Here’s a meditation about sitting in the present moment and in stillness regardless how we’re feeling. Telling ourselves, “I do not have all the answers but I am here”, “It feels unpleasant but no action is needed”.
Inviting ourselves time and time again that we can acknowledge all of what we are feeling yet not have to react and rise to the bait of all feelings. It may be difficult to do so. We take it step by step but dipping our toes in slowly.
Inspiration sought from the poem The Invitation by the Oriah Mountain Dreamer (excerpt):
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes‘.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 20 mins
Image credit: Anastasiia Rozumna, Unsplash
To attend our live meditation sessions, register here
The invitation this week is to lean in to whatever life offers, by extension to whatever inner experiences that arise for us whether we welcome them or not. A balanced way of opening toward them, which is somewhere between not dwelling (ie not adding more judgment and analysis) and not needing to avoid, resist or push away. The more we lean in, the more we learn to see thoughts as just thoughts, emotions as emotions, and body sensations as just that, impersonal, innocuous and impermanent. We don’t have to spend our energy resisting and judging them and wishing for them to be different. Instead we choose to befriend or sit with them, thereby choosing to live more openly and courageously.
Poem by Mary Oliver, taken from her book House of Light:
Still, what I want in my lifeis to be willing
to be dazzled—to cast aside the weight of facts
and maybe even
to float a littleabove this difficult world.
I want to believe I am lookinginto the white fire of a great mystery.
I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing—
that the light is everything—
that it is more than the sumof each flawed blossom rising and falling.
During meditation, something is often calling for our attention, and we are easily distracted or feel restless. To cultivate steadiness and to stay in the present moment, we turn toward our chosen anchor such as the breath with curiosity and a beginner’s mind. This practice is also intended to help us stay anchored whenever triggered by what someone say or do. Inspired by Sarah Kay’s poetry “The Paradox”. Here is an extract.
When I am inside writing, all I can think about is how I should be outside living.
When I am outside living, all I can do is notice all there is to write about.
When I read about love, I think I should be out loving. When I love, I think I need to read more.
I am stumbling in pursuit of grace, I hunt patience with a vengeance.
I spend most of my time wondering if I should be somewhere else.
So I have learned to shape the words thank you with my first breath each morning, my last breath every night.
When the last breath comes, at least I will know I was thankful for all the places I was so sure I was not supposed to be.
All those places I made it to, all the loves I held, all the words I wrote.
And even if it is just for one moment, I will be exactly where I am supposed to be.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 21 mins
Image credit: Andrea Caramello, Unsplash
To register for our Wednesday Pause, live Zoom sessions, go here
We further deepen our practice on noticing feeling tone (“vedana” in Pali) and what precedes and accompanies it. Do you notice unpleasant feeling tones arising around certain thoughts like “this meditation is taking forever”, accompanied by the restless need to quit? Or maybe there were beliefs such as “my mind keeps wandering, I suck at meditation.” What experiences accompanied those beliefs eg feelings of defeat? The purpose of this practice is to take a step back and watch for the whole chain of reactions surrounding feeling tones, recognizing that they are natural outcomes of the mind and body, and simply acknowledging them without needing to get caught up.
The practice ends with a reading of Wendell Berry’s poem The Peace of Wild Things.
When despair for the world grows in me and I wake in the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Feeling tone or feeling sense is a sense of awareness that we typically interpret as unpleasant, pleasant or neutral. It is what puts us in a foul mood or a good one. The Pali translation in Buddhist text is “vedana”.
It is natural to desire pleasant experiences, to avoid unpleasant ones, and to zone out or feel bored, restless and even empty when there are neutral feelings (the mind constantly need stimulation). It is those underlying desires that cause us to be unhappy or stressed when things are not going according to our wishes.
The antidote is to become conscious of and to tune in to any feeling tones so that we are aware what is causing us to “suffer” in the first place. And then, we let these feelings come and go without needing to get caught up in them. We weaken the grip of reactivity, and find peace.
The practice ends with the poem On Pain by Khalil Gibran:
And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain.
