Dear Friends,
Did you try the 10 bite experiment? I tell you how it went for me. The first bite, I really savored the fresh bread and nutty and subtly sweet flavor of the cheese on the sandwich I made for supper. The second bite was still good. But I’m not sure I made it to three… I zoned out pretty quickly! My mind jumped to, “okay, fine, we’re eating, now let’s read that piece of paper that’s been sitting on the table all week…”
Pleasant to neutral in less than sixty seconds…
Anne Cushman describes the neutral feelings in the chapter for week 8 of Moving into Meditation:
“We don’t tend to chase after neutral feelings, and we don’t run away from them. In fact, most of the time we don’t pay much attention to them at all. But here’s the thing–these neutral moments actually make up a huge proportion of our experience. So if we miss them, we miss a lot of our life.”
In Peace in Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh gives advice about appreciating the neutral experience:
When we have a toothache, we know that not having a toothache is a wonderful thing. But when we do not have a toothache, we are still not happy. A non-toothache is very pleasant. There are so many things that are enjoyable, but when we don’t practice mindfulness, we don’t appreciate them. When we practice mindfulness, we come to cherish these things and we learn how to protect them. By taking good care of the present moment, we take good care of the future.
(As quoted in http://www.lorenwebster.net/In_a_Dark_Time/2008/05/08/thich-nhat-hanhs-peace-is-every-step/)
So back to my sandwich… rather than getting upset about losing focus on my eating, when I realized I had zoned out, I took that as a “moment of mindfulness” to celebrate. “Hey – I zoned out! But now I’m back! And I’m happy to have this sandwich to eat!”
One more “neutral to appreciative curl” in the mindfulness gym. 🙂
So if you’re up for it, here’s a longer guided meditation on paying attention to feeling tone in meditation:
Nikki Mirghafori: Guided Meditation, Feeling Tone (~30 minutes)
http://www.audiodharma.org/talks/audio_player/4332.html
With best wishes,
Andrea G