Mindfulness is one of the most popular and little understood phenomena of philosophical, psychological and religious thought and practice. Thanks to which everyone interprets it as they can.

Theorists like to talk about awareness more, not noticing much that they get annoyed for any reason or play elephant flies.

Practitioners' observations in writing a big rarity because they are practical. They do, they don't say. But every well-known guru has his apostles who own the word, thanks to which we have the happiness to get acquainted with the works on awareness of Osho, Gurdjieff, and various loose expositions of mindfulness in Buddhism.

In addition to Buddhism, Western psychology and philosophy claim to discover this phenomenon.

Consciousness is one of basic concepts Gestalt therapy along with ZiS - "here and now".

In fact, awareness is the result of a rather successful crossing of Western and Eastern culture. Osho did not hide that he had read thousands of works by European philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists, mystics, theosophists of different times. He was well acquainted with the work of Freud and all his students. And in turn, many of the Western psychologists and philosophers have studied Eastern culture, Buddhism, Eastern practices and techniques, living in ashrams and learning meditation from Eastern teachers, who later became known in Europe as awakened ones.
There are similar practices different peoples. Gradually gaining popularity, the ancient Slavic practice of awareness, a change in attitude towards oneself and the world is called "I am".

Classification of awareness
So, awareness is involvement, awakening from emotional, intellectual, spiritual hibernation, from automatisms and autopilot.

In addition to being synonymous with awareness in different sources called mindfulness, vigilance, cheerfulness of consciousness, observation, deep self-awareness, self-management, taking responsibility for any of your emotions, feelings, thoughts, actions and inactions.

Classes of awareness are rather the stages of its development, because there is not much awareness. Full awareness turns the layman into a Buddha.

1. Awareness of one's physical body at every moment of time, including everything physiological processes, occurring in it: breathing, heartbeat, the work of the digestive and excretory systems.
2. Awareness etheric body- body of emotions. Monitor the functioning of the endocrine system.
3. Awareness astral body- feelings and experiences.
4. Awareness of the mental body - the body of the mind. Mind current observation. Control and the ability to stop it or not become attached.
5. Synthesis of all previous types of awareness, that is, instantaneous awareness of oneself (fourth way according to Gurdjieff).
6. Awareness of the causal body, that is, the body of events, or awareness of other people.
7. Awareness of reality in its entirety is the ultimate Awakening.

Difficulties in Mastering Mindfulness

By the age of passion for such literature, a person is well aware of only one tool for understanding the world. This is the same mind, which is now very fashionable to scold for its imperfection, vanity, lack of independence. The mind that makes a person smart, increasing his heart rate. Not to be confused with intelligence. Reason makes a person wise and indifferent to the pagan dances of the Ego, as well as to someone else's HR. Mindfulness is closely related to awakening the mind and spreading its influence wherever possible.

From Ouspensky's conversations with Gurdjieff "In Search of the Miraculous":

“Have you ever thought that all people themselves are machines?
“Yes,” I replied, “with a strict scientific point of vision, all people are machines controlled by external influences. But the whole question is whether it is possible to accept this scientific view.
- Scientific or unscientific - for me it's all the same, objected Gurdjieff. - I want you to understand exactly what I'm saying. Look, all these people that you see - and he pointed to the street. “They are all just machines and nothing more.”

And this machine is invited to realize all the processes of all levels occurring in it, and to realize it through constant observation. And this is where the fun begins. Okay, the average layman absorbs food and excretes 3 times a day, but does he breathe? What about heart contractions? If you are aware of every physiological act, then falling into nirvana is quite real. Quite quickly, at least from hunger. You can no longer work and earn money. The same goes for other social roles.

In addition to the more or less studied instrument of the mind, the layman (and even then not everyone) is familiar with the process of control. So it is precisely the layman who begins mastering awareness, controlling with his mind the processes that nature is not intended for. volitional regulation.

Yes, yes, along with walking on coals and swallowing swords, fakirs-yogis are able to control breathing and stop and then start the heart. But even Gurdjieff himself, followed by Osho, who was well acquainted with his practices, did not dare to call these people Buddhas. They honestly and bluntly said that these were beggarly street clowns for the entertainment of a satiated public. And they can't do anything other than that. Slightly other machines without awareness.