And he said: Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
The lack of patience signals the desire to get a “pleasant” state or to run away from whatever the mind deems to be “unpleasant”. In this practice, we look beyond what often captures our immediate attention, which is our feelings, and appreciate pleasant moments that we easily overlook or take for granted such as temperature and sounds to cultivate patience. Inspired by the writings of Rumi, 13th century Persian poet and scholar.
Patience is not sitting and waiting, it is foreseeing.
It is looking at the thorn and seeing the rose.
Looking at the night, and seeing the day.
Lovers are patient, and know that they moon needs time to become full.
Luncheon of the Boating Party, by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, 1881. Image: Phillips Collection.
The painting above, Luncheon of the Boating Party is one of Renoir’s finest masterpieces, and one of his last Impressionist work. More interestingly from my perspective, it was painted using his left hand because he broke his right, but the awkward experience ended up giving him new inspiration. He wrote in a letter to a patron: “It’s even better than what I did with the right (hand). I think that was a good thing that I broke my arm. It allows me to make progress.”
That’s the essence of the program I teach, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)—giving ourselves permission to respond in new ways to difficulties instead of falling back on the security of our habitual “doing” tendencies. In the process learning new wisdom.
Q: What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is about intentionally paying attention to the present moment with non-judgement. We pay attention to what is arising on the outside such as smell, and in our inner world: thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, impulses to act, and feeling-tones. We assume a sense of equanimity, which means staying engaged and accepting whatever that has arisen or is arising without needing to like nor dislike the experience. It is aided by bringing to bear the attitude of a beginner’s mind or curiosity, and kindness or friendliness. By doing so, the mind is more steady and less reactive. We can be more wise in our actions and speech.
Q: What then is Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)?
MBCT combines mindfulness practices and cognitive therapy principles. Three psychology professors—John Teasdale (Cambridge), Mark Williams (Bangor, now Oxford), and Zindel Segal (Toronto)—developed MBCT with the aim of providing a non-drug alternative to reducing depression relapses. This was in the 1990s. MBCT is approved by NHS England and is now also widely taught to the general population to deal with stress and to flourish. Together with MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction), MBCT is considered a gold standard secular mindfulness program because they are evidence-based, and observe rigorous teaching standards.
MBCT starts off by learning to switch out of autopilot and to ground ourselves. Henceforth we are more awake, anchored and less automatically derailed by triggers. We remain guided by our values, and have more capacity to be calm, compassionate and resilient.
Cognitive therapy is widely used by psychologists to help clients become aware of how their thoughts and feelings drive behavior. Here we appreciate that thoughts and feelings are simply outcomes of the mind and body processes. They are outside our locus of control, they are impermanent and innocuous. Hence, instead of striving to get rid of thoughts and feelings which had already arisen eg anxiety, we stay in the present moment and focus our energy on what we can do, which is forging a kind relationship toward them. Eventually anxiety reduces its grip.
All this sounds easy and logical but when we are caught in the heat of the moment, we easily lose sight of this wisdom. That’s why we practice mindfulness frequently to allow the mind to unlearn and learn new habits. I am learning this every day!
Q: Is MBCT about just letting it be, not progressing and changing our circumstances?
Generally, our default reaction to difficulties is to “do something” eg ruminate, blame others, avoid, suppress, neutralize with positive thoughts (even if they are untrue or unvalidated), or to keep ourselves busy and distracted. We can’t help ourselves! Mindfulness calls for a different response of non-doing. Something far less exhausting.
The invitation is to connect directly with our inner world experiences (as opposed to analyzing them in our head), to practice letting go of the need to get rid of or to fix unwanted experiences, and to accept our humanity its warts and all. This creates conditions for us to be more flexible and to see a bigger perspective rather than be ruled by our “lizard brain”. So we are on a more steady footing to decide our next course of action instead of habitually launching into avoiding, distracting, and running around in circles.
Q: Is MBCT or mindfulness religious-based?
