toft

Still working my way through this mindfulness book. I'm into the more practical sections now, which are less annoying. The biggest take-away I've had from the last few chapters since I last posted are this: that the real practice of mindfulness meditation is not to not get distracted, but to notice when you're getting distracted and gently, kindly pull your mind back to mindfulness. So continually getting distracted and 'failing' while meditating is not actually failing, because the practice is in the noticing.

This is a really important idea for me to chew over, because I get very frustrated when I can't focus at all when I try to meditate. I'm also thinking a lot about the idea of neutral noticing; just observing my thoughts and feelings, thinking about my body, being in the moment. There was another exercise where you shut your eyes and just be in your hands for a while, think about how they feel, move your fingers, rub your palms, explore the sensations of your hands. This is a warm-up to the 'body scan' meditation, which I used to do a lot to fall asleep but have stopped doing. A CD came with the book which I think has audio walkthroughs of these meditations, but I haven't seen yet if I can put it on my ipod.