Dear Friends,
If we’ve had a chance to do a joy practice together on a Wednesday night, you’ll know I have two dogs, Savanna (rough collie) and Reece (lab mix).
So I really relate to the following quote from Pema Chodron, which describes developing the quality of steadfastness in meditation (and in any difficult situation in daily life):
The pith instruction is, Stay. . . stay. . . just stay. Learning to stay with ourselves in meditation is like training a dog. If we train a dog by beating it, we’ll end up with an obedient but very inflexible and rather terrified dog. The dog may obey when we say “Stay!” “Come!” “Roll over!” and “Sit up!” but he will also be neurotic and confused. By contrast, training with kindness results in someone who is flexible and confident, who doesn’t become upset when situations are unpredictable and insecure.
So whenever we wander off, we gently encourage ourselves to “stay” and settle down. Are we experiencing restlessness? Stay! Discursive mind? Stay! Are fear and loathing out of control? Stay! Aching knees and throbbing back? Stay! What’s for lunch? Stay! What am I doing here? Stay! I can’t stand this another minute! Stay! That is how to cultivate steadfastness.
(Jack Kornfield uses a similar analogy in A Path With Heart; chapter 5 is called “Training the Puppy”. You can read an excerpt of that chapter here: http://www.alexox.com/sangha/trainingthepuppy.pdf)
I have taken many dog classes with my dogs. The teachers in class train dogs by positive reinforcement. When your dog does something right, you praise and reward him. When your dog does something less desirable, there’s no need to punish the dog – he will clue in quickly that he didn’t get a treat in that case. The dog will do more of what gives him a reward, and less of what doesn’t.
So for me, that’s what I think of when, in Jeanne’s breath meditation (from Thursday’s email), she says, “When thoughts, emotions, or other body sensations arise, just notice. Celebrate that moment of mindfulness, then gently return to the breath.”
Celebrate – mentally reward yourself – for having mindfulness – just like a dog who is learning to stay. And eventually, like our smart dogs, our minds will figure out that this mindfulness stuff is pretty great and do it more often! 🙂
If your “mind puppy” is ready for a longer breath meditation practice, check out this ~29 minute Mindfulness of Breathing meditation by Tempel Smith.
https://www.dharmaseed.org/teacher/211/talk/27721/
(This one doesn’t have an ending bell, so you can make it go longer, if you want.)
With best wishes,
Andrea G