MBCT is adapted from MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) and adds to it the understanding of cognitive therapy. Jon Kabat Zinn started a stress reduction clinic and developed MBSR at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in the 1970s. His work is influenced by his yoga and Buddhist practices of calm, compassion and insight by simply accepting the present moment as it is; and to integrate these teachings with empirical research. To date, more than a thousand studies have been done on the efficacy of mindfulness-based programs, mostly showing positive or promising results for responding to physical and mental health conditions eg stress, chronic pain, depression, and anxiety.
MBSR/MBCT is informed by Buddhist psychology that suffering eg unhappiness is due to cravings and aversions formed by our non-discerning (unwholesome) judgements. But MBCT/MBSR is not Buddhism per se because it does not prescribe core Buddhism beliefs of rebirth and karma.
It should also be noted that mindfulness and meditation are mentioned in all mainstream religions. They just differ in purpose. For Christians, the centre of awareness is God while Buddhism is about achieving enlightenment (nibbana) that requires a high level of concentration.
MBCT/MBSR is about practicing equanimity and kindness in responding to life. The anchor is whatever that is available such as sound. MBCT/MBSR program is therefore universal and secular. It is about uncovering the masterpiece within us.
For more info about my MBCT course, see 8-Week Mindfulness (Jul-Aug) here
Feel free to join my talk on the Art & Science of Mindfulness to get more details about how MBCT works. On Wed, 26 May, 7:30 – 8:30pm MYT/SGT/HKT via Zoom. Register on Eventbrite at www.bit.ly/asmindful4
Drop me a note if you have any questions or feedback: noellelimlj@gmail.com
During this Eid festive season, the invitation is to allow the mind to quieten and the body to rest and recharge. For those who had or will be receiving their vaccination shots for Covid-19, this mini body scan offers a helpful response to ensuing side effects like fever and body aches. Stay safe and healthy.
Inspired by Keeping Quiet by Pablo Neruda.
Life is what it is about…
If we were not so single-minded about keeping our lives moving, and for once could do nothing, perhaps a huge silence might interrupt this sadness of never understanding ourselves and of threatening ourselves with death.
Now I’ll count up to twelve and you keep quiet and I will go.
Transitions in our external world are also felt inside us, expressed in changing thoughts, emotions and sensations in the body. Sometimes the transitions feel painful, uncertain, worrying or hopeful. We may end up more fixated with the destination and lose the opportunity to learn something new about us in the process of transitioning. To get comfortable with change, we practice getting comfortable with transitions experienced in our inner world. This is done by noticing our experiences moment-by-moment while keeping our awareness on the breath and accepting whatever that is arising with a welcome mat.
Register to join us in future Wednesday Pause mindfulness practices here
For a complete archive of our meditations, visit here
Inspired by the poem I Am A Transition (extract), by Emu Getachew
Transition…I think I am? I am a progression!
I am the vacancy between the alphabets.
My feet travel silently.
Back and forth-side to side with a blazing desire to transit.
Asking who I am?
I am a transition-I reply, not a completion.
But a passage, traveling between the alphabets of time in self-expedition.
Inspired by Khalil Gibran’s poem, this practice is about showing up for ourselves in the present moment instead of living following other people’s agenda and our to-do list which is often the case. Enjoy!
Not Living Half A Life (extract)
Half a life is a life you didn’t live, A word you have not said A smile you postponed A love you have not had A friendship you did not know To reach and not arrive Work and not work Attend only to be absent What makes you a stranger to them closest to you and they strangers to you The half is a mere moment of inability but you are able for you are not half a being You are a whole that exists to live a life not half a life.
A thought easily produces a chain of ideas, intentions, stories, and next thing we know, time has passed. Life has passed. Sometimes we unwittingly shoot another arrow, for example, chiding ourselves for having certain thoughts.
Another trap is when a negative thought arises, we think “positively” to “neutralize”. That is helpful if the intention is to see a more realistic picture. It is not helpful if we’re adding thoughts that are potentially false and speculative simply to make ourselves feel better or to justify ours or other peoples’ actions. It’s a survival instinct.