As a result, the consequence of an arbitrary change in the rhythm of breathing is its serious failure, for example, apnea. A person begins to choke in his sleep, because the day and night rhythms no longer coincide. This leads to insomnia due to fear of suffocation. Chronic diseases are often exacerbated due to circulatory disorders.

The whole difficulty lies in not controlling these processes, but observing at the same time.

According to the mystics, inside each person there is a kind of Observer who only observes, without interfering in life in any way, that is, without evaluating the object of observation, without comparing, and accordingly without condemning. It's passive, not active process, it doesn't break anything. In some sources, the Observer is called a point of impartial attention. Mindfulness is a constant connection with this point.

Observation of any processes in the body from this point gives objective information about what is happening, that very knowledge and understanding of oneself, and hence other people, and hence the essence of interactions, called an event.

Establishing a constant channel of communication with your true self makes a person much more effective within their true desires and goals in life. That is, in theory, a person becomes whole, acquires inner rod, is not subject to influences and manipulations, does not suffer from reflection, because it controls emotions and the mind, it becomes reasonable, calm, balanced. In the process or after that, he finds people corresponding to his condition, his life's work, his family. Happy end.

In practice, there are few such people. This is a piece of development, unique for everyone. For example, it is assumed that Gurdjieff himself, Osho managed to awaken, but those who were next to them remained ordinary people and some didn't even succeed.

Osho's practice of awakening awareness in large group people (up to 15 thousand) ended with the creation totalitarian sect with closed area, guards, torture, sexual abuse, wholesale drug addiction, slave labor, its icons on every corner and neck, the ascension of laudatory odes. In the end, he and the ashram were expelled from the United States, and other countries did not want to accept them. And the one who was called the living Buddha died of AIDS at 56 years old.

AT recent times the whole world is talking about the practice of mindfulness. And this is wonderful, because now we are especially missing some elusive, but important element our life.

Sometimes we begin to suspect that we lack ourselves - our willingness or ability to be present in own life and live it like it really means something the only moment that we will ever have, that is, here and now, and that we are worthy and able to live our lives in this way.

It is very bold and extremely important thought and she could change the world. By at least it will change the lives of those who dare to take a step in this direction and will help these people appreciate and feel the fullness of life.

So here are a few definitions of mindfulness:

2. Awareness is defined as the continuous tracking of current experiences, that is, the state in which the subject focuses on experiencing the present moment, trying not to be distracted by past events or thoughts about the future. It is the ability of the mind to introspect own activities. Such a definition of awareness implies that subjective experiences can be perceived by the subject directly, without conceptualization, and are accepted as such (acceptance), thus awareness is included in more general concept mindfulness. (Taken from Wikipedia).

3. Mindfulness is not the mind. Mindfulness is not mental awareness. Mindfulness is direct knowledge, received directly and not subjected to mental interpretations and distortions. Mindfulness and mind are completely different things. Awareness, if manifested, exists by itself, independent of the mind. Mindfulness is the amount of your attention with which you perform certain actions. It can be any action, including both the mechanical nature of work and mental labor.

4. Awareness as a way of life - the ability, skill and habit to accompany with consciousness one's actual states, one's actions, one's activities, the course of one's life. Awareness is the result of the inclusion of consciousness on what is happening. Conscious - illuminated by the light of consciousness, something to which sufficient attention has been paid: attention sufficient for the necessary distinctions and, possibly, decisions and conclusions. Conscious - what we see and later we can remember, describe as seen.

5. The conscious is an alternative to what we are not aware of: the unconscious. The unconscious is what happens without the participation of consciousness. Unconscious mental processes- what happens in a person or with a person by itself, naturally, without conscious control and does not require additional conscious efforts.

When a person “does not see, does not understand, does not think, is distracted, carried away, acts unconsciously” - this is all a description of unconscious behavior. Objected - but did not notice it. He raised his voice and was surprised when this was pointed out to him. I took up one thing, after a while I realized that I was already doing something completely different ... Most people most spend most of their lives in an unconscious state. They live without regaining consciousness.

