Awareness
As I have been practicing Zen meditation for some time there are a number of changes I have seen in my perception of life. The first note I have is becoming much more aware of my surroundings wherever they may be. This increased awareness came shortly after a few meditative sessions and continues to grow. I attribute some of this as to my better understanding of the connection of man and nature and all sentient beings have to each other. Now, before I get to deep or outside the box, let me say first that meditation for me is not prayer, nor is it sitting around spacing out and becoming one with the world. Meditation to me is a very real clearing of the mind and allowing the person (me) to experience the benefit of a enlightenment of self. It seems as though by being more mindful of ourselves others around us become more meaningful. I can not say that increasing awareness makes me a better photographer, person or human being but I can say for sure it more than likely will not hurt me trying to increase my awareness.
Well, A second major improvement I see is becoming more focused with less effort. Let me try to explain this. Lets say you meet a friend for coffee and your meeting them in a busy location where there are all kinds of tentative distractions that could easily divert your attention from your conversation with you friend. By focusing on the conversation and not the items that tend to divert your thoughts you become a better listener and more tuned in to the moment, in this case the verbal passing discussion. This does not mean you block out the distractions at all, you simply are more aware of their significance. The word “moment” is a major point, and in the case of meditation almost everything is about the moment, not the past or future, but the now. It is true that the now is a transient thing and never is still. For what it is worth meditation teaches that the moment is also all we really have to experience. How often we all live in distant past or future moments makes many of us forget about enjoying what we have right in front of us. I feel this is the key to being a primarily happy person.
As many times in photography I find myself searching for the perfect moment to snap or click the shutter and capture the moment. This is especially true in capturing expressions of the human kind or when photographing people. After practicing and understanding the myriad of variables that are happening during any photographic work I have learned to be more in tune with the possibilities and continue to develop a more refined sense timing. This is true for still photographers, such as myself, and applies to me especially in my work. When I look at many of the artist, musicians, writers, poets, and philosophers I admire I have no doubt in my mind that these people all had or have a real sense of awareness of the subjects of their work.
Real understanding and being mindful is another very important point in awareness. How would I even try to explain mindfulness or what it does, well, let me begin by saying to follow your heart and conscience would be a starting point. Are there things that you are surrounded by right now that you never took the time to notice? Is there things that need your attention you have shut out from your to do list or intentionally avoided? In my case the answers are yes and yes, I do, however, have a more sophisticated method of prioritization which I attribute to being mindful and meditative in my approach to life. All people suffer in some way, this is a given common denominator to being human. All people also have choices and some choices lead to decisions that increase or lower our suffering. By being more aware to the choices we make therefore makes us more able to be more or less mindful.
Each time I think back on my initial interpretation of meditation was that it was prayer redefined. In some ways it appears as prayer, especially in methods of meditations that use verbal chants or motions. After much reflection I see that I was wrong in finding meditation like prayer as to me it is not. The practice of my form of Zen meditation has no communion to a Deity or God in my perception. Meditation teaches me to be more in tune with myself, the world, mind and body. I am not going to get into religions and that perspective at this juncture. I will however say that God is very much a part of my life and the presence of God in most everything I see is powerful. Prayer serves a totally different purpose in my life and is equally important.
1.29.11 Frank Tunis
Often the things we want the most we already have. We just do not take enough time to realize this fact. Enjoy this moment, and the people you care for and about.
2.9.11 Frank Tunis
Being in the moment is kind of like feeling there is a pause in time, no past nor future to concern yourself with. This is a very hard state of mind to reach for me for any length of time, never the less it is a great experience when it happens. Meditation and awareness also seems to expand the dream state to some degree for me. I have been told this is not uncommon to others who have practiced meditation for some time. Being mindful of life and the experiences we face each day is a challenge, it is very easy to forget about others things around us and not pay attention to small details of things that offer us so much.
One of the recent thoughts I keep coming back to is a saying that we already have everything we need, in summation I think this statement is really saying be content with who you are, it is nice to want and get things but having is not as much fun as wanting. Trying to be someone you are not is sacrificial to the true self.
3.9.11 Frank Tunis
The hardest part of meditation for me is: staying in the moment, clearing the mind and not following the story the mind wants you to follow. Relaxing the meditative state and becoming distracted is very easy to do. When outside distractions occur take a moment to return focus on something simple, like the breath which is ever present and easy to think about. A few of my friends with much more experience than me have told me that preparation for the meditation helps a lot too. For example, if you want to set aside a specific time of day, place, for meditation this helps rule out many of the possible distractions. Of course no place is void of distraction, and the busy mind you have varies each moment and with the day based on the new things we all face each day.
A experienced friend said there is no wrong way to meditate, which is perhaps true and useful knowledge to anyone who is starting the practice of meditation. I think it’s better to meditate a few moments each day than have few or no regular deep thought or meditative moments. Even if the meditation is only for five minutes I do feel it helps me in the long run. I do feel that longer meditations are most helpful but not always pragmatic due to life’s constant stream of responsibilities and actions we all face. One thing I have been trying with some limited success is running meditation. This I do while I am running at the gym, or outside and it brings a totally new line of perception to my enjoyment of the run or exercise period.
