~The Subtle Mind ~ Contemplative Practice #2

We continue on our path of Integral Health and Human Flourishing this week by moving through the contemplative practices (mental training) which help us evolve our psychospiritual life as well as cross-train our body, mind, and spirit.

Attaining well-being requires diminishing self centeredness and enhanced compassion for the welfare of others.  To develop/progress through the last three levels of psychospiritual flourishing of witnessing consciousness, to calm abiding, to unity consciousness, we use these contemplative practices. 

Starting out with practice 1 “Loving-Kindness” using breathing, imagery and thought suggestions to feel loving kindness for self (because we must love ourselves to be able to love others) and then moving loving-kindness thoughts towards others we are then ready to move to practice 2 “Subtle Mind exercise” of calming and stilling our minds and cultivating wisdom by using breathing to focus our attention and still the mental movements we all experience.  With this exercise we focus on the in or out breaths, or the rising of the chest while breathing comfortably, and maintaining a firm concentration on the breathing focal point , when thoughts start to wander or feelings or images emerge, we have to gently return our attention to the breath; being intentional and sometimes forceful to “tame the busy mind”.  In time, this practice quiets the mind and we can spend more time just witnessing the breathing and mental activity and less time struggling or being absorbed by the mental chatter.  Through this practice we see how our mind works, how we are involuntarily moved to random thoughts, feelings, and visual images which we have been trained to cling to, yet we can learn to let go of these mental movements and not focus on them; if we just leave them alone, they will dissolve and disappear.  Once we train our minds to not focus on this mental disruptions we can focus on the stillness itself which allows the subtle mind to reveal itself and opens us up to a place of calm abiding and unity consciousness and pure awareness.

To compare and contrast:  Loving-kindness is an attitude and desire to move from self need to the needs of others, which prepares our hearts and minds to move forward in our development where the subtle mind is calming and controlling the mind’s mental movements to cultivate wisdom both of which develop awareness and levels of consciousness.

This development is to bring about integral health and healing, spiritual, mental, and physical wellness all of which are interconnected.  Therefore, instead of thinking of health as the physical body alone, we look at ourselves as outer and inner and innermost, highly sophisticated systems.

I think many of us use these interconnected systems almost daily without even realizing it.  Have you ever stubbed your toe for instance and used breathing and mental imagery or self talk to take your mind off of the pain or to lessen or stop the pain all together?  Have you ever used lamaze during childbirth? How about prayer to heal yourself or others or to even find inner peace?  Or have you used something as simple as stepping away from a situation to calm yourself, which in turn has lowered your blood pressure or eased a stress headache?  These examples are our interconnected mind, body, and spirit in action. 


This is a very complex process and not one that will happen over night or the first time participating in the meditation/relaxation guided exercises.  Again, if it were that simple everyone would be doing it and have perfect health and human flourishing.  This is a way of life, a way of believing and training with intentional dedication and effort, and to think that we (first time students of this concept) already have control of our run away thoughts and are perfectly loving to all creatures great and small or have come anywhere near these levels of conscious awareness without years of studying and practice would be ridiculous.  This course is a start, a foundation of knowledge to grow upon and in my opinion, one well worth the pursuit. 


Sandy