Meditation as a skill of kindness

I have been thinking a lot about meditation in relation to psychotherapy. When modern mindfulness started in the 1970’s part of its success was in providing meditation without religion. In a similar way I am starting to break down meditation into a set of relevant skills, as I see them being useful to mental health, as well as a path to secular spiritual awakening.

Part of this process is to keep things experiential rather than getting bogged down in theory. As an example I will give some instructions on paying attention to the feeling of breathing.

This exercise develops the skills of:

• Placing attention where you want it – good when other thoughts/feelings/memories are overwhelming.
• Noticing the difference between mind wandering and paying attention – paying attention usually feels better than distraction.
• Helping your nervous system to enter a restorative state.
• Being kind and gentle to yourself – this is a skill that brings enormous benefits to mental health.

And it goes like this:

This whole exercise is an act of kindness to yourself and others.

You are not trying to push away other experiences e.g.  you are not trying to stop your thoughts.

You are not striving to achieve goals.

Breathe. Notice what it feels like. Stay with these sensations as much as possible.

All the way in and all the way out, and all the way in and all the way out.

You will notice other things at the same time – thoughts, states of mind, preferences, sense information.

These are not bad things, and they are not your main focus.

Your main focus is the feeling of breathing. Let your breathing be as natural as possible.

When you notice that you have been distracted, be happy. This is an important part of the process.

What is it like to awaken from distraction?

With as much gentle kindness as you can muster, bring your attention back to the feeling of breathing.

The flow of this practice is: kindness, paying attention, becoming distracted, awakening from distraction, kindness, paying attention, and so on.

Do this for at least 60 seconds every day.

There is a lot, lot more that could be said about this exercise and where it leads, but I wanted this to be brief and functional. Please give it a try and let me know what you think.

Kind regards.

Will.