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Finding Real Happiness at Work: A Growth Model for Meditation Practice, with Sharon Salzberg, Buddhist Meditation Teacher and Author, Real Happiness at Work: Meditations for Accomplishment, Achievement, and Peace
Objects of Awareness
Very commonly meditation practice would begin with mostly trying to develop some concentration. So the theory is that most of us at least in some arena of our life, maybe not in every arena, we’re somewhat scattered or distracted, we’re unsettled, we’re uncentered. And so that’s usually done by choosing an object of awareness and we rest our attention on that object. Maybe its mantra or sound or visualization or something happening in your body. And very commonly it’s the feeling of the breath, the actual sensations of the in and out breath. As one of my teachers said very charmingly the breath is very portable. So if you practice at home just resting your attention on the feeling of the breath, using it to return to yourself to this moment, the breath goes to work with you, right, and so you can utilize it in all these kind of more complex difficult situations.
Level 1
So we rest our attention on that object. Usually we find it’s not very long before our minds jump somewhere – past, future, judgment, speculation, somewhere. We realize that we see if we can let go of that distraction and just gently bring our attention back to the feeling of the breath. So that’s like the first training is letting go and coming back.
Level 2
Over time we get much more centered and settled and our attention gets much more stabilized. We feel our way into what it’s like to be with something without struggling. We’re trying to make it into something else. So then that becomes the platform for taking that same quality of awareness which is balanced, which is connected, not struggling and also not confused or lost. We take it to awareness of other things that arise. Say, sensations in the body. If you have a painful sensation in your body. Very commonly we get caught right away and like what’s it going to feel like next week. What’s it going to feel like next month. What’s it going to feel like next year.
So we’re not just experiencing what’s happening in the moment. We’re experiencing that plus all that anticipated difficulty. And usually finding it overwhelming and we feel quite defeated.
Level 3
So we learn to let go of all those add-ons and just be with the experience as it is. And the same with emotions. When we can do that – so let’s say, a state of irritation arises and we’re not fighting it. We’re also not lost in it. We can actually pay attention to it. Then it’s like we see the irritation movie and we see all these other components that are part of there – feeling unheard, feeling frustrated, feeling down on ourselves because we can’t articulate our needs very clearly. Maybe feeling guilty, feeling helpless, you know, whatever it might be. And so we see that that’s actually a compound, that state. There are many threads that are coming into that.
Level 4
And then if we choose to take action it’s with a much bigger picture of all those different feelings that are also true. They’re also happening. And we see those states are constantly changing. When it first arose, that irritation or that anger might have seemed so solid and rock solid really and so unyielding. But when we really look at it there’s a lot of change within it and that gives us a very different sense of perspective, that okay, this is real. It’s happening right now. It’s not the only thing I will ever feel. Maybe I want to not act from here right now. We just have some more space.