The most the main problem definition is that it is a practice, not a theory. This practice, being just a practice and not a theory, is something that is easier to experience than to explain. Like sex, for example, or food. Definitions are not helpful in understanding it.

However, here a natural question arises: how can you get it to practice if you do not know anything about it? After all, even before eating, we try to at least read the menu first, before pouncing on something shapeless, staring at us from the plate. I’m not even talking about sex - it’s always useful to establish at least the gender and age of a potential partner.

So I will have to explain long and tediously what Mindfulness Practice is. So what to do? Even the Buddha Gautama, after his awakening under the tree, which glorified him all over the world, sat in indecision for a whole week under this very tree and thought:

"Well, where the hell am I going?" After all, people will not understand me.

But he thought so not because people are idiots, but because it is difficult to explain. But then, nevertheless, having collected his few belongings, he was attracted to teach. Forty-five years he was unstoppable - he taught and taught.

Okay, enough preamble. What do we see in this phrase?

We see four words here: practice, awareness, mindfulness and mindfulness. The first one is the easiest.

Practice, in our context, is what we consciously, intentionally and regularly do.

Three other words, again in our context, denote the same property human consciousness. And it will take me some time to explain this property.

In the ancient and already fairly dead Pali language, there is a Buddhist term sati; most often it is translated into Russian as attentiveness or mindfulness (remembering), however, what we usually understand by these words in our everyday life, does not give us an exhaustive idea of ​​this term.

The English translated it as mindfulness, and this, in my opinion, is somewhat closer to the body, that is, it literally turns out to be a certain fullness of attention.

What kind of fullness is this?

John Kabat-Zinn (one of the pioneers of introducing this term into Western science, as well as into the everyday life of ordinary Americans and other English-speaking people), who 30 years ago created effective method Stress Reduction based on the Practice of Mindfulness, this is how the term is defined:

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally.

Practicing Mindfulness means directing attention in a certain way: intentionally, in the present moment, and without judgement.

Sometimes he adds:

with open hearted compassion

with compassionate openness of heart)

I am not a translator, so do not judge strictly - I translate, as I understand it, and Russian, as you know, is more cumbersome than English.

Mindfulness is simply observing things as they are and learning from that.

Practicing Mindfulness is simply observing things as they are and learning from that experience.

And perhaps, here is another definition of the Theravedic monk Bodhipaksa:

Mindfulness is the gentle effort to be continuously present with experience.

Mindfulness practice is a gentle effort to be continuously present in your experience.

From the above, we can conclude that:

Mindfulness Practice –it is a moment-to-moment process. And this process implies openness, sensitivity (receptivity) and curiosity (interest) to this moment of life.

For example, I might be bored right now, but “bored” is a word, an evaluation of some experience, and this evaluation usually blocks my receptivity.

If at this moment of “boredom” I remember awareness and just, so to speak, stay with this experience, I will feel what is really happening in my body, in my thoughts, including this value judgment"I'm bored", then:

First of all, I may discover that this "boredom" is not so boring, because in reality, a lot is happening to me right now;

Secondly, there is no longer any boredom, because - see “firstly”;

third, things have already changed many times.

So I suggest doing a little experiment:

Right now, while you are reading this text, start listening to the sounds that come to you. That is, read with one eye and listen with the other ear. Any sounds, anything: the quiet noise of a computer, the ticking of a clock, the snoring of your work colleague - all the sounds that are there. I don't know what's going on there at the moment.

And when you reach the end of this paragraph, stop reading altogether and just listen. Look in the lower right corner of the computer - you should have a clock there - and just listen for the next minute. Be aware of the volume of each sound, its duration, pitch, tonality, also pay attention to the interruption of sounds, to moments of silence, pauses, listen to this silence.

……………………………………………………

Everything, a minute has passed, and if you didn’t do the exercise, it’s your own fault.

If you still did it, then:

· If you have been fully in touch with your listening experience for this endlessly long minute, then you have been aware and you get credit and first prize - take something delicious from the buffet.

· If all the time you thought about this experience, or about your grandmother, or about President Putin, or about what an idiot I am, or about something else - you were unconscious, and for this you will be reprimanded.

· If you spent this time judging the value of this experience for you and your entire subsequent life, then you again fell into unconsciousness and for this you will be severely reprimanded.

