Fully Engaged: Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life
When something feels difficult it is because you are up against the threshold of your
Thomas M. Sterner • Fully Engaged: Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life
One reason for this is that the feelings that create this experience are always rooted in either the past or the future. The simple phrase “And then what?” immediately pulls us into the present moment because we cannot have the awareness to ask ourselves this question if we are experiencing this moment outside the present.
Thomas M. Sterner • Fully Engaged: Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life
A daily practice of meditation, of thought awareness training, grows our innate ability to be aware of what our mind is doing, and through strengthening our will, it grows our ability to use our mind’s energy to serve us in ways we can’t even imagine.
Thomas M. Sterner • Fully Engaged: Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life
observer, we are growing our thought awareness, our ability to watch our thoughts instead of simply being immersed in them and reacting to whatever emotion or sensation they elicit.
Thomas M. Sterner • Fully Engaged: Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life
As awareness of your thoughts increases, the opportunity to choose how you experience this moment also increases.
Thomas M. Sterner • Fully Engaged: Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life
our experience of lack is a behavior that we have firmly installed into our personalities,
Thomas M. Sterner • Fully Engaged: Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life
Judgments happen outside the process.
Thomas M. Sterner • Fully Engaged: Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life
I asked myself this question: “If I could react any way I wanted in this situation, what would that way be?”
Thomas M. Sterner • Fully Engaged: Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life
It could be said that the practice of meditation, of thought awareness training, is the repetitive action of catching the mind as it runs off with the intention of bringing it back to the task of watching your breath or repeating your phrase. As long as you are doing that, you are staying present and you are succeeding. It doesn’t matter how many t
... See moreThomas M. Sterner • Fully Engaged: Using the Practicing Mind in Daily Life
am always amused when people interpret the fact that they are chasing their mind all the time as an indicator that they are not good at meditation. What they are missing, and this is very significant, is that they wouldn’t be chasing their mind and bringing it back to task if they weren’t noticing that their mind was running off! I