Formal sittings and moment to moment rememrbrance
Excerpt from the book: All Is Well
Moment-to-moment Remembrance and Formal Times of Practice
Your practice always goes through two fundamental phases. The first phase is your effort towards having the initial insight or an awakening. The second phase is to constantly reactivate that new state until it becomes your natural experience.
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Prior to having the initial insight, you’re grasping to find a direction. Then, once you have experienced the awakened state, your task is to repeatedly return to it. That applies to every step of your path here, including the final one - State of Freedom.
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After awakening there is still the need to continuously return and reawaken that state. You are awakening to your natural state, so you might think that a single glimpse into your deeper intelligence would result in the permanent state. But that’s not how it works, except in very rare cases.
Formal Sessions of Practice
Formal sessions of focused and uninterrupted practice serve as the base of your cultivation and an optimal environment to hone your skill and create breakthroughs. In this dedicated time, you shut out all types of distractions and can follow the resolve of watching and remain unreactive to 100 percent of the things that arise, without any exception.
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In these conditions alongside the basic practice of witnessing you can go deeper into relaxation through deep breathing. Your formal sittings should be a restful experience and deep breathing plays an important role in that, both to anchor your attention as well as to relax your emotional system. In addition to daily practice, it’s also highly recommended to conduct a retreat several times a year. Ideally, you would do the retreat in the presence of the teacher who embodies the state you practice.
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Retreat is a period of time, from one day to several weeks, where you retreat from the world and from your habitual life and dedicate your time to spiritual practice in optimal conditions.
Moment-to-Moment Practice
Your identification with the mind is happening in each moment of your life, so in order to reverse that massive momentum you need to cultivate the new habit at every moment, otherwise you won’t generate the power required to shift from the old habit to the new. After all, that’s where your life is, not on the meditation cushion. If you do your practice for 45 minutes a day and forget for the rest of the day you won’t make real headway.
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Moment-to-moment practice is done at all times and all places. It should be the background of your life. You go through your day as always, only that instead of automatically reacting to the mind’s messages, you are in the position of the watcher of the mind. In this practice you’re not cancelling the mind but engage with it from the right place. You aim to assume the position of the watcher from the moment you wake up and until you go to sleep.
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Your moment-to-moment practice culminates in the optimal environment of formal sittings, and the momentum and level of intention from the formal sittings continue naturally into your ongoing practice. They are mutually supportive and together set the stage for a lasting transformation.