Choosing A Meditation Object

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- Ch: 06 of Mindfulness, A Guidebook to the Present Moment -

‘The purpose of meditation is to create focus. It is about focusing your attention on your experience. The reason for focus: it allows you to be here now. Your only reality is This Moment, right here, right now. Peace is found in such awareness.’ - Neale Donald Walsch

To be clear, mindfulness is not the act of meditating. It is the state that arises from our meditation practice. Therefore, mindfulness is not dependent on the use of the breath as a meditation object. Anything can be used: sounds, sights, physical sensations, thoughts, and even awareness itself. In fact, if we want to integrate the benefits into our everyday life, it is vital that we explore mindfulness across a broad spectrum of meditation objects. That way, we will have the tools of mindfulness readily available to employ, wherever and whenever we need them. What is the point of our practice if the benefits do not transcend the meditation mat?

The traditional object of mindfulness is the breath. It is used because it is always available and is constantly changing. The breath provides an anchor on which we can focus our minds; when we notice our attention shifting, we simply and gently return it back to the sensations of the breath at the nose.

Unfortunately, some people struggle with breathwork. Perhaps due to anxiety, past trauma, illness, allergies, or other unknown reasons, for some people the act of closing the eyes and focusing on the breath is challenging, confronting, or even triggering. The traditional response to these kind of issues is to treat these negative symptoms as you would any other distraction; that is to acknowledge them and then gently return the focus back to the breath. While I encourage this approach to be attempted, I strongly advocate that all meditators, especially beginning practitioners, do not push through significant emotional duress. You do not need to martyr yourself, nor do you need to grit your teeth and bear significant emotional or even physical pain, particularly not when you are first starting out. Later sections of this book will explore how experienced meditators can choose to use pain itself as a meditation object, but for the moment it is enough to know that they do so with the knowledge and wisdom of hundreds of hours of accrued mat time. So, if you find that you are not coping with a particular meditation object, practice, or pose, simply change it. Now, lets explore some different options.

Mindful Walking

Mindful walking is traditionally used by monks and retreat goers as a compliment to breathwork. By alternating between sitting and walking, practitioners can stay meditating for hours on end. Instead of the breath, the physical sensations of the feet hitting the ground are used as the meditation object. And like the breath, these sensations are constantly changing, and always available. This walking is done with good posture, and very slowly, perhaps at about a third of your normal walking pace. Hands are clasped in front or gently behind the back.

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Meditation: Mindful Walking
1: Find a space where you can freely walk in a circle, like a longue room, hallway, or secluded garden.

2: Start a timer for five minutes.

3: Begin walking slowly, at about a third of your regular pace.

4: Draw your attention to the sensations at your feet. Notice the heel, base, and ball of your foot hitting and leaving the floor.

5: If your mind wanders, gently return your focus back to the sensations coming from your feet.

6: Repeat for the duration of the session.

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There is some stigma that may be associated with slowly walking in circles alone, to some it will feel silly or even crazy. Indeed, the first few times I tried mindful walking I struggled to move past the feeling self-consciousness that arose. You do get used to it, and of course those feelings are another form of distraction and should be treated as such. None-the-less, these feelings can, initially at least, be a block to a successful practice.

Remember, our goal is not to ‘meditate correctly’, but to attain mindfulness. While the traditional approaches to mindfulness meditation work and work well, they are the finger pointing to the moon, and as such, ultimately serve as a guide, not as doctrine. There is a risk of religiously following a practice for the practice’s sake, and subsequently losing sight of the real point of why we started it in the first place.

Provided that we adhere to the principles of mindfulness meditation, we can alter the way we meditate.

When practicing mindful walking, I prefer to walk outside and not in circles. A common variation I use will be to walk around my block at about half of my regular walking pace. Alternatively, I will use a treadmill at 1km per hour and remain in place. In both of these variations, I keep my focused attention on the sensations at my feat, and my broad awareness on, but more on that later in the section ‘Broad Awareness’.

Mindful walking can be used alongside, or instead of formal seated breath focused mindfulness. Remember, it is not the focus of our mindful attention that matters, but the act of focusing. So, whether we focus on the breath, sensations from out feet, or any of the following suggestions, mindfulness can and will still be attained. With that said, some people initially ‘click’ with certain objects and types of mindful focus, so try them all and store them away for future use.

