Following on from my earlier articles on gratitude and self-love, and articles on spiritual intelligence in general, here are three levels of mindfulness that we can distinguish.
As we develop our meditation practice we gradually evolve our experience of mindfulness through three levels. The three levels are as follows:
– Controlling the desires of the selfish / unconscious heart and instincts
– Engaging the mind, heart and body in communion with our actions and with life
– As an intuitive union of the mind, body and heart in all that we do
Level 1: Controlling the desires of the selfish / unconscious heart and instincts:
At this level mindfulness is basically used as an act of concentration and willpower extending mainly from our mind. We have decided that we wish to live a more conscious, engaged life and we realize that in order to do this we need to start exerting control over our selfish and uncontrolled desires that are leading us to experience repeated patterns of pain, stress, anxiety and emptiness.
We use our mindfulness to consciously direct ourself toward positive actions, ways of thinking and being in the world. At this stage our mind and willpower are like an animal tamer, and often our heart and instincts can feel a bit like the wild animal!
Level 2: Engaging the mind, heart and body in communion with our actions and with life
At this level of mindfulness we have developed a certain level of skillfulness. During our daily actions our mind, heart and body are co-ordinated in a more harmonious whole (as opposed to each going in their own direction, often pulling against each other).
We learn to bring the attention of our thinking mind, our feeling heart and our bodily senses into our actions in a mindful manner that makes life a deeply felt and fulfilling experience. We start to reap the rewards of our mindfulness practice, the main one being that we find that even small or seemingly mundane activities become causes of deep happiness and contentment. Our mindfulness enables us to experience first hand the truth that happiness can always be found in the present moment.
Level 3: As an intuitive union of the mind, body and heart in all that we do
At this stage we no longer a have to exert a large amount of effort to keep our mind, body and heart in a mindful, synchronized whole. The energetic “communication wires” between these three levels of our being have become well established. This means that even when we temporarily loose our mindful awareness, our feelings, thinking and body awareness tend to remain intuitively happy and harmonious through force of long habit.
Attaining the third level of mindfulness indicates a time in our practice where effort and hard work are replaced more and more by a sense of naturalness and flow extending from our deep communion with life on all levels.
Upcoming events with Toby:
Tuesday 15th September, new series of 3 classes on “How to express enlightenment in the market place of daily life”
Three body Qi gong classes with Toby in September and October
© Toby Ouvry 2010, yuu are welcome to use this article, but you MUST seek Toby’s permission first! Contact info@tobyouvry.com
Does liberation in the spiritual sense from suffering mean that we no longer feel any pain? I tend to think that we will still feel pain of one form or another after we have been liberated, but that pain will not be added to by additional mental suffering and negativeness.
