Carl Atteniese

After listening to a lecture by Dr. Sam Harris, during his talk with Dan Harris, this rewording interprets my own and some of Sam Harris’s points on meditation and specifically, from his ideas, on falling out of mindfulness.

The challenge is to not be challenged
in applying the lessons of Zen—
or whatever your particular mindfulness meditation practice is—
so when being so challenged,
we are mindful—and associating with our thought- and feeling- landscape,
such that we can alter our conscious experience,
and not be controlled by it…
witnessing it instead.
The former is what happens when we find ourselves “out of control”–so to speak–or better said–not mindful,
and mindless, if you will; we know this has happened, when:

Later,
we are explaining what happened with our mind, body and words—
as if it happened to someone else:

‘I didn’t mean to say that.’
‘I didn’t mean to do that.’
‘I didn’t mean to have that happen.’
‘I didn’t mean to forget that.’
‘I didn’t mean to be late’;
‘I really didn’t want to eat that/drink that/go there/get angry’

This is the experience of most
people–who identify their thoughts and feelings with whom and what they are.

With a successful mindful practice, we realize we are not our thoughts and feelings, but rather that they are parts of our conscious experience; meditation allows us to observe this—and in the practice of meditation, we let our thoughts dissipate, diminish and disappear, before we react to them—in real time—as it were (at least that is the task and the benefit); we may have new feelings as a result of the thoughts we experience in meditation—but part of the practice is:

To observe the thoughts and—
to simultaneously not volition-ally add to them—and:
when we do observe our thoughts, by dint of ‘falling out of meditation’—
we return to our breathing—

as a focus, instead of the “thought train”, which we accidentally have begun to allow to form.

This practice is the crafting and guiding of our conscious experience, rather than the surrendering to it and that which we are often a part of.

I. It could be said that this practice—mindfulness—
describes the more accomplished and intensive meaning, applicable to the phrase:

‘change your mind.‘

Once we can do this–more and more in our minds,
we can do it beyond,
in our thoughts and actions—
like moving in the car with our hands on the wheel,
rather than off it—
as the car drifts forward in idle drive gear.

We find we can experience our mind—
consciousness and its contents—
and the world
(as well as situations in it–especially potentially adverse ones) …
mindfully—
so that we do not, later, regret that which our better self would rather not have said
or done—
or forgotten to do—
as the case may have become.

II. Mindfulness allows us to experience, with guidance, and craft—
our conscious experience—
and prevents us from becoming victims of our thoughts,
emotions
and actions—
and those of others—
from not living by the hidden programing
in our wetware—
that has us continually saying…

‘what am I supposed to do in this situation’ .…

III. Via mindfulness, we find ourselves in better situations.
And until we can,
we find ourselves experiencing even bad situations—
better—
than we would—
without mindfulness.

The idea in this essay, taken from Sam Harris, is simply that of

’becoming able to witness our mind and our conscious experience’—

and:

not being consumed by it.…

Another idea Harris expounds on is:

’when we do come off the path (my words),—
we get back on it more easily’;

What Harris refers to in his example of this, is, anger;
Harris says ‘we bounce back’ to a better conscious experience (or behavior, for example, when angry)—a lot more quickly: Harris is fond of putting it this way:

‘How long do I want to be angry?’

IV. With mindful practice, we don’t stop being human—
with the cultivated conscious experience afforded us in the work of meditation and reflecting on meditative thoughts and ideas—but:

We spend less time out of control and in regret; and we know we are conscious beings having a conscious experience—an experience that we are not helpless in shaping.

Thank you for reading.
‘Be a Buddha’, as we say in One Mind Zen–in Korea: “Sungbul haseyo.”

Carl Mando Atteniese
Wheat Ridge, CO (for now)
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