I practice Mindful Walking whenever I am walking alone or feeling too restless for a traditional seated session.

Mindful Movement

Yoga is the traditional form of mindful movement. It was initially created to keep meditators bodies strong enough to practice formal sitting for hours on end, while also standing as a viable meditation practice in its own right. Unfortunately, many western schools have all but entirely dropped the mindful aspect, opting instead to push solely for the physical benefits. These are no doubt amazing, but through the application of mindful focus, we stand gain even more from it.

Mindful movement is practiced in a similar way to mindful walking. You choose one aspect of your activity to become your mindful focus, and when your mind wanders, you gently return your focus back to it. For yoga, you may choose to focus on the feeling of the stretch, noting what it feels like, how strong those feelings are, as well as observing any related mental phenomena that accompany it. Or you could choose to focus on the feelings of change over your body as you move through your poses. Make sure to move slowly and deliberately, at least at first.

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Glimpse: Mindful Stretching
Notice what your arms and shoulders feel like at this moment, then gently and slowly stretch them out in front of you. Notice your intention to move your arms, then notice them moving. What does it feel like when they are fully outstretched?

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With practice, this same approach can be applied to all forms of physical movement and exercise. What does it feel like to dance, or to move through a martial arts kata? When lifting, note how your muscles are feeling. Observe how your body goes through practiced repetitive motions like shooting a hoop or riding a bike.

I practice Mindful Movement whenever I am stretching as well as during the warmup and cool down components of my daily exercise sessions.

Mindful Looking

As a formal practice, mindful looking is often done with a candle, a flower, a religious or spiritual icon, or a portrait, but any object will work just as well. You simply choose an aspect of the object, for example its colour, size, shape, tone, or texture to focus on, or the object in its entirety, and use that point of focus as an anchor for your attention. When your mind wanders, gently return your focus back to observation.

Let’s give it a try now.

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Glimpse: Looking At Your Hands
For the next 30 seconds, hold your hands out in front of you and just observe what you see. Mentally noting the colors, shapes, textures, and shadows. Attempt to look at your hands as if this were the first time you have ever seen them. Try not to overlay any judgment, comment, meaning, or thought. If your mind wanders, gently return your focus back to your hands.

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Mindful looking is a great ‘on the go’ practice. You can perform it when you find yourself with a few spare seconds here or there; waiting in line, stuck in traffic, taking an elevator, or when you are waiting to be served. Rather than checking social media again, you can instead take these moments to delve deeper into your practice. Over time you will find that you are far more observant, you will begin to notice small changes in shape, shadow and colour, and will develop a greater appreciation of the inherent beauty of the world around you.

You can even practice mindful looking with your eyes closed.

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Glimpse: Looking With Closed Eyes
For the next 30 seconds, close your eyes while keeping your vision engaged. Look upon the darkness as if it were a night sky. Notice the quality of your visual field. Watch how it moves, changes and flows. Are there any colors? Do any shapes coalesce together? If your mind wanders, gently return your focus to what you can see with your eyes closed.

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I use Mindful Looking throughout my day to trigger ongoing mindfulness, as well as when I am observing nature or art.

Mindful Hearing

Sounds of any sort can be used as an object of mindful focus. Perhaps it could be the simple observation of the noises coming from the environment, or it could be the purposeful playing of a certain music track during a formal session. It could even be something as subtle as a heartbeat, or the sounds arising from breathing.

To practice mindful hearing, you simply draw your attention to the sound that you wish to observe. Attempt to hear all of it, without judgement and without filter. Do not strain or try and force yourself to search for every small nuance, simply let the sound come to your ears.

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Glimpse: Mindful Hearing
For the next 30 seconds, close your eyes and draw your attention to what you can hear. Notice how the sounds change, including the volume, tone, and type that you hear. Notice the gaps between the sounds.

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You may find that focusing on non-verbal sounds like nature, music, machinery, or traffic will be easier than with spoken words. This is because humans are language processing machines. We have been practicing our entire lives to turn the sounds coming out of the mouths of those around us into something that has meaning. Thus, it may be hard to listen mindfully to the sound of words without judgement or interpretation.

The next time you find yourself able to listen in on a conversation that you are not involved in, give it a try. Attempt to simply hear the sounds of the words, and not take the next step to interpret them. With practice you may be able to witness the quick and subtle conversion of words into meaning and then the triggering of your memory.

Another approach is to listen to words spoken in a foreign language. You will have little context to hang meaning onto, and thus will be better equipped to hear their sound simply and mindfully; focus on the rhythm, tone, volume and pacing of the sound as it hits your ears.

I practice Mindful Hearing while listening to music and the sounds of nature throughout the day.

Present State Awareness

You can choose to focus your mindful attention on one object as described above, or you could choose to shift your focus through different objects for the duration of the meditation session. With present state awareness, we cycle through all five senses, drawing attention to what we can see, hear, feel, taste, and smell. Not only does this practice work great as a form of mindfulness meditation, but it also extremely grounding and thus is an amazing anti-anxiety technique. I use this whenever I feel the onset of a panic attack, or the need to slow down a racing and ruminating mind.

 By focusing on our senses, we are directing our attention out of our head and into the present moment. We are grounding ourselves in what is happening now, not what was happening or what we think may happen.

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Meditation: Present State Awareness
1: Take five slow and deep breaths, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Do not force this breathing pattern, it should feel comfortable and not strained. Continue breathing this way with five breaths for each sense.

2: Focus your attention onto what you can feel. What does the ground feel like? Can you feel the wind? Is there any pressure, tension or sensation coming from inside your body? What do your clothes feel like? Are you hungry? Do you feel hot or cold? Have you felt anything new?

3: Move your attention onto what you can see. Notice the colours, lines, shapes, textures. Notice the play of light and the casting of shadows. Have you seen anything new?

4: Move your attention onto what you can hear. What sounds are coming to your ears? Are they natural or man-made? Can you hear music or a conversation? What is the pitch and tone? Is it loud or quiet? Have you heard anything new?

5: Move your attention onto what you can smell. Focus on the air coming into your nose, are there any smells that you instantly recognise? Are there some that you can’t place? Is there an undertone? Have you smelt anything new?

6: Move your attention onto what you can taste. Focus on your mouth and tongue, are there any residual tastes in your mouth? Perhaps you can still taste some of the stronger flavours from your last meal or toothpaste. Have you tasted anything new?

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You can vary the above meditation by choosing to repeat the cycle through all the senses multiple times, or you could choose to focus specifically on one or two of them. I like to use present state awareness throughout the day to ground myself. I do not always go through the whole process described above, instead I opt for just recognition of what is coming from my senses in that moment.

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Glimpse: The Five Senses
Take a moment to ask yourself the following: What can I see? What can I feel? What can I hear? What can I taste? What can I smell?

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Any object can be used as a focus of our mindful attention. Provided we observe it without judgement, it does not matter what we are observing, mindfulness will come. In part two of this book, we will delve into the more subtle and esoteric applications of our mindful focus, moving away from physical sensations and into the realm of thought, focus and consciousness itself. But for the moment, I encourage you to apply your mindful focus wherever possible, and across all your senses.

I use Present State Awareness as a counter to anxiety and panic attacks, and as a grounding exercise at the beginning of a formal meditation session.

Mindful Eating

Just a small warning when it comes to mindful eating. You may find that until this point, you have not been paying much attention to the food you eat, and thus may be eating things that you do not enjoy. I have received many comments lamenting the fact that this practice has ‘ruined’ certain foods. But the reality is that they were simply not mindful of the food they were putting into their mouth. They never really liked it, but now they know.

This example is a microcosm of some of the impacts that mindfulness meditation can have on your life. With practice you will find yourself more in tune with your inner world, and more aware of the impact that the environment is having on you. Thus, you may realise that certain aspects of your life may now need to be tweaked or changed; work, hobbies, relationships, location, dress style and life goals that may no longer fit. Making these changes may hurt, but it is worth it. Doing so will result in a life that is far more in line with who and what you truly are. This will lead to a deeper sense of satisfaction and happiness.

The reality is that you never liked that food and continuing to eat it mindlessly may sustain your body, but it will not satisfy your soul. Similarly, you may find that some aspects of your life are comfortable and safe, but nonetheless not satisfying. On the other hand, you may discover that you are not at all happy where you are, and simply did not realise it or were avoiding even thinking about it. Regardless of the cause, changes must be made, and they must be made mindfully. So, start with your food and expand outwardly from there.

I use mindful eating to help regulate my intake of sugary treats, control my cravings, and slow down the rate of food consumption to better aid with digestion.

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Glimpse: Mindful Eating
Take one small piece of