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AussieTrees

Meditating all the time,24/7,or is this mindfulness.

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I'm trying to do vipashyana/noting continuously. It's difficult, I regularly get distracted by stuff, but it's damn good.

 

From my perspective, mindfulness (objective present moment awareness) is itself so very useful for giving breathing room from the neurotic running commentary. But it's even better combined with other things to make different practices which refine the mind at a deeper level, and produce liberating insights. Combine with one-pointed focus on one thing, such as the breath, sitting still with no other activities, and you get shamatha. Combine with close looking at experience to see how it consists entirely of rapidly arising and passing processes which are not 'you' or 'yours', and you get vipashyana. And so on.

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I found that just being "mindful" . . . eventually fails (or gets distorted) because it is too head orientated.

 

Instead, I practice constantly returning awareness to sensation of the body (sensing the body).  The body is always in the present and reflects a lot about what's happening with us.  This is a very grounding, lower dantian practice.

 

Extra added bonus: my sitting meditation is exactly the same practice, so there's continuity in all waking hours . . .

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I found that just being "mindful" . . . eventually fails (or gets distorted) because it is too head orientated.

 

Instead, I practice constantly returning awareness to sensation of the body (sensing the body).  The body is always in the present and reflects a lot about what's happening with us.  This is a very grounding, lower dantian practice.

 

Extra added bonus: my sitting meditation is exactly the same practice, so there's continuity in all waking hours . . .

 

I agree that a 24/7 mindfulness that incorporates vipassana style contemplation and analysis along with bodily sensation presents a risk of cogntive overload, but I think sensing the body and centering at the navel might be too narrow to work as a 24/7 practice for people attending to work and taks; I think the busy person probably needs a focus more similar to the "flow/in the zone" martial arts state, with awareness opened and attuned to external objects and movements.

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i enjoy mindfulness, but i find meditation can go deep. But then again it depends what im doing

making music i can get into similar states

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Sometimes I just let myself go silly and get loco and be me, as if there is no tomorrow, nothing to gain, nowhere to be, no one to be, as if its all just a game and I can't really die, and I just watch what happens...its fun. Ask yourself this: what would a Drunken Buddha do at a party?

Edited by Songtsan
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I found that just being "mindful" . . . eventually fails (or gets distorted) because it is too head orientated.

 

It's funny that it's known as mindfulness...considering the common knowledge in there practices are that we are "not our thoughts"

 

The mind is utterly useless, so I like to not use the term. I think some people's practice suffers due to this (well I was one...concentrating so much on something, awareness for all else failed!)

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I think, watch till ur tired watching, feel till ur sick of feeling, listen like a radio till ur tired of listening, smell? Maybe it doesn't work well for me, but then combine the different experiences as one and be. Then back to whatever u fancy when bored of that :P

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Sometimes I just let myself go silly and get loco and be me, as if there is no tomorrow, nothing to gain, nowhere to be, no one to be, as if its all just a game and I can't really die, and I just watch what happens...its fun. Ask yourself this: what would a Drunken Buddha do at a party?

 

I love those days. When they come I notice and enjoy, because the next day I could be a complete crab and the cycle repeats.

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