Practising mindfulness

Just finished reading this book titled 'Beginning Mindfulness' written by a Buddhist teacher, Andrew Weiss. In it, he taught direct application of practice to daily life. It is not too intensive whereby you need to engage in long meditation retreats. Actually, mindfulness can be practiced practically during every moments of our life, if we are mindful enough to practice it diligently.=)

A tiny portion of what I have learnt about the basics.

Sitting Meditation (Formal practice)
Benefits:
Know more abt ourselves and improves concentration
What is it?
It is about waking up. It is NOT about escaping or day-dreaming.
Elements:
1. Good and stable posture with the back straight, chin slightly tucked in and hands in comfortable positions.
2. Stillness in sitting.
3. Just be aware of your breathing in and out, don't have to control it.
4. Silently say 'in' during inhalation, then 'one' when inhalation changes to exhalation, and then 'out' during exhalation. Count till 10 then countdown to 1 again.

Walking Meditation (Formal practice)
Basically, it is quite similar to sitting meditation except that we have to be aware of not only our breaths but also our legs and feets. How we walk actually shows what we are feeling at that point of time (happy, relaxed, angry, sad etc.)

Daily-Life Mindfulness (Informal practice)
Benefits
Helps us to stop, allowing our mind to rest in the present moment, hence achieve a new and more complete understanding of ourselves and the world.
What is it?
As mentioned in the book, it is described by a meditatio teacher as 'the slow settling of water in a pond. As the pond settles, the water becomes clearer and clearer. In the same way, as we become more mindful, and our mind comes to rest more steadily, our understanding and true presence become clearer and clearer.'
Elements
1. For newbies like me, I think practising the awareness of breath through consious breathing is the easier way to incorporate mindfulness in our daily life. Morever, the awareness of breath is also the foundation for sitting and walking meditations.
2. Every actions we do and see, every thoughts running through our minds, and every emotions we are experiencing are all perfect opportunities to practice mindfulness!
3. Aim to be an observer of our doings!

The rest of the book further elaborates on the the four foundations of mindfulness (namely body, feelings, thinkings and objects of mind) and how we can widen the heart through practicing loving kindness and compassion. If you are interested in finding out more, go grab this book, I am sure it will be spiritually beneficial to any reader=)

Hope you can try out abit of meditation and practice mindfulness in our daily life=) I am seeing the benefits of practicing already=D Though I wish I can do more formal meditations on top of practicing awareness of my breathing. Cheers to my 'training-in-progress' mind! =)

Currently reading another meditation book which is much more reader friendly=) It is very digestable and have lots of niceX2 picts=D Will post any interesting and useful stuffs about it after I finish reading it.