#bren murphy

To know where your effort should be directed in meditation, you must have a clear understanding of the goal. The goal of this meditation is beautiful silence, stillness, and clarity of mind. If you can understand that goal, then the place to apply your effort and the means to achieve the goal become much clearer. The effort is directed to letting go, to developing a mind that inclines to abandoning. 

One of the many simple but profound statements of the Buddha is that “a meditator who makes letting go the main object easily achieves samadhi,” that is, attentive stillness, the goal of meditation .1 Such a meditator gains these states of inner bliss almost automatically. The Buddha was saying that the major cause for attaining deep meditation and reaching these powerful states is the ability to abandon, to let go, to renounce.

During meditation,we should not develop a mind that accumulates and holds on to things. Instead we should develop a mind that is willing to let go, to give up all burdens. In our ordinary lives we have to carry the burden of many duties, like so many heavy suitcases, but within the period of meditation such baggage is unnecessary. 

In meditation, unload as much baggage as you can. Think of duties and achievements as heavy weights pressing upon you. Abandon them freely without looking back. This attitude of mind that inclines to giving up will lead you into deep meditation. Even during the beginning stages of your meditation, see if you can generate the energy of renunciation—the willingness to give things away. 

As you give things away in your mind, you will feel much lighter and more free. 

Mindfulness Practice Daily - is about bringing self awareness to the present moment as often as you can.

Everyone has a mindset default setting. Mine, for example, used to be ruminating on bad experiences from earlier in my life and seeing if there was someway I could avoid having a similar experience in my future.  It meant I was constantly distracted from being here in the present by old, sometimes decades old events and mishaps that really had no place in my current life.

Mindfulness Practice Daily has helped me shrug this off and meet each present moment as it unfolds before me with a light, playful curiosity that invites the law of attraction and welcomes my intuition.  Surrendering to the present moment means I can fully, deeply savour simple things like sunshine in the morning or the tingle of tiredness at night time.

This is what mindfulness practice can bring to your daily life - if you are prepared to approach mindfulness with a measure of discipline and courage.  In this video, I share why courage is essential to breaking through with daily mindfulness practice.

Everyone has a mindset default setting. Mine, for example, used to be ruminating on bad experiences from earlier in my life and seeing if there was someway I could avoid having a similar experience in my future.  It meant I was constantly distracted from being here in the present by old, sometimes decades old events and mishaps that really had no place in my current life.

When I teach meditation, I like to begin at the simple stage of giving up the baggage of past and future.You may think that this is an easy thing to do, but it is not. 

Abandoning the past means not thinking about your work, your family, your commitments, your responsibilities, your good or bad times in childhood, and so on. 

Mindfulness helps us slow down and re-connect in the moment.  As we slow down, we notice how much of this busyness we have been chasing is an illusion - an how much extra rushing around we do.  We  might be trying to impress strangers, compare ourselves with others, or make a quick judgment and claim that we are somehow better than another.  

Gratitude, and simply being grateful for what we already have in our lives - is the solid foundation upon which mindfulness happiness is built.

Being grateful begins with something as simple as appreciting the ordinary beautiful that is already in our lives.