produces. They find this a new and exciting sensation they want to repeat more often. Just recently, David, a cancer patient who is fifty-eight, said he had worked hard all his life and enjoyed doing so, but on trying this exercise for the first time, realized he had never before known the joy and pleasure of being so simply, so deeply relaxed.
As a beginner, what is recommended is to start with this PMR exercise and use it as your main meditation practice for some weeks at least. Actually, for many people I helped in the early days this was all they used. However, in current times, people often find it useful to take the time to learn how to simplify and deepen the relaxation aspect of the PMR, and then proceed, giving added emphasis to the mindfulness and the stillness. The explanation for all of this follows and the main meditation practice to move on to once you have mastered the PMR is at the end of the next chapter.
Step 3 • Mindfulness
As we do come to feel more relaxed, we actually become more aware. This is another key point. We relax our body, feel the relaxation in our body and feel that relaxation flowing into our mind. But this is not a sleepy thing. We keep our awareness awake and, in fact, it becomes more vivid. It is like we are awake, aware and at the same time deeply relaxed.
How we do this is expressed in the word mindfulness. Now mindfulness may be a new word for some but it is very simple, both in concept and in practice. Mindfulness describes how we concentrate in a particular way. It helps us with the next step, what to do once our body is deeply relaxed and our mind calm.
Mindfulness has been defined by Jon Kabat-Zinn9 as paying attention, deliberately and nonjudgmentally, to our present moment experience. Another way to say this is that mindfulness is concentrating on what is going on right now, in this particular moment, in a way that is focused and nonjudgmental. It is to do with observing, with being aware of what is happening right now, without judging what is happening as being good or bad, right or wrong. It is to do with simply being really interested, really curious, really attentive to what is going on right now, in this very moment.
This then is the ability to be mindful. It is as simple as being able to give your full attention to whatever you are doing. And doing this in a way that is not distracted by old thoughts, doubts or fears from the past, or anxious wondering about how things will turn out in the future.
Mindfulness cuts through stress and anxiety by focusing on what we are doing now. And think of it: If we give our full attention to what we are doing now, how can we do any more? With mindfulness, we learn to give our best, to give our full attention, to whatever we do. This is why developing mindfulness is so valuable for more than meditation and healing. Mindfulness frees the mind to engage fully in sport, business, relationships, creativity, feeling good and being well! You name it—everything goes better when you do it mindfully.
Sometimes it is helpful to have the contrast and to realize what mindlessness is. Mindlessness is the opposite of mindfulness. Mindlessness is when you are not paying attention, when you are spaced-out as if no one is home. It is like when you do something, know you actually did it, but have no memory of it at all. Like you get home after being out, travel home, arrive at your front door and have no real memory of the trip. Or you plan to listen to something like the weather on the radio, it comes and goes and there is no memory of it. It is like you missed it altogether. That is mindlessness and we all do it pretty regularly.
Mindfulness is where we begin to change that and we learn to be present more often, more fully. Where we learn to give our full attention; where we learn to give our best to whatever we do.
Now what most people do notice when they start to become aware of mindfulness is how often they are mindless! This is why this practice, this mind training is so useful. Not only does it help us to learn to be more mindful, more often, but it teaches us how to go easy on ourselves.
There is this natural tendency to judge ourselves harshly, so now we want to change all that. What is known from experience is that many people have a history of feeling badly about what they do and do not do. Most of us when we begin these mind-training practices do tend to notice our mindlessness, and as a result we feel awkward, unhappy, sometimes embarrassed or even ashamed. Why am I like this? Why do I do this? We tend to judge ourselves as meditators, judge our capacity to be mindful.
Now of course, we do not want our meditation to become another source of stress. So what to do? Well, it is simple. Everyone has fairly frequent moments of mindlessness, unless they have trained their minds. All of us as human beings have the tendency to be lazy, to be forgetful, to be mindless, to be judgmental. This is normal. So while it may be a bit disappointing as a beginner to even notice all this, go easy on yourself.
Be inspired! Isn’t it wonderful that there is a part of us that can actually become aware of all this and do something about it! Any progress is a step in the right direction and becoming more mindful helps to let go of the judgments of others and of ourselves. The thing is to persevere. Do not be put off by what is the common starting point for so many people. We can all learn these new skills. We can learn to master our minds and feel the benefits. Here then is how we add the next step and begin to practice and develop mindfulness.
Relax and Become More Aware
As we begin to experience the relaxation, quite naturally our thoughts settle a bit and we just simply start to notice what is going on around us a little more clearly. This is the beauty of this technique. It simply unfolds from one step to another. So as we relax, we become more aware, more mindful.
Perhaps it is the sounds we notice first. We notice any sounds that may be around about us. And what we aim to do is to simply notice these sounds as they come and go. We let go of any judgment, let go of commentary. So we aim to avoid thinking about the sounds. It is fine to be aware of what is making the sound; for example, an ambulance may pass by in the street. But we avoid wondering where it is going or will we be in an ambulance one day. We simply register there is an ambulance passing by and let it go. Simple as that.
Then maybe we become a little more aware of the sensations in our bodies, and again we choose to notice these things more nonjudgmentally. We aim to let go of any sense of good or bad, right or wrong, and focus our awareness on just simply noticing what it is that we are aware of. We take up the stance of being an impartial observer; a nonjudgmental observer. We are aware, we are interested, we are curious. What is happening right now? What is our body feeling like at this particular moment? We are coming into the present moment with awareness. This is mindfulness.
And so then we might take some time to focus our mindfulness more deliberately. To begin with, it can be very helpful to focus our awareness more particularly on our breath. We feel the breath coming in. Feel the breath going out, and we feel the natural release, the relaxation, the letting go that flows quite effortlessly, quite naturally with the out breath. Almost with a sigh of relief we can let go, we can relax a little deeper.
Now it can be helpful to bring the focus of our mindfulness more particularly to our body. Again with that open curiosity, we notice the sensations in our body. We scan our attention through the body, starting from the feet and moving up to the head. If any area does feel a little tight or tense, sore or painful, we simply notice that, aiming to be free of any judgment, free of reaction, free of commentary. Maybe there is the feeling of letting go a little. That natural feeling of relaxing, releasing, letting go. Quite effortlessly. Effortlessly. We feel the natural ease of it all.
We are content to relax, to be aware, to be mindful.
Step 4 • Stillness
Having prepared well, relaxed deeply and become more mindful, now we begin to notice something really interesting—we begin to become aware of a deeper stillness. In time it becomes more apparent that this stillness is like an all-pervasive background. It
