Concentration with Mindfulness Connectedness and Compassion the Essence of Medical Mindfulness
Concentrated, Connected and Compassion- Introduction to Medical Mindfulness and Meditation
Connecting to the force or presence within us using a compassionate awareness called mindfulness leads to optimal satisfaction and security with acceptable suffering. Everything has its price! That force within us directs our life and the more we can become aware of it and connect with it the better it is for you and every one.
We lose direction because we lose connection with this inner force or presence. Mindfulness will help us find the good in the bad, the bad in the good, and the excitement and novelty in what appears neutral, plain and boring. It can be an anecdote for living and for dying.
Mindfulness is present moment, and then moment to moment awareness, accepting and allowing what is before we apply any thinking process to it. It is the bare awareness before thinking.
The force that directs us is mostly out of our awareness , and to connect with it has healing and other helpful properties, by using mindfulness in and out of meditation.
A useful example of this is in handling certain emotional and mental states such as anxiety, panic, depression, anger, negative thoughts, and physical problems that have strong emotions such as headaches, irritable bowel, and sleep difficulties to name just a few.
If these mind states can be become aware of with mindfulness, accepted and allowed they will diminish in their intensity and duration and may eventually go away, and in the process the negative aspects will have less suffering and the positive aspects that you were unaware of may become apparent, and other useful connections or insights will become know.
How does one become mindful and how can one make it useful to help mind states?
Become aware of anything only in the present moment, and then moment by moment, don’t think about it add things from the past, future or the present, don’t qualify it by making it good, bad ,or neutral, just accept it, for what it is, and allow its wave like nature to unfold as you experience it, stay with it, sense it, feel it, as it arises, and then goes away. Do this moment by moment and you are being mindful.
Start with sounds, listen to a sound, any sound, the first moments of just hearing the sound, just bare listening , sensing the hearing its coming and going, before you attach any thoughts to it, like loud or soft, or good or bad, or it reminds me off this or that, by bringing in the past or the future, just the present moment sensing of the sound , is the mindful knowing of a sound, anything more is thinking added to the mindful knowing of the sound.
Now apply the same present moment awareness using experiencing of the breathing by feeling and sensing as you accept each breath for what it is, and allow its wave like nature to unfold, without using thinking in any of its formats, not comparing with past or future, not expecting anything, not wanting anything, not avoiding, not ignoring, not controlling, not reacting to the emotions involved whether positive, negative or neutral, not resisting because their perceived as bad, or retaining because they seem good, not ignoring the neutral or boring aspects of the breathing, just continued present moment awareness, accepting and allowing, and then letting go for the next breath, moment by moment, over and over, and again and again.
Mindfulness prolonged is mindfulness meditation. Prolonged mindfulness applied to anything over and over is mindfulness meditation. This will lead to progressive concentration, calmness, stability of mind that will lead to increasing insights leading to increased connectedness and compassion. Connectedness and compassion are the hallmarks of mindfulness psychology and philosophy.