· If you think that this experiment is a stupid waste of time, then you will receive a severe reprimand with entry into your personal body.

· But… We always have this saving “But” in reserve! If, listening to sounds, you thought, judged, judged, rowed, cursed, but at the same time noticed these thoughts, assessments, judgments and mate, at the very moment when they swept through your poor head, or with a slight delay - welcome aboard again! You are awarded the title of honorary conscious and you get a super prize - you can eat all the contents of your buffet, the buffet itself and the barmaid.

In addition to the buffet prize, some poetry from Matsuo Basho and me:

It's been a long way

Behind a distant cloud

I'll sit down to rest

An age-old metaphor for the practice of mindfulness is to observe the content of the current experience (everything that comes into focus) as clouds flow in the sky.

Of course, awareness as an essential human quality we have developed a long time ago. A long time ago. So long ago that no one remembers when.

But the idea of ​​practicing mindfulness, nurturing it and cultivating it was first recorded 2500 years ago. This idea was promoted at that time by a man named Siddhartha Gautama Shakyamuni.

Mindfulness has become a buzzword, if not commonplace. Everyone around is advised to learn to “be here and now”, books have appeared devoted to the development of these qualities in oneself. Never before has the topic of mindfulness been so popular. What's happening? Why mindfulness, how does it help and how does it affect life?

“The ability at any given time to give oneself an answer to four questions: who am I? where am I going? how am i going? why am I going? - this is awareness, according to the spouses Ekaterina Inozemtseva and Dmitry Yurchenko, who themselves have been looking for a way to a conscious life for many years, and now they share their experience with others. “If every time you doubt what you are doing, or when you feel an inner imbalance, answer these questions for yourself, everything falls into place.”

“My husband and I came up with practice "21 insights". "Insight" can be translated as "insight" or "flash of the day": it can be an event, a word, a quote, a conversation, or own thought that struck you with something and led to reflection or reflection. “Hunting for insights” during the day greatly develops awareness, ”say Dmitry and Ekaterina.

The development of awareness affects all areas - from health and success in work to mutual understanding in the family.

As a result of practice, sensitivity to oneself and any kind of relationship increases, a person learns to notice the important and discard the superfluous. Everything unnecessary goes away, life becomes more effective, yours, real.

How to measure your awareness? To begin with, build your own scale from 1 to 10. Unit - “I act automatically, do not get involved in the process, do the usual mechanical movements". Ten points - "I am clearly aware of myself and my path."

Ekaterina and Dmitry came to the conclusion that awareness is different: mental, physical, sexual, behavioral, intellectual, bodily, visual, intuitive, and even olfactory. For each type of awareness, based on the experience of joint relationships and mutual development, they came up with a developing practice or exercise. According to them, the development of awareness is the most fast way make life more full, bright, meaningful. And this affects all areas - from health and success at work to mutual understanding in the family.

We have chosen practices for the development of five types of mindfulness for the readers of Psychologies. Everyone can measure their effectiveness personally for themselves, observing the dynamics of their own "index of awareness" during the day.

1. Mindfulness Type: Sleep Mindfulness

Practice: sleep in separate beds.

What opens: understanding the criteria that are important to you healthy sleep, an idea of ​​the same partner criteria, awareness of the need to find a compromise between your expectations, the formation of a joint ritual that will significantly affect the quality of sleep and rest.

How to practice: answer yourself to next questions. What room does your partner like to sleep in? In cool or warm? What kind of bed does he like - hard or soft? What underwear? Smooth or soft? With a book or without a book? Pay attention to what position you and your partner fall asleep in, what do you need to fall asleep quickly - hugs or freedom? Do you/he/she have a personal bedtime ritual? General ritual? What about awakenings? Discuss this, determine the most important thing for you and your partner (for example, for one of you - cold air, and for another, quiet music is required when falling asleep), try it once or make it a rule for 21 days.

2. Type of awareness: emotional

Practice: within 7 days, in response to internal irritation or resentment towards a person, mentally send him 7 sincere compliments.

What opens: change in relations with oneself and the outside world, acceptance, understanding, the ability to see a person in front of oneself, and not an act.

