After you have practiced meditation on your breath for a while it is easy to notice the difference between the calm feeling during breathing and the tense feeling that develops meeting a deadline, being late to work or any other routine activity that creates stress.
A major part of meditation is simply the noticing. Becoming aware when your mind has wandered away from the breath or the tightened state of your body’s reaction to stress can become a moment by moment awareness.
As with dancing there may be formal practice and then the play of dancing; so too with meditation. The formal practice of watching your breath on the cushion guides you to become able to deconstruct the sensations of your body. You begin to feel the inside parts
of your body as being separated from the emotional content of your thoughts. This allows you to see/feel your body/mind emotional reaction to life. In meditation stressful thoughts or emotions naturally arise. Being relaxed and focusing on your breath in a non rushed state you can allow the body’s reactions to slowly dissolve back to calm. Your thoughts have a chance to think through alternative perspectives and also become calm.
In a more routine daily life interaction with things and others when stress arises you may notice you have more time to respond rather than react. When your habitual reactions to stressful situations are slowed down your body is not releasing its usual amount of harmful hormones. You feel better. The cycle repeats and repeats.
In a way every moment can become a meditative moment. You are continually breathing. Your attention to whatever is happening can always be shared with attention to your breath. As you start to lose awareness of your breath it becomes a trigger, a warning, to you that you are starting to stress out. Sure life seems to require that we put up with stress in order to accomplish our desires. To support our families and to have a good time. But does it? Do we actually need to accept stress?
Stress arises when we stop focusing on what we are doing and start to focus on evaluating what we are doing. A gap develops in our attention between the actual doing of the activity and how we feel about it. Are we enthusiastic, bored, obligated, reluctant, eager, rushed?
There is a gap between the doing and feeling the emotion. One side of the gap is pulled by the doing and the other by the emotion. A tension develops between the two sides. This tension becomes stress with all its chemical hormonal changes.
You can feel it rising. You can begin to notice the difference between calm and not calm. You can decide if you want to accept the stress or practice to continue with the activity without the stress. While maintaining attention on your breath life goes better.
The breath you are continually breathing is an open window.
Try these places to focus and practice on noticing your breath:
- While listen on the phone.
- While listening when others are talking.
- Waiting at red lights.
- During commercials.
- Thinking of the next words to write.
- Standing in line.
- Looking in a mirror.
- Add your own thoughts to this list.
Just three breaths can get you started.
Look for opportunities during the day to notice if you are breathing.
Breath in and out count one.
Breath in and out count two.
Breath in and out count three.
That’s it. Just three breaths.
The happiness grows like a flower opening to the sun.
Spiritual Gravity 