We begin this practice by finding a comfortable stationary position and taking a few moments to check all the key body parts and to ensure they're all placed in a position that would support the meditation process by providing a foundation of relaxation,
Natural stillness,
And vigilance that allows us to not fall asleep during this practice.
We allow the breath to move naturally,
Without any control from our side,
With the body itself choosing the optimal rhythm,
Volume,
And pace of breathing.
And then we establish a positive motivation for this practice of concentration by revisiting our highest spiritual or psychological aspirations and orienting this entire meditation session towards those highest goals.
And then,
To begin the actual practice of concentrating on the mind,
We can first use an artificial thought or an image,
For example,
Imagining an orange or thinking,
This is the mind,
And then holding that artificial mental event in the space of our awareness for a short while before allowing it to gently dissolve.
And then,
Keeping our attention,
Keeping our awareness right there in the space of the mind,
In the domain of mental events,
Where we are observing the space of the mind and whatever's arising in it.
For this practice,
It's good to keep our eyes fully open or at least partially open so that a little light can come in and keep us more alert.
And so that this experience of the space of the mind does not feel limited to just our skull,
But we are not attending to the visual imagery coming through our eyes.
Instead,
We are observing our thoughts,
Mental images,
Memories,
Desires,
Impulses,
And emotions,
The mental part of our emotions.
And we're observing them all unfolding in the space of the mind without distraction and without grasping.
The breath is still moving naturally and we're being quite relaxed about this process of observation.
If there's nothing obviously manifesting in the space of the mind,
That's okay too.
In that case,
We're just attending to the space itself.
But when the mental events start arising,
We observe them.
And the Pith instruction here,
Without distraction and without grasping,
Means that we do not allow such objective events as thoughts,
Memories,
And images to drag us somewhere.
We do not drown in the stories that they provide.
And if we do ever get caught up,
We take a gentle step back.
If we ever get caught up in them,
We take a step back and continue with a relaxed type of observation.
And as for the second half of that instruction,
Without grasping,
It means that when we do experience subjective mental events,
Desires,
Emotions,
And so forth,
We observe them instead of following them and remaining merged with them.
So even if the desire to,
For example,
Move our fingers or fidget arises,
Instead of actually moving,
We can just observe the desire along with the rest of our mental activity.
Without distraction also means that we keep coming back to the mental domain,
Withdrawing our awareness from our auditory perception,
Our visual perception,
Our olfactory perception,
And from the domains of tastes and tactile sensations as well,
Continuously gathering our awareness in the mental domain and being quite relaxed about it,
Observing with tender curiosity and without any particular expectations.
What we are attending to are the different expressions of the mind's conventional nature,
Its nature of clarity and cognizance.
And so we're observing the play of this clear cognizant nature with curious,
Focused attention.
And that allows us to train our attention muscles,
Our mindfulness,
Our introspection,
And also allows us to understand this conventional nature of the mind on an experiential level,
Empirically.
And then for a little while coming back to the body to notice its current state and its tactile sensations,
To ground ourselves in the experiences of the body,
While at the same time dedicating the energy of this practice to the highest aspirations with which we began.
And then when we are ready,
Introducing some movement to the body,
Bringing our attention to the space around us,
And slowly concluding this practice as we invite the bell.
