Practicing Awareness

Two weeks ago I started a course in meditation and Buddhism at "Stockholms Buddhistcenter". I guess I've been meditating on and off for maybe ten years, but it's hard to get a regular practice. I took this same course five years ago, and found it really good. When in Mysore, I meditateted every evening before going to bed. I felt that I wanted to continue the practice when I came home. Also I have this longing for learning more philosophy. Listening to Richard Freeman talking about the Yoga Sutras, he said that Patanjali was influenced by Buddhism, and that there are a lot of similarities between the two. Having read and practiced a lot of yogic philosophy, I thought maybe that I would understand the course in a new way this time.

This weeks home assignment is to be aware. Actually, to be aware of how you can be more aware in daily life. The sitting meditation is a practice to become more aware. But the goal is to become more aware all the time. In daily life. When walking to the bus, when doing the dishes, when you are bored or stressed at work, when your expectations don't come true, when your sick, when you're miserable or when you're just neutral.

There is this saying that awareness is like a light. The light of awareness can dissolve pain. If you sit with pain and let the pain be present, without clinging to it or judging it, it can dissolve, or at least diminish. It's quite powerful actually. I think the not clinging part is difficult.

But I was going to talk about the home assignment, not about pain...when I was out walking this weekend, the weather first felt like shit. It was grey and foggy. It felt as grey and horrible as it could ever get. But then I thought about becoming more aware. I started seeing how the trees and buildings dissapeared into the fog, and it was extremely poetic and beautiful. I felt the the drops of water falling from the branches onto my cheeks, I heard the birds chipping in the bushes, I felt the contact between my feet and the soil, the sound of pebbles being crushed underneath my feet, the smell of the water and the wet earth. It became one of the most precious moments of the week. Using all the senses, sharpening them and being totally present in the moment can be very liberating. No thoughts have any room left to dwell in.