Returning from the Realm of Ideas to the Immediacy of Now: The “Golden Moment”

When our lives seem as scary and threatening as they do now, thinking clearly, critically, and calmly can be even more difficult than it usually is. We might want to hide reality away. Decisions can feel too weighty and complex. So, I find myself trying to remember what was most helpful when life was a little easier.

 

Maybe 20 years ago, I was lucky enough to take a mindfulness workshop with the author and Buddhist meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. One teaching that stood out for me was on “the Golden Moment.” This is the moment when we realize we’ve drifted off from what we were doing. We become aware that we’ve lost focus, been distracted, and had ceased being present. And we re-focus on what we’re doing. We return from thoughts, memories, and plans⎼ we return from the realm of ideas to the immediacy of now. This results not only in deeper meditation but clearer questioning and thinking, thinking more engaged with the multiple realities of a situation. It has been helpful in so much of my life.

 

It took a while for me to realize the depth and breadth of the teaching. It reminds us to take a minute; to let all the information and the different aspects of a situation settle in our mind before acting. This is such an old insight. My parents often told me as a child to sleep on a weighty decision. We can take a walk and step out of an old viewpoint so we see a new one. Or we practice mindfulness or meditation.

 

When we slow our breath, being aware of the long exhale, the pause.  Then the inhale, pause, and exhale. This technique is called box breathing. Slowing the breath with awareness naturally slows the rush of thought. It releases us from what binds and blinds us. We feel richer in time⎼ that we have more to give.

 

And we become aware of feelings and emotions. Feelings spur action. They can alert us to important perceptual information we often ignore or don’t take time to notice. We might feel an inner message of danger, of pain or pleasure confronting us; notice energy arising to step forward, retreat, or freeze. We can become aware of details that prove crucial in decision making. So, we need, as much as possible in that moment, to let ourselves feel what we feel. And then we can rationally examine the situation and what we’ve felt.

 

We become aware of awareness itself, the quality of our mind right now, and whether we’re interpreting what we perceive more fully or accurately. Of course, there are limitations on conscious awareness, limits on how much information we can process. So much of what our eyes and other senses pick up is not registered consciously.

 

And there’s what’s called inattentional blindness….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.

Mindful Listening: Only If You Listen Can You Hear

I had a discussion with a friend yesterday. I made what I thought was a logical and possibly obvious suggestion to help him with a difficult problem he was facing. The result was my friend yelling back at me all the reasons not to do what I suggested—and then apologizing.

I realized he wasn’t arguing with me but himself. He was shouting back against the universe that had sent him the problems, hoping the vehemence of his objection would obliterate the reality. So today, when he brought up the topic again, I just listened, sometimes asking questions to check if I understood, and empathizing with him. The result: he came to his own conclusions.

I’ve seen this dynamic many times in the classroom. Students often argue a point not because they truly believe it, but because they don’t want to believe it. They hear something from friends or family and don’t want it to be true and want you or the class to argue them free of it. They might feel conceptually stuck and want a way out. They might say there is no such thing as love, for example, or all actions are selfish, because they fear a life without love or they have been hurt by the selfishness of friends, and don’t want to feel their own lives are meaningless.

This post was published by mindfulteachers.org. To read the whole post, please follow this link to their website.