Mindfulness Training

(5-minute read) – Mindfulness training is essential for appropriate action in the world.

We experience reality as a series of inputs or stimuli. These inputs or stimuli affect us in one way or another. We feel emotions and we may react in response to these affects.

A confrontational person may cause anger and we may then react aggressively, or we may bottle it up. An unfair situation may cause outrage; or the intellectual problem we encounter may frustrate us.

We then send out a whole lot of negative outputs or we bottle our feelings up.  We are only deferring a reaction if we bottle the emotions up.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is the quality of being aware of the affects the world is having on us. Mindfulness training is exercising the mind to increase this awareness. The benefits are acceptance of the effects followed by appropriate actions. This has positive results in our lives.

First there is false self

As physico-chemical beings, we experience inputs from reality, and exert actions on reality, through our false selves (this is the surface self, or the mask we wear, or the ego – the self we project to the world).

In a physico-chemical universe the false self is the gateway through which we interact with our world. For us to live and function in this universe we cannot bypass our senses, our nerves, our emotions or our intellects. They are the means by which we sense the world and respond to it.

Yet,  we always feel disconnected from the world at this false self-level.

We are prone to snap reactions from the false self. There is no mindfulness, only habitual and programmed reactions of the ego.

Then there’s true self

True self is a connected realm that transcends the ego. It is the seat of an awareness of self, positioned over and above the ego mask, yet at our very centres.

Spiritually intelligent people refer inputs or stimuli to their true selves before reacting. They let go of the effects of the input and find appropriate responses. In other words they are more mindful.

Clear and conscious insights emerge from true self because it is connected to reality. Mystics call this connection mystical union.

Two kinds of minds

Let us consider two kinds of minds. One that is mindful and one that is not.

The first sketch below shows the mindful kind that refers before reacting. We call this the spiritually intelligent mind. The sketch shows: a) an incident/input coming from surrounding reality into the person, b) a process of mindful thinking and c) an action/output going back from the person into the rest of reality.

The second sketch shows the same input, but this time bouncing straight back out off a mental-emotional-physical program in the false self. This is the mindless or less spiritually intelligent scenario.

Mindfulness training helps us develop the first mind. It consist of practicing to apply three phases of thought in order to have controlled, appropriate and loving responses to the world. We call these three phases the Thought Process of Spiritual Intelligence.

Thought Process of Spiritual Intelligence

Phase One: Intellectual/Emotional/Physical Affect

Any incident, situation or external reality causes some or other intellectual, emotional and physical affects. This is the initial reaction that is automatically sparked within us as a result of our emotional or intellectual programming. It is the product of what we are used to experiencing and how we are used to reacting.

The false self tends to handle inputs in a predictable and repeatable fashion. It tends to handle intellectual problems like a computer. False self intelligence is shallow. The compulsive responses of our brains are the limits of false self.

In this first phase we recognise our reaction and briefly express our intention to let it go.

We open ourselves to reality by entering the quiet phase of the mental process.

Phase Two: Quiet in the present moment

Looking for a new perspective on something is easier said than done when a lifetime of experience and knowledge constrains us to our particular perceptions. The mind is a funny thing. The more one tries to think one way, the more it seems to revolve in familiar old circles.

Have you ever tried finding a new angle on an old problem? Have you ever tried to resist compulsive behaviour by telling yourself you just won’t do it? It’s like fighting a battle with your brain. The more you try to convince yourself, the more your brain seems to be taunting you to just do it.

This is hard work and sadly, most times, the saying, “a leopard never changes its spots”, holds true. You end up back the way you always have been. Nothing changes about the way you react to the inputs from your world.

Mindfulness training breakthrough

We need to breakthrough to a level beyond the old habits and open to newness of mind. We have to first clear the residual habits and the conceptual accumulations.

This clearing out is done by going into a mentally quiet phase. If we don’t first clear the mind of our preconceptions and misconceptions, then we will only think around the same old faulty assumptions and unhealthy emotions… and our snap reactions will overpower our efforts at control. We have to clear out all the junk and start thinking with a clean slate.

Clearing out through quietness of mind is a matter of simply letting go of all the habitual intellectual, emotional and physical effects of life… patiently, over and over again. It is a matter of resting in the present moment and letting these things wash over you and wash away from you.

Simple as this letting go is, it is the single most important practice in the quest for spiritual intelligence.

The ability to change and improve our selves, through letting go, lies deep at the centre of our beings where we encounter true self – where we experience that the only thing that means anything is the oneness of reality and our union with it.

We have to refer every reaction of the false self to this centre before we act on it if we want to break the cycle of our predictable, repeatable behaviour.

Meditation teaches us the art of letting go. So, the second spiritual intelligence practice is meditation. It is experienced in a separate module in our Spiritual Intelligence Courses and we’ll cover it in another blog.

Phase Three: Fully conscious thought

During this phase we come out of that pause in the present moment and engage in the business of the brain again. But now, after the break in the habitual stream, we can think, analyse and respond more clearly.

The ideas and emotions that would have snapped back have lost their lustre now. The old thoughts and feelings of the false self are now fading and instead our outputs are characterised by the seven aspects of spiritual intelligence, which is also the topic of another module and another blog.

It suffices to mention here that one’s full potential to think and act objectively and rationally is released with major positive affects through mindfulness training.

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