Michael Cameron's Portfolio
Meditation is a process of cultivating awareness. We start our practice with a formal sitting routine that develops our focus and allows us to peer into the inner working of our mind. Through this training we eventually develop a keep mental focus and gain insight into how we perceive reality. Eventually we reach a point in our practice where our insight from formal sitting meditation or our ‘cushion philosophy’ begins to blend in with our daily lives. We find that our awareness begins to peek into in our day to day routine as it softens our opinion and shifts our views.
Bringing meditative awareness into your daily life is natural step forward on the path to enlightenment. However, this does not mean that it is an easy step to take. When you first started meditating you had to overcome the cascade of thoughts that clouded your awareness. Bringing your practice to your daily life requires the same principles you followed when you first started meditating: commitment, motivation and consistency.
In order to bridge your ‘cushion philosophy’ into other areas of your life you will need to develop new habits that will support this transition. An unrealistic goal would be to maintain your awareness constantly. For now, we will content ourselves with a more realistic step: overcoming adversity with awareness. We can all identify with how difficult it is to rouse our awareness when we are in a bad mood or an unfamiliar situation, so let us consider adversity as anything that upsets the natural stability of our mind. This can happen when we become irritated by someone interrupting us or when it’s raining outside. We often attribute our state of mind to external factors. How often have you complained “That person is constantly interrupting me” or “I am so sick of this terrible weather”. We need to realize that the external causes we are so quick to identify as the source of the discontent are really a reflection of our own state of mind. Instead of seeking an external cause for the disruption, we should be reflecting: “I wonder why I am so irritable today?” or “Why am I becoming upset at the weather?”.
“We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.”
- The Talmud.
When we begin meditating, we move away from an unfocused consciousness and become used to a more stable frame of mind. Once we become used to the stability that comes from practice, we quickly become aware of external factors that throws us off balance or cause us to become negative. Instead of wrestling with this influence, why not take a different stance: use every situation that puts you off balance as a motivator to actively reinforce your practice. Just as we train our mind to return to the breath, we must train our mind to recognize when we encounter adversity that removes us from our awareness. In this way we can simply view adversity as a reminder to be more aware.
Think about being stuck in traffic. One can easily become frustrated at the lack of control, lose perspective and become upset. For a skillful practitioner, being stuck in traffic is an excellent opportunity to flex the muscles of awareness.
We already know that our mind fabricates thoughts, emotions and mistaken perceptions. We have meditated enough to be able to overcome the initial cascade of thoughts, we now need to realize that the our focused awareness is strong enough to overcome external adversity. All this requires is a small shift in perception. Instead of seeing adversity as a negative circumstance that influences us, we can now view it as a positive reminder to be aware. This allows us to interpret any adversity we encounter as an exercise in enlightenment. This is a self-perpetuating concept that removes the power of adversity and stems any negativity we may perceive. Now we can say to ourselves “Look at the rain… what a great reminder to focus my awareness!”
Cultivating awareness in out daily lives can be a challenge. We need to have faith and determination to evolve our consciousness further. Repurposing our perception of adversity will immediately offer tremendous benefit. Try this exercise. Before you know it, all of your perceived problems will be transmuted into spiritual gold!
