| Developing mindfulness and awareness can be like | | | | they? Make a list. |
| riding a rapids. It is easy to talk about, but actually to | | | | 9) As an exercise, create a script in which you |
| do it requires inner strength, stamina. The way to | | | | represent your most important goal in life as a living |
| develop inner strength is to take every opportunity | | | | symbol of some sort. Relate to it, feel its energy. |
| to practice it, bit by bit. Opportunities continually | | | | Take some time to become fully established in |
| present themselves. Constantly practice breaking | | | | relationship to it, so it becomes alive and vivid. Then |
| state and acting independently of the urge of habitual | | | | visualize it moving straight out into the distance, to |
| thought and behavior. | | | | the top of a hill where you experience its power and |
| 1) Go slow when you want to go fast, and vice | | | | vividness as you simultaneously experience yourself |
| versa. When you feel like contracting in fear, expand. | | | | at the beginning of a straight path before you and up |
| For example, if you are sliding into a poverty | | | | the hill to the symbol. Walking this path symbolizes |
| mentality, give something away. Return kindness for | | | | your walking your life's path to attain this goal. As |
| rudeness. Patience is a form of generosity: cultivate it | | | | you begin walking, on either side of the path are |
| toward yourself and others. Give both space and | | | | temptations and obstacles of all sorts, manifesting in |
| time; take a deep breath and shift perspective: look | | | | varied ways: people, objects of desire or fear, |
| at the sky, feel your feet on the ground. Affirm that | | | | situations from the past, symbols of shame and fear, |
| there is plenty of time to do everything, and relax | | | | sadness or grief, seduction and distraction. |
| the contraction. | | | | These manifestations can try to divert you from |
| 2) Do ordinary, habitual tasks, like brushing your | | | | your path, but they cannot do one thing: they cannot |
| teeth, with wakeful attention as if for the first | | | | block your path or prevent you from going step by |
| (beginner's mind) or last time (awareness of the | | | | step, walking wakefully and intentionally. As you go |
| imminence of death). | | | | step by step, knowing you are going to stay on the |
| 3) Do things faster or slower than usual, i.e. become | | | | path, focused more and more on your goal, you can |
| attentive to habitual patterns and vary them so you | | | | afford to take some time to experience things to |
| feel the friction. | | | | the right and the left, to hear and feel the pull of |
| 4) Don't base choices or behaviors on external | | | | their cons, and then to "pop" them and move on. |
| standards, or internalized external standards, such as | | | | After taking the time you need to do this in a way |
| praise or blame, good or bad, or right or wrong (think | | | | that builds your inner strength, you come to the |
| more deeply about what causes harm), or others' | | | | bottom of the hill, having left all those things behind. |
| expectations. | | | | Take one last look back at them, reflecting on how |
| 5) Take risks, perform small acts of courage (and | | | | good it feels to have overcome them, and then turn |
| appreciate them), make arbitrary choices and plans | | | | and proceed up the hill into the presence of this living |
| and follow through. Just do it! | | | | symbol, which has become even more vivid, |
| 6) Practice witnessing thoughts and feelings. Sit | | | | meaningful, and powerful because of your efforts. |
| quietly erect and relaxed, and simply label thoughts | | | | Feel its energy permeating you as it merges fully into |
| and feelings: "thinking ...thinking ...feeling..." Label and | | | | your being, dissolving into every cell of your body, |
| witness without getting involved. Build up until you | | | | carrying its resources, intelligence, and power into |
| can spend 20 minutes or more a day with this simple | | | | every part of your being. Take some time to |
| exercise. | | | | experience this, knowing and sensing it is radiating |
| 7) Cultivate mindfulness in all your actions throughout | | | | through your past and future in appropriate and |
| the day, and create your own exercises for breaking | | | | beneficial ways, and then come back. |
| state, for waking up. | | | | 10) Rest in No-Self and allow Skillful means to flow |
| This is a discipline, and true discipline itself is an act of | | | | genuinely. Be ready to be surprised! As you clarify |
| courage: the courage to step outside the trance of | | | | and step out of your own shame-based, fear-based |
| narrow self-involvement and fear. To keep it real and | | | | trances, you'll be able to trust the Goodness of your |
| fresh requires vigilance. If it becomes a routine habit, | | | | True I-Don't-Know-Who-I-Am Self. You'll be amazed |
| you've fallen asleep. If it becomes a duty, an | | | | at what comes out of your mouth and at how you |
| obligation, involved with hope and fear, guilt, or a | | | | behave, and amazed at how this benefits yourself |
| gaining idea, you will become resentful. Right | | | | and others. This effortless capacity is the fruit of |
| relationship to wakeful living is the goal of this | | | | sincere, persistent efforts to cultivate the forms of |
| approach to hypnotherapy, not the trading of one | | | | discipline and self-inquiry described above. You can't |
| trance for another. | | | | sit and watch fertile ground, no matter how fertile it |
| 8) Become aware of how and when you are ruled | | | | is, and wait for it to sprout a bountiful crop. You |
| by your unexamined likes and dislikes. What are | | | | must till it and plant good seed. |