Practice Exercises for Mindfulness of Feeling

Practice #1 One can use feelings as a way of turning an obstacle into an opportunity to gain insight: If one is practicing mindfulness and using an object other than feeling as the main object of awareness (e.g., the breath, walking meditation, etc.) and the mind moves to a feeling, we watch the rising and falling of the feeling and then, gently but firmly, we go back to the primary object of attention.

Practice #2 If painful feelings arise (e.g., from sitting for a long period of time during a retreat, etc.) and one's mind is continuously distracted and unable to concentrate on the primary object of awareness, we temporarily make the painful feeling the primary object. We soften into the pain, becoming experientially intimate with it so we are able to see it for what it is (i.e., impermanent — the quality and location of the pain keeps changing, and selfless — there is no "one" experiencing the pain). We keep observing in this way until the pain subsides and we are able to go back to our original object.

Practice Commentary

1. Normally our reaction is to tighten around the pain because we are afraid of it. The tightening is what creates the more significant problem, not the pain itself. Pain is just a sensation that rises and falls based upon causes and conditions.

2. The quality of the sensations themselves, their locations, and our awareness of it keeps changing from moment to moment. Painful feeling is an impermanent process.

3. Pain actually is a good object of meditation since it is easy to stay focused on it. If we are able to remain present with the pain, it can reach a critical point and then completely subside.

4. There is actually no "one" experiencing the pain (it is selfless), but this is difficult to see if we are resisting the pain.

5. We want to break the patterns that keep us reacting to the pain — "Systematic Desensitization" using mindfulness.

6. If you can stay with it and see it for what it is, your relationship to all pain (both physical and psychic) will dramatically change — pain may be present but there will be no "one" who is suffering.

7. Of course, if the pain becomes excruciating, notice the intention to move, and mindfully adjust your position. After the feeling has dissolved, we gently but firmly go back to the touch sensation of the breath once again, noticing the rise and fall of each breath body.

Practice #3 During the day observe the feelings that impinge on consciousness from moment to moment, making the distinction between the feelings that are experienced passively (without the overlay of the mind), and those that are experienced due to the proclivities or projections of the mind (e.g., perceptions, beliefs, etc.).

Practice #4 We cannot experience other people's feelings. However, thoughts may

spontaneously arise to our mind (i.e., we may intuit) that the feelings we are experiencing are the same feelings that other individuals experience in similar circumstances (e.g., pain in the legs while sitting for meditation — helps us become less reactive and depressed about it, the joy that comes from profound realizations — helps us to guard against pride, etc.)

Practice #5 Whenever we experience a particular feeling we can intentionally reflect on how others must experience that same feeling when they are in similar circumstances. Realizing how these feelings are universal and how reactive most of us are to these feelings helps us to develop compassion.

The author of the foregoing exercises is Matthew Flickstein of the Forest Way Insight Meditation Center, Inc. in Ruckersville, Virginia.