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In this lesson, we talk about carrying the concentration and awareness we’ve been working on in our sitting meditation … into the rest of our lives.
There are two difficulties:
- Remembering. It’s almost impossible to always remember to be mindful, all the time. So remembering can be difficult.
- Complications. There’s a lot more going on in our daily lives than what’s happening when we do sitting meditation, which is intentionally simplified. Work situations, lots of different people interacting, online tasks … these are more complicated than sitting meditation.
So I suggest that we slowly work on remember and slowly work on more complicated situation. This week, just take a step into the waters of mindfulness in our daily lives.
So the practice I recommend:
- Continue your sitting meditation. Two minutes of breath counting, 2-3 minutes of “just sitting” meditation. You can additionally do walking meditation afterwards if you like.
- Carry that sitting practice into the next few moments. It might be a minute, five minutes, 10 minutes, an hour. Whatever you did during sitting meditation, do in your next few actions in your daily life. Notice your body, your breathing, your thoughts as you walk through the world. Carry forward that open awareness you developed in your meditation. Try the “just sitting” method for other activities: just drink your coffee, just walk, just wash dishes.
I recommend you do this every day for the next week: follow your sitting meditation by carrying forward your “just sitting” practice with your next activities.