Preliminary Foundations

1: Preliminary Foundations: Cultivating Mindful Awareness

Has four subdivisions:

1. Abdominal breathing

2. Settling into body and breath

3. Settling into sound

4. Walking meditation

Mindful awareness contributes to all other practices. Cultivating mindful awareness involves placing our attention on an object such as the body, a sense object, a feeling, thought, or the mind itself, and letting our attention settle into it with increasing fullness and stability. The mind tends to identify with trains of thought, causing it often to wander. When you notice the mind wandering, just recall the object of attention and let that object draw the mind back to it. To repeatedly notice the mind is wandering, and let the object draw it back, is not a problem. It is how we learn to meditate. When meditating, various isolated thoughts will also continue to arise in the background of your awareness, even when you are not strongly identifying with them. That is fine. Just consider whatever thoughts arise as peripheral to your attention. The main focus of attention is the object you are instructed to focus on and repeatedly return to.

1: Abdominal Breathing

Sit in a relaxed, comfortable way with back straight, eyes gazing gently downward. Come down from the thinking mind into the body. Take a slow deep breath, inhaling from the abdomen so it expands, then exhaling slowly and completely, letting go of all your concerns with the exhale. Relax for a moment before inhaling again. Repeat several times.

2: Settling into Body and Breath

Sit in a relaxed, comfortable way with back straight, eyes gazing gently downward. Come down from thinking mind into the body, and settle into the grounded feeling of the body on your seat. (pause) Let the breath flow naturally while breathing from the abdomen, so you feel the belly expand and contract with each breath. Let that feeling draw you into it more and more, breath by breath. When you notice the mind wandering, let the feeling of the belly moving with the breath draw you back into it. Let that feeling draw you into oneness with it more and more, by relaxing into it.

3: Settling into Sound

While listening to any ongoing sound, such as a gong or a waterfall, let your awareness settle deeply into the sound, hearing fully. When you notice the mind wandering, let the sound, like a magnet, draw you back to it, to settle into the sound more and more fully. Let the sound draw you into oneness with it more and more, relaxing into it.

4: Walking Meditation

While walking at a slightly slower pace than usual, feel the sensation of walking on your feet as fully as you can, step by step. When you notice the mind wandering, let the feeling of the foot in each step draw the mind back to it, to feel it more fully. Each step is drawing you into the present moment of feeling. Alternatively, if you wish, you may let your attention settle into the full sensory field, just seeing or hearing fully, wide open. When you notice the mind wandering, let the visual or auditory field draw the mind back to it, to sense it more and more fully, wide open.

Purposes of such practice: To strengthen the power and stability of attention; to sense more of what is here now; to penetrate deeply into the nature of our experience. This brings fuller awareness of self and others, the natural world, our habits of reaction and what lies beyond them, and fuller presence to what we are doing (“becoming one” with our activities, when walking, washing dishes, listening, etc.). Mindful awareness also supports all other practices. Ultimately, it can support increasing freedom from inner causes of suffering, thereby helping to unleash the capacities of our buddha nature, as do all the other meditations below.