3.13.11 Frank Tunis
Compassion is an act that helps the one giving and receiving. It should be pure and given with acts of kindness and words if needed. The suffering person will benefit by the mindful expression of the compassionate one and some relief will most often result. There are many ways to be compassionate, one of the hardest ways is to give it is to people we do not find the most deserving such as someone we do not like. This is not a foreign concept as there are often times in our fast paced world we act or react to sudden circumstances like an accident where someone is hurt. In this case we often know nothing of the person but very often rush to help, offering our resources to get help, etc. In this same example we do not know the person hurt, if they are good or bad, we really know nothing of the person yet we rush to help. This is instinctive and human nature showing me that people we like or dislike still deserve compassion and respect for the situation they are in especially in unforeseen circumstances.
If we react and follow our instincts as we most often do we likely will find a better understanding of our own self. Humans are by nature unique in many ways, I believe we can all become more aware of ourselves if we observe human reaction in a mindful and caring manner. There have been many times people have said or used the expression by giving you often benefit more than the person receiving your gift. I use this analogy here in relation to compassion not with the intent we should look or seek out compassion, just that by giving compassion we are giving a gift of ourselves to one with no payment intended. By doing this compassionate act we will also absorb some of the suffering of the person we act towards. It is at this point we take some, perhaps a very small part of the pain away from the person and they become better enabled to heel or feel our kindness, we in turn become better as we realize within our self we have acted mindfully.
3.17.11 Frank Tunis
We meditate not to be great but to be ordinary, the process of a daily meditation can be tiresome and sometimes down right boring, however the absence of daily or regular meditation is even more tiresome and leads the mind to laziness. It has been told to me many times that we or I have all that I really need right within myself. I am more convinced in this being the truth, as often the things I want are of little real value.
All that we really have is the moment, that ever changing point of life. The past is gone and the future does not yet exist. For me, a deep appreciation for this moment is one of the greatest gifts we can receive.
3.31.11 Frank Tunis
The emotions we feel as humans have deep roots in our pasts. Controlling strong negative feelings of things such as anger, hate, greed, etc. will lead us towards a more mindful examination of those feelings. If we explore the root of anger for example we can begin to see that the anger is a internal feeling with outward behavior to someone or something. If we look deeper into hate we see it is void of compassion, without love, the opposite of love. Examination of negative feelings such as hate often may lead the self into a better understanding of the primal nature of emotion. Primal emotion is part of us as humans, however if we take a step towards understanding the evolution of primal thoughts and feelings we may better deal with emotions that cause suffering and stress in our lives.
4.9.11 Frank Tunis
Greed, hate, and ignorance will cause a great deal of suffering to those who hold these emotions and mentality. It is worth pursuing a path to observe and understand these words from both sides, for example we can not know greed unless we know sharing, we can not know hate without also knowing love, we must have wisdom to see ignorance.
4.28.11 Frank Tunis
Meditational techniques vary and can be fun and insightful if you explore various forms with an open mind. I was shown a method of focusing on the body’s perceptions during meditation, being aware of feelings without placing a specific thought or words toward that feeling.
This is rather hard to explain in words but the end result is a new way to experience meditation in comparison to the more traditional method of just clearing the mind of thoughts. Sitting in a comfortable setting I focused on perceptions from the body, like being aware of the senses without thought directly toward them or any one sense. During this form of meditation I felt a deep relaxation and was initially very aware of areas of the body that were tense, stressed and wanted attention.
Another very interesting form of meditation is counting from one to ten in repetition, at each number attempt to slowly and progressively dissolve the physical body to make it invisible in the mind with no connection to the space it occupies. Of course this is theoretical and I did not expect to actually disappear, but the thought of moving the mind from the place in which it exists to another place beyond was quite fascinating and fun to try to say the least.
5.4.11 Frank Tunis
Imagine the practice of meditation as a growing plant with roots and a flower. The roots are the beginning and the flower the end in a way. If we view the roots as the beginning of a path or our practice that takes us forward to things between the root and flower, it is growth and patience but the end result is beautiful. We should approach meditation with unconditional love and devotion to the moment and be mindful of our surroundings, let our thoughts pass our hearts and be able to see the good in our spirit.
6.15.11 Frank Tunis
Been reading a lot of books on the subject of awareness, it seems to me one common thread is the fact that awareness really is all about the moment and allowing your thoughts to be free of the past and future. Placing attention on the moment sets a focus that is real and undisturbed by misperceptions of past or future events that may be cloudy and changed by time itself. I find it very hard to actually keep present within yourself and not be influenced by events that have or will be unfolding when awareness is practiced.
11.30.11 Frank Tunis