How to practice: keep track of your thoughts from the category: “what a terrible skirt she has on” or “well, what a terrible belly”, not yet realized. Through pain, work through ambiguous situations of your assessments: how not to condemn a mother yelling at a child on the playground? How not to condemn a colleague who violates deadlines? Alcoholic on the subway? Rudeness in the store? How not to condemn yourself if you acted not very well or completely dishonorably? The primary awareness of condemnation and then the search for sincere compliments with their evidence will help in practice.

3. Type of awareness: mental

Practice: planning for the future based on your real desires and goals for the future, not past experience.

What opens: getting rid of the fear of starting something, awareness different ways for self-realization, sometimes requiring even a change in life trajectory, getting rid of the “excellent student syndrome”.

How to practice: agree with yourself before the start of any new project that you are taking on a new activity for yourself, calling it an experiment (and not “a lifelong task that must be completed without fail at any cost”). To say several times that this is just an experience to be gained, not necessarily showing a certain result.

4. Type of awareness: intuitive

Practice: dedigitization (for 36 hours turn off any electronic means communication, do not use the telephone, Internet and TV, minimize communication with the outside world).

What opens: the ability to draw attention to oneself, to shift the focus of attention from external sources on the internal, to see yourself from the inside, in isolation from the usual external reactions. In place of irritability constant discontent and the struggle with oneself comes confidence in oneself and in one's own abilities.

How to practice: turn off all possible communication channels, if possible, do not plan anything for this day, and if meetings are already scheduled, learn to act without the usual means of communication, relying on preliminary agreements and intuition.

5. Type of awareness: physical and bodily

Practice: identify and find orthopedic shoes that fit your feet. To carry out a thoughtful self-massage of one part of the body, you can start with the feet.

What opens: understanding the real needs of the body not in general, but in its specific part, recognizing oneself “in parts” with an understanding of what makes life filled with pleasant sensations, understanding that joy is in the details, and happiness is the way to it.

How to practice: when doing a massage, listen to your feelings, and then describe them on paper, compare physical sensations with the habit of analyzing with your mind.

The request for a conscious life is born only in developed person who begins to feel his inner world and pay attention to his experiences, emotions, thoughts, desires and begins to trace an inexplicable relationship between his internal state and their results in outside world. This is the request of a person who does not just want to satisfy his basic needs survival, but also wants to develop and get true joy and pleasure from life, from self-realization, from interaction with other people.

Mindfulness allows you to act effectively and at the same time enjoy life, realizing your potential, noticing problems at the stage of their occurrence and quickly and effectively resolving. You can only manage what you are aware of. Therefore, awareness is the key to managing your life! Mindfulness allows you to control your body, emotions, thoughts, your attitude towards people and your life.

What is awareness?

Mindfulness is a total and non-judgmental immersion of attention in the processes taking place in our life (physical, mental and psychological) and their awareness. Awareness is a searchlight of attention directed inward, which illuminates a problem or some process, makes it clear, visible and understandable. At this moment, we do not condemn and do not evaluate the phenomenon, person, feeling, action, but simply observe. Conscious life- This real life, life outside of conventions, imposed values, desires and behaviors. Being aware means seeing yourself and the world as they really are.

What you get by practicing mindfulness in life:

• Recovery. Conscious Attitude to the body will help prevent diseases and come to recovery, because listening to our body, we begin to give it exactly what it needs.
• Inner balance and harmony. Being aware of your emotions allows you to control them.
• Realizing your potential. Realizing our desires, over time we learn to distinguish true desires from imposed. And by realizing true desires, we begin to reveal our essence and our uniqueness.
• Freedom to be yourself. Being aware of our thoughts, desires, feelings and actions, over time we become free from nested programs, patterns, negative attitudes and become more successful and happier.
• Improved relationships with others. Mindfulness allows you to see a person as he is, and not to interact with an invented image.
• Opening intuition. A conscious relationship with one's own inner world opens intuition. Often the body nervous system give us signals, warning us of possible consequences.
• Improving the standard of living. A conscious attitude to your thoughts will help create positive changes in life, as conscious thoughts give rise to conscious actions.
• Brightness and interest in life. Mindfulness makes life interesting, not boring and mundane. After all, every moment is unique and beautiful, but not noticing the beauty around, we plunge into a series of endless gray everyday life with dreams of a vacation.
• Increasing energy levels. Returning your attention to this moment, we regain our energy, which we used to waste on scrolling thoughts, situations and experiences from the past or fears for the future.

