. I watched him with curiosity and appreciation as he cut my hair. I enjoyed the nuances of our ‘guy talk’ as he cut. It made the visit a life affirming experience which I valued and enjoyed. The value I derived was due in large part to my sense of curiosity.
2. Engaging with courage instead of fear & insecurity – To a greater or lesser degree fear and insecurity are ever present in our lives. If we don’t watch out, these two can end up defining our behaviours and experiences, preventing us from turning up in our life each day and acting in a way that truly represents our values. To bring mindful courage to our life means to be aware of our fear or insecurities. In spite of them, even perhaps because of them, courage chooses to think, act and speak in ways that truly represent our values and creative self-expression. Recently there have been a few inner fears for me as my daughter moves from primary to secondary school; which school will be best? What if we choose the wrong one and she suffers? Deliberately bringing courage to my approach to school choices with her has made the process more enjoyable as well as making me more decisive and effective in my responsibilities (as I understand them).
3. Asserting care instead of intolerance & harshness – When we are tired, when the world has done us a few ‘wrongs’, when we make a mistake, it can be easy to judge harshly and quickly. It can be easy to become intolerant of our own or other’s imperfections. It can feel safer not to care. To assert mindful care in the moment is to learn to leverage on the strength, intelligence and ‘soft power’ of remaining connected to our heart, even when superficially it seems easier to make a snap judgment and withhold our human affection. As I go through the ups and downs of my own life journey, one of the things I have come to value the most from myself is simply a gentle, consistent care and affection. I have learned to extend this to myself even when I am tired, under pressure or have made a mistake. This has made my own experience of myself far more enjoyable, as well as making it easier and more natural to extend that kindness and care to others.
As a mindfulness exercise, try sitting and watching your mind, with one of the three C’s. See how your world, your experience of the present moment and of yourself changes when you encounter them mindfully with curiosity, courage and/or care!
I’m really happy to announce that my new book ‘Engaged Mindfulness – What mindfulness is and how we can apply it to our daily lives’ is out!
I’ve been writing blog articles on meditation and mindfulness or a long time now, this first book of mine looks specifically at some of the most practical ways to understand and work with mindfulness in your daily life that I have discovered through my own experience over the last twenty years or so. It is only available in hard copy.
Engaged Mindfulness is on special launch offer (20% off) until the end of the month, full details are below, do feel free to share the news of the launch with any friends you think may be interested!
In the spirit of the mindful journey,
Toby
About ‘Engaged Mindfulness’:
‘This is a book on applied mindfulness. It aims to present clear, practical ideas and exercises on how to integrate mindfulness practice into your daily life. The different sections of the book were originally written as articles, reflections on the authors own practice of mindfulness, and the ways that he has found most useful to integrate mindfulness into his life as different challenges have presented themselves.
Each section details mindfulness exercises and practices which you can either try out in a systematic way, one chapter after the other, or in a more organic manner, picking out the practices that you feel most drawn to.
Those who have no experience of mindfulness previously, might like to go to section entitled ‘Some Simple Focusing & Relaxing Practices’, which detail exercises for building basic mindful concentration.
The book is the first of a series, and deliberately kept short. The text is meant to be read slowly rather than in a rush. Taking it a page or two at a time, combining it with a little time for personal reflection is a good way to go.’
You can click here to view the front and back covers, have a read of the introduction and survey the contents: Engaged Mindfulness preview
SPECIAL LAUNCH PRICE FOR 1 WEEK: 20% OFF! – SGD$10 SGD$8 per copy (OFFER GOOD THRU END 31ST AUGUST)
TO PURCHASE YOUR COPY/COPIES:
Click HERE to purchase your copy if you are in Singapore (or Malaysia).
Click HERE to purchase your copy if you are ordering from outside Singapore.
Click HERE if you wish to purchase without mail delivery (i.e: You will pick up your copy).
Click here to find out about the book talks by Toby on ‘Engaged Mindfulness’ on the 8th & 17th of September.
About ‘Engaged Mindfulness’: