Meditating with focus outside self, eg on nature?

[piedwagtail91]

Almost jon. Its a robinsons hotel in Eastbourne. They pick up at the bottom of our road so it's an easy holiday!

Meditating on the view, sounds etc doesn't involve thought or thinking about what you see or hear. That's a step back from directly experiencing.

If you see a beautiful sea view and think how breathtaking it is that's a thought about what you've seen, it's in the past. Maybe only milliseconds but it's past.
The experience of that breathtaking view is what you feel when you see it.
You can only experience the present moment you can't think it. Thought is past and future.

[JonW]

Eastbourne eh? Britain's answer to Las Vegas.
Give us a holler if you're thinking of wandering further along the coast. I'm right by the lagoon in Hove.
Meanwhile, enjoy that toffee apple and wear your kiss-me-quick hat at a suitably jaunty angle.
Cheers skipper,
Jon

[piedwagtail91]

Thanks jon.

[Matt Y]

It may help to explore the derivations of the word 'attention', because mindfulness is, in essence, the process or practice of paying attention. Attention comes from the Latin, tendere, meaning 'stretch towards', and from which we get the word tender, as in 'legal tender' and tenderness.

What this suggests is that when we stretch our mind towards something, we are paying attention. It doesn't matter if we pay attention to one thing or many, or to something for 5 seconds or 20 minutes, it's still paying attention, and it could therefore still be considered being mindful.

I think the key distinction is in the way you pay attention. In meditation and mindfulness you pay attention deliberately. You choose what to pay attention to (and how you pay attention to it; for example, with curiosity). It's a conscious act. Contrast this with 'lazy' or normal attention, which is drawn and directed to various things unconsciously or habitually.

[MiM]

Thank you again, all, for good and thought provoking answers. Piedwag, you need to be careful, when talking about milliseconds to a physicist. If we go down to that level, we are not living in this moment at all, as it takes more than that for the neurosignals from our senses to reach our brains

The Palouse MBSR web-course I took, didn't have the open-awareness, and just barely touch on things like the soundscape. I believe it might have gone a bit deeper into social interactions instead, and it had Loving-Kindness as its focus in week 7. Those issues are also currently important in my life, so I am in no way complaining about that, but happy to find more to learn, and new paths to walk on.

I just tried Zinn's version of the Soundscape meditation, and completely enjoyed it. I believe a big part of my confusion in this area comes from that I am reconnecting with something I once had, but almost lost during some (many) bad years of my life. A lot of the ways I experienced nature when I was younger, probably would count as mindfulness (and) meditation, even though I had not even heard about mindfulness, and didn't call it meditation. Now I am a bit confused by the similarity between what I then did naturally and now am doing as "formal meditation practice" (doesn't that sound pompous?).

[piedwagtail91]

Milliseconds
I read that we were all mindful when we were kids. Its as we got older and all the responsibilities, judgements and the diaries and timekeeping crept in that we become less mindful or started living in the future.
I like the living kindness/ metta/ self compassion.
A group I practice with are moving towards that at the moment.
Mick

[Gareth]

You can only experience the present moment you can't think it.

Never a truer word spoken.

My lines also became blurred a long time ago; it was perhaps two or three years into my practice.

Meditation starts of as something you do in your life. Eventually life itself becomes the meditation. It's very difficult to describe.

[piedwagtail91]

That's true Gareth.
It is difficult to find words to describe it.

It does make itself more obvious when someone asks what 'mindfulness techniques ' I use.

When some people first start I feel they think its the practices that' fix ' things;, rather than seeing it as what you take from practice.

[KathleenH]

'I read that we were all mindful when we were kids'

That is so true Piedwagtail, when I started to practice mindfulness I felt like a kid again as it awoke that feeling when everything is new and interesting. When I was little I could sit and look at a picture for hours and notice every little detail in it, as I got older I just 'looked' at things but without paying any attention to them.

I love focusing on things when outside. Every lunchtime I go for a mindful walk on a country path and spend the time really looking things and listening to the sound of my feet on the path. It really calms and centres me ready for the afternoon.

[piedwagtail91]

I like going out in nature. Its so peaceful to practice.
its a pity we have to' grow up' and lose that awareness.
Life and nature are great teachers.