Dear Friends,
Welcome to 2018 and the first email of our month together!
You have reasons why you signed up for this series. Perhaps you are seeking steadiness in a turbulent life, forming deeper connection with others, creating conditions that will lead to peace, or many other reasons. Try to articulate this reason, as this intention will help you stay motivated when life gets busy or turns upside-down.
In an article entitled Intention Setting 101, Melissa Eisler writes,
An intention is a guiding principle for how you want to be, live, and show up in the world—during meditation, yoga or any area of your life. Ask yourself, what matters most to you? Your answer could form a powerful intention, for which you can align your thoughts for your meditation—and the intention doesn’t need to stop when the meditation ends. It can then guide your actions as you move through your day.
She also lists “10 Intentions You Can Borrow”, which may be useful if you (like me) sometimes have trouble stating your intention.
Since you’re here, I’m going to assume you believe that your intention will be supported through a daily meditation practice. Throughout this month, we will walk through, step by step, four powerful ways of establishing mindfulness, often called the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.
The first area of focus is the body, and within the body, we start with the breath. As Bhante Gunaratana writes,
Meditation on the breath is the ideal way to get started with mindfulness training. Breathing is our most constantly repeated physical action. The mind can always return to the breath as an object of focus because it is always with us. We don’t need to be taught to breathe. Nor do we need long experience with meditation to place our attention on the breath.
Later, he describes that we “focus the mind on the breath, going in and going out, in and out.” I used to find that as I was doing this, I would feel a need to control the breath, but Bhante advises “when we deliberately alter the duration, our breathing does not follow its natural rhythm. Soon, we get tired.” Bhante offers another image, which is something that has helped me loosen this desire to control – to imagine watching a baby (or in my case, a dog) breathing: “we observe that the baby breathes for a while in a regular rhythm. Then she takes a long breath. Then she goes back to her previous rhythm.” Thinking of this image, I can become more of an observer to my own breath and allow the body to breath itself.
Danna Faulds has a lovely poem in her collection One Soul: More Poems From the Heart Of Yoga:
Breath by Breath
Life proceeds breath by breath.
Deep, full and easy, shallow or
uneven, breathing is the key to
cultivating peace.Breath by breath, choose to
stay present. It isn’t success
you are seeking, but surrender
to the flow of energy.It’s not control that matters,
but letting go, allowing life
exactly as it is this moment
to touch and change and
breathe through you.
If you would like a short guided mediation to walk you through meditating on the breath, Jeanne has a 15 minute Awareness of Breath meditation on her website.
So today:
- identify your intention
- focus on the breathing
- feel free to comment below or send me an email if you would like to share your experience
With best wishes,
Andrea
Interesting article. I find it easy to set goals but not always easy to set an intention.
It seems to me that if I set an intention to be mindful what follows is the setting of a goal…. to practice daily.
My intention is often to be able to accept what is – after I read Andrea’s first email – I went to the gym – focused on my goal of a specific distance on the treadmill and beginning weight-training (again). By the end of the session I hurt my shoulder and I had to focus on how I moved on the treadmill to keep my knee from hurting. My body brought me into the present moment 🙂 and my intention helped me to be okay with the fact that my shoulder will need some TLC.
What a beautiful way to begin a new year. I’m looking forward to practising with everyone this way, this month. Thank you Andrea for taking the time and energy to do this. I learn much. That was an excellent article on intention. I often forget to set a daily intention, never mind revisiting it regularly throughout the day. So this was a very good reminder how important daily intentions are in our practice. Also helpful observations about how to notice when you are trying to control the breath and how to relax into it. I often find myself trying to control my breath. I love love the poem. Thank you again. With every good wish!
Thanks Andreas for this.
I find myself conflicted by ‘intention’ as, too often, it ends as only a good thought unless it is acted upon in some concrete way.
This view by Viktor Frankl says it all to me — that actions are needed to make intentions meaningful:
“Our question must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
with mettā
Thank you for doing this….. my main intention right now is to diligently follow this … so far two days behind…..
I was listening to Joseph Goldstein this morning about the Buddha’s actual instructions regarding breathing…. good way to start the day in the winter dark
Robbie