Awareness Of Difficult Mind States

A meditation exploring difficult mind states.

Taking time to come into yourself.

Letting the body-mind be natural.

Looking after the quality of our minds,

The quality of awareness.

Prioritising the awareness over the different objects.

When there's some ease in the mind,

We're often able to experience some ease and relaxation in the body.

When there's some ease and relaxation,

We're more able to observe whatever arises in its natural state.

And this might mean observing those moments when we resist what's actually happening.

Perhaps through subtle adjustments,

Interfering with what's happening,

Trying to change and alter our experience.

That might be something like your physical posture or your emotional states or the thoughts in the mind.

Remembering that whatever is happening,

Whatever's arising within your experience is already happening.

It's already there.

There's no need to resist it.

And what arises within your experience is secondary to the knowing of it.

The knowing happens quite automatically.

You can get a sense of it just resting back.

Resting in the spaciousness of awareness and in the simplicity of awareness.

Whatever is arising might feel quite complex,

But awareness can simply know,

Can observe all that complexity.

It doesn't need to get involved.

It's enough just to know with a degree of openness and objectivity.

Every now and again,

Just check in with your experience.

What's happening?

Am I aware?

What's the quality of the awareness?

Are body and mind calm or agitated?

Distracted or tense?

Relaxed or open?

Check how you're relating to the experience.

Can you identify any sense of wanting something or not wanting?

Or can you recognize the mind that's simply happy to be present to what's happening?

And notice how each of these feel in the mind.

The experience of wanting,

Craving.

The experience of not wanting or aversion.

Or the experience of simply being aware of what's happening.

How does that feel in the mind?

If you find there's some craving or aversion,

Wanting or not wanting in relation to something in your experience,

Perhaps there's aversion to a painful body or an unwanted mind state such as sleepiness or unhappiness.

Perhaps there's craving towards a more pleasant state.

Or more of an existing pleasurable state.

The practice is to simply let that craving or aversion become the object of your attention.

Become aware of it.

Often at this point,

The mind very quickly resists an unpleasant experience.

Or it tries to seek more of a pleasant experience.

But is it possible to simply recognize what's happening?

Ah,

There's craving in the mind.

This is what it feels like.

Or this is aversion.

This is not wanting.

This is how it feels in the body and in the mind.

Right view of craving and aversion.

It's noticing if it's possible to have some sense of allowing,

A degree of acceptance of what's already there.

Some curiosity rather than a pushing away or a pulling towards us.

Be curious about how craving or aversion feel in the body and the mind.

Sometimes we'll get caught in a whole mass of craving and aversion.

A perfect storm of conflict in the mind.

Conflict of thoughts and emotions.

Unpleasant physical sensations.

Strong or difficult emotion.

Whatever we do seems to make it worse.

Sometimes the simple recognition,

Ah,

There's conflict in the mind.

The mind is in conflict.

When we name what's happening,

It can bring some relief.

So we don't try to disentangle the individual strands of the conflict immediately.

We just recognize this is unpleasant.

This is difficult.

The mind in conflict.

Perhaps feeling different contractions and tensions in the body and mind.

And at the same time,

Letting the awareness stay attentive to other experiences.

Other sounds,

Body sensations.

Awareness that seeing or hearing is happening.

Allowing the attention to stay broad and not get too focused on the difficult.

Keeping the attention broad allows us to look after the quality of awareness.

Allows it to stay light,

Open and kindly.

Whatever is arising is not a mistake.

It's part of a conditioned flow.

And craving and aversion are things that everybody experiences.

In this way,

Helping the right view perspective on what's difficult.

So it can be helpful to remember to check for the presence or absence of right view.

How am I relating to this experience?

Am I relating in a more personal way?

Taking the thoughts and emotions personally.

Or simply as one experience arising after another.

Arising,

Persisting perhaps for some time,

Perhaps for a very short time.

And then disappearing.

Moment to moment arising,

Persisting,

Disappearing.

And if you notice that you are relating to the experience in a more personal way.

Celebrate that some degree of right view is there.

Because you can recognise the deluded mind perspective rather than be identified with it.

You might also remember to drop in the question,

What would be helpful here?

Clearly knowing what's needed in this moment.

And sometimes what's needed is simply to remember to be aware.

Rather than to get caught in thinking about the difficulty.

Thinking about the desired object.

Taking that step back to simply being aware.

The mind is getting a bit overwhelmed by the experience.

You've reminded yourself to be aware.

But it feels as if the mind state is quite dominant.

You keep getting lost in it.

Perhaps the awareness is quite weak in those moments.

At this point it's helpful to temporarily choose a neutral object.

To help the mind become more refreshed.

And help awareness become more resourced.

So we leave behind the difficult emotion or thought.

All the compelling,

Desired mental object.

And perhaps stay with the breath.

Perhaps opening to sounds or other body sensations.

Or you might choose to rest your gaze on something quite neutral.

Like the floor in front of you.

If you can feel that the body and mind are quite agitated.

And sometimes we need to go a little further than a neutral object.

And choose something we find pleasant.

If you have a Buddha figure in your room,

You might look at that.

Or you could look outside a window.

Look at something in nature.

And we don't do this to try and avoid difficulty.

But simply in recognition that that object is too much for awareness right now.

So we let awareness rest with a different object where it has a chance to strengthen.

And once the mind has calmed down,

Awareness is a little bit more resourced,

Then we can go back to that object if it's still present.

And then we can go back to that object.

Can you feel the difference between the quality of the knowing mind,

The aware mind,

And the nature of craving or aversion?

Perhaps going back and forth,

Just playing,

Feeling into the energy of craving or aversion in the mind.

And the energy and quality of the awareness that is knowing them.

Perhaps noticing that that quality of awareness doesn't judge.

It doesn't demand an experience be different.

It patiently,

With persistence,

Simply knows.

Can you feel the difference between the quality of the knowing mind and the nature of craving or aversion?