Start your week off mindfully by learning to quiet your inner critic with this meditative practice excerpted from Sharon Salzberg’s Real Happiness.
This meditation can be done in any posture, eyes open or closed; just be relaxed. Call to mind a difficult emotion you’ve felt recently—jealousy, fear, greed. And notice how you feel about that emotion. Are you ashamed of it? Do you dislike yourself for it? Do you feel you should have been able to prevent it from arising? Do you consider yourself in some way bad or wrong for having this feeling? Now see what happens if you change the word “bad” to “painful.” See if you can recognize that the jealous or fearful feeling is a painful state, a state of suffering. See what happens to your relationship to that feeling as you make this change.
Now see what that emotion feels like in your body, once you begin to hold it with some kindness and compassion. Observe the various sensations; the pain is there and the compassion is there surrounding it. Notice the effect if that sense of “bad” or “wrong” comes back. When you catch yourself being harshly critical and replace that habit with compassion for yourself, you are practicing lovingkindness.
And you can reflect again on the fact that you aren’t able to prevent negative feelings from arising. You don’t need to be overcome by them, defined by them, to act on them or feel ashamed if you have them. This is just in the nature of things, for ourselves and for others. We can commit ourselves to trying to see them more quickly, to recognize their painful nature, to have compassion for ourselves, and to let go. We can commit ourselves to remembering that when someone else is acting badly, whatever negative emotion is motivating them also puts them in a painful state, and we can have compassion for them.
And when you feel ready, end this meditation.
About the Book:
Thousands of years prove it, and Western science backs it: Meditation sharpens focus. Meditation lowers blood pressure, relieves chronic pain, reduces stress. Meditation helps us experience greater calm. Meditation connects us to our inner-most feelings and challenges our habits of self-judgment. Meditation helps protect the brain against aging and improves our capacity for learning new things. Meditation opens the door to real and accessible happiness.
There is no better person to show a beginner how to harness the power of meditation than Sharon Salzberg, one of the world’s foremost meditation teachers and spiritual authors. Cofounder of the Insight Meditation Society, author of Lovingkindness, Faith, and other books, Ms. Salzberg distills 30 years of teaching meditation into a 28-day program that will change lives. It is not about Buddhism, it’s not esoteric—it is closer to an exercise, like running or riding a bike. From the basics of posture, breathing, and the daily schedule to the finer points of calming the mind, distraction, dealing with specific problem areas (pain in the legs? falling asleep?) to the larger issues of compassion and awareness, Real Happiness is a complete guide. It explains how meditation works; why a daily meditation practice results in more resiliency, creativity, peace, clarity, and balance; and gives twelve meditation practices, including mindfulness meditation and walking meditation. An extensive selection of her students’ FAQs cover the most frequent concerns of beginners who meditate—“Is meditation selfish?” “How do I know if I’m doing it right?” “Can I use meditation to manage weight?”
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