An alternative response is to let thoughts be like water flowing in the stream instead of adding more. And if we choose to, mindfully directing our energy to thoughts that really matter and to be kind to ourselves for having thoughts. We look deep down to find what matters and what is true for us.
Cultivating presence by firstly paying attention with wholehearted, non-judgemental interest to the present moment, to ourselves or to the people we’re with. Part of this experience is to watch and let be our” baggage” often expressed in the need to react to unpleasant feelings. These reactions could range from avoiding, giving up to aggression. Here’s an invitation to let all that go by simply connecting directly with the present moment instead of living in the head, lost in thoughts.
Inspiration came from a poem by Taigu Ryokan, Zen master.
Yes, I’m truly a dunce
Living among trees and plants.
Please don’t question me about illusion and enlightenment
This old fellow just likes to smile to himself.
I wade across streams with bony legs,
And carry a bag about in fine spring weather.
That’s my life,
And the world owes me nothing.
To attend our meditation sessions live on Wednesday Pause, register according to your timezone here
Practicing mindfulness helps us deal with impatience because it seems like it has a relationship with time – needing things now or yesterday. A practice might seem to take forever because our minds constantly need to be stimulated and “satisfied”. It’s this constant shifting attention, always searching, never resting, that keeps us in reactionary mode. So instead of perpetually seeking stimulation and getting lost in our thoughts and stories, the invitation is to engage with the present moment differently, and to be able to just sit with the passage of time.
The inspiration of this practice came from a poetry by Rabindranath Tagore.
The butterfly counts not months but moments,
and has time enough.
Time is a wealth of change,
but the clock in its parody makes it mere change and no wealth.
A meditation session “Steady Mind, Warm Heart”, essentially mindfulness, inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s poem If. Seems appropriate in light of Prince Harry and Meghan Markles’ interview with Oprah.
Take time off to appreciate ourselves, our inner experiences—thoughts, emotions and pain that we might be experiencing—and others even if we don’t feel like it. Inspired by Ram Dass’ writing on Trees.
“When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees.
And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever.
And you look at the tree and you allow it. You appreciate it. You see why it is the way it is.
You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way.
And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree.
The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying ‘You’re too this, or I’m too this.’
That judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees.
Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”
A common meditation practice is to focus on the breath. In this session, we contemplate what it really means to do so – breathing, opening to life. Breathe away.
Inspired by David Whyte’s poem Enough.
Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
Until now.
Guide: Noelle Lim
Duration: 22 mins
Image credit: Josh Couch, Unsplash
To register for our Wednesday Pause session at 12:30-1pm SGT on Zoom, please visit here
Shaped by evolution, our minds are constantly busy scanning experiences and benchmarking it to some expectation to keep us safe and feeling pleasant. Here is an invitation to drop expectations to free up space in the head in order to truly hear ourselves and access our being.
This practise is inspired by Henri Nouwen, Catholic priest’s writings, “Only An Invitation”.
This Wednesday’s practise is about inviting kindness into our experiences, and is inspired by Naomi Shihab Nye’s poetry “Kindness”.
Duration: 23 minutes
Guide: Noelle Lim
Image credit: Andriyko Podilynk, Unsplash
Kindness, Naomi Shihab Nye
Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend.
What he wrote could be interpreted as the law of nature is as it is. Accepting and adapting to these laws, we could become more comfortable with changes and be less unhappy.
In this practise, we observe nature that is our changing experiences such as thoughts, emotions and body feelings moment-by-moment, and cultivate the capacity to accept what’s here for us like unwanted thoughts without needing to have a different experience.
Is there something that’s sitting on your boat that’s slowing your down? Causing you to crave or to resist? Causing unhappiness? Here’s a practice on letting go.
Duration: 25 minutes
Guide: Noelle Lim
Image credit: Natalya Erofeeva, 123rf
This is a recording of our Wednesday Pause sessions, 12:30-1pm SGT (4:30am GMT). Register here
Kindermind Center 