The reason behind it
 

G'day guys
Just thought I do another meditation thread to keep the conversation going.
My training is in breath/body/mind awareness, and metta meditation. I don't know much about other methods. I like to stay with things that apply to everyone, like everyone is breathing, feeling, experiencing, being.
The basic principle of the meditation is to be present with what is happening now, as it is, just in the way you experience it. It is not really about about a special sort of experience. Just this experience exactly as it is for you.
It means attention is here, where you live, where life is happening, where it exists.
Em tasol.

What your describing is ' Mind full ness ' but there are many other Forms of Meditation.

In the Satipatthana Sutta you have Nine Charnel Ground ' Contemplations ' which obviously is using ' Visualization '.
You can also find other Suttas that mention Visualization as a part of Meditation.

The reason behind it is ' Varied ' and depends entirely on what Meditation you are practicing...

I only know about breath/body/mind awareness, so that's what I can talk about. Of course there are many other meditation methods, but I don't know anything about them.

My breath awareness method is to feel the air going in and out of my nose. Nothing else. Just remain aware of that and try to feel the subtlest aspect of the feeling that I can. If other things occur like feelings in the body or mental things, I don't mind, I just focus on feeling the air like I said.

The reason is, first, the feeling of breathing is happening now, so paying attention to it makes one aware of the moment. Second, focusing on a singular object reduces mental noise and calms everything down. Third, trying to feel the very subtle feelings hones the mind into a sensitive perceptive tool. In addition, breathing can be volitional - you can breath faster, slower, deeper, shallower, or hold your breath intentionally - or it can be non-volitional - just happening by itself. Hence breathing bridges the surface of the conscious intentional mind with the subconscious or deeper mind.

Breathing is a universal object. Everyone is breathing and anyone can turn attention to feel the air going in and out. Lastly, the feeling of breath is subtle and nuanced, so it is perfect for developing serenity, depth and sensitivity of the mind.

I use the 'feel around the nostrils' method because the area is quite small and gives the mind a more point-like focus. Also, the feeling within that area is extremely subtle and nuanced, which enables one to really hone in on the minutiae of the feeling. That enabled me to refine it until I can feel a lot of detail within a pin-head sized spot, and hone in even further on a given detail. I just continue to feel the subtlest detail I can detect, and my sensitivity of perception progressively improves.

Where breath meditation is concerned, I have found the above described method most suitable for the purposes I described.

Agree with this.

My limited experience with mindfulness practices is that it overly focuses on the physical the very locally physical. It essentially ignores anything your physical senses can't perceive right now.

I know one of the goals of the practice is to stop wasting time/effort/awareness on things in the past/future/that are not actually affecting you. This seems beneficial.

Still, mindfulness practiced that way creates a new containment box of the sensory experience.

I suggest more effective would to be aware of that which is affecting you currently regardless of its time and place.

The reason we pay attention to what we are aware of right now (the experience 'as it is' for you) is you can't be aware now of what you are not currently not aware of. You can only notice 'this is how it is'. However, if you look at what you are aware of more closely, you can become aware of the subtler aspects of it. Thus, the path goes from the gross physical to the subtle dynamic aspects of reality-as-you-experience-it.That sounds right.

Think of how much time we humans tend to spend lost in thought, though - while we tend to be very much identified with the body, we're also largely unconscious of what we're actually feeling. Mindfulness practice might not seem particularly interesting or beneficial, yet it can actually be revolutionary because of how dissociated from our bodies the majority of we humans tend to be.

Consider, also, that a big part of the reason that most of we humans don't feel truly at peace within ourselves is because we have unresolved trauma and upset stored in our bodies, and then keep in mind that in order to resolve this trauma and upset - if we don't simply want to try and manage or cope, but actually want to heal these issues - we have to first be consciously in the body, and then we have to give loving attention to those areas where we're experiencing pain, stress, etc.

Learning how to be with ourselves in this way is not something that should be taken lightly, particularly when you bear in mind just how much we tend to abandon ourselves.

:icon_thumleft: I really like the way you explained 'the reason behind it'.

Thanks :) Maybe I should qualify my comments by saying that this is what I've found in my own personal experience, having gone through a period of pretty severe anxiety and depression in the last few years - I think we each have to examine our own experience in order to ultimately understand what's going on within us on a deeper level, there's little value in taking someone else's word for it.

Anyway - nice thread :smile:

Yes, nice thread.:smile:

I'm talking about 'awareness of'.