Thus, awareness allows a person to become alive and real, to do what comes from the soul, and not imposed by anyone, therefore, to realize oneself and experience true joy and happiness from this.

How to develop mindfulness?

On this path, one can constantly improve, collecting threads of attention and, over time, realizing more and more. You can start with the simplest, but it is from small but constant efforts that a great result is formed.

The simplest mindfulness practices

1. Breathing practice. Focus your attention on inhaling and exhaling, not interfering, just watching. This practice calms, immerses in the present moment, relaxes.
2. Mindful eating. When eating, focus on its taste. Holding a piece of bread in your hands, try to realize how it got to you, how much effort and time it took to cook it, grow wheat, collect, grind flour, package, bake, how much effort and labor was invested in this small piece. And what is its value.
3. Focusing on your feelings. In order to have time to live your life, and not do everything automatically, you can dive into the present moment every hour or two. You can set a timer on your watch. And when the bell rings, leave your affairs and immerse yourself in the present moment, asking yourself “What do I feel now?”, go through the body, relax the tension, follow the breath for 5-10 minutes. This practice does not take much time and perfectly restores strength during a busy day, refreshes.
4. Ball of awareness. Imagine a transparent sphere in the chest area and focus on it and ask yourself: “What do I really want now and what will please me?”. Then start filling this balloon with nice images. This opens access to the true desires of our Soul. The same practice can be used to determine the true desire or the imposed one. Place the image of desire in this ball of the Soul and listen to the sensations. If they are pleasant and joyful, then the fulfillment of the desire will bring you joy, if not, then most likely, the desire is imposed by someone.
5. Conscious work with negative emotions. If you have been taken over negative feelings, turn your attention inward and ask yourself "What do I feel, where in the body do I feel it?". Then concentrate your attention there and begin to exhale consciously until the emotion dissolves. Over time, you will be able to quickly dissolve negative emotions with your awareness.
6. Awareness of your thoughts. If you tend to get involved in negative thoughts and spin them for hours, then try a simple but effective exercise"Rubber". Put a rubber band on your hand and as soon as you catch yourself getting involved in negative thoughts, pull the rubber band slightly, but noticeably, and click your hand. Consciously switch your attention from bad thoughts, as the famous Scarlett O "Hara said, "I'll think about it tomorrow," but not now. Remember that thoughts are vibrations that form a field around you and what you think about, you attract to yourself.
7. If a person annoys you. Any person responds within us with some feeling or state. For example, we read or listen to someone and feel something inside us resonate and resonate. We feel good feelings towards a person. But it also happens that you look at a person, and something unpleasant, annoying is born inside, which does not find resonance inside. As you consciously walk through this feeling, find and locate a spot in your body, and then begin to relax that tension until it goes away. As a result of practice, you will notice that the attitude has changed to neutral and no longer hurts you. It works very effectively, and with practice it is also very fast.
8. Body awareness. The body always begins to signal us about violations, but we are so absorbed in our affairs or thoughts that we often do not notice this. Until the strongest signal is turned on - pain, which indicates that the destruction is already serious. The main cause of destruction and disease is the contraction of body spaces, which most often occurs during times of stress. Constriction does not allow energy to flow calmly and relaxed. This is the same as constantly walking with clenched fists. Blood and energy stagnates and problems begin over time. Highly simple practice bodywork can be done before bed. You need to lie down comfortably and begin to slide your attention over your body, find zones of tension and consciously relax them, if the tension is very strong, you can breathe it in, imagining how you fill this zone with light with your breath. It contributes good sleep and recovery.

By improving the practice of mindfulness, one can reach new level life. When you become aware of your body and its sensations, you understand that you are not the body. When you become aware of your thoughts, you realize that you are not thoughts. When you become aware of your feelings, you realize that you are not feelings. When you consciously relate to desires, you begin to distinguish the true desires of the Soul from those imposed by society. When you enter the state of the observer and begin to live in the present, then you become the master of your life, mind, body, thoughts and feelings.