This week, Joseph shares a collection of mindfulness and meditation practices that offers us a way to quiet our mind and see the deeper nature of our experience.
A Way of Practice (Opening)
Joseph talks about the how the components of mindfulness come together to allow us to see into the deeper nature of our experience. We are guided through the finer points of sitting meditation and Joseph shares a way he has found helpful to ease into mindfulness by connecting the body and mind.
“I would like to emphasize today not only the techniques of mindfulness but also what we learn from being mindful. Mindfulness gets us there, and then when we look, through being mindful, we begin to see the deeper nature of our experience.”
The Notion of Hand (28:25)
We are given an exercise that provides a framework for different ways of paying attention during walking meditation.
“When we are on the level of concept, take our hand, for instance, the concept doesn’t change. Because the concept doesn’t change, we live in the often unconscious assumption that the hand is something substantial in itself and basically unchanging.
Yet when we are on the level of direct experience of the sensations, we see that the sensations are changing moment to moment and we begin to see that on that level there is nothing substantial called hand. That is a concept we have created that suggests permanence. Whereas on the level of sensation and direct experience, we drop beneath the level of concept into what we are actually feeling and that is when we enter into the direct experience of this whole body as a flow of changing sensation.”
Moving Beyond the Body (36:10)
Joseph instructs on ways to practice walking meditation. In doing so we become aware of the different layers of our perception of the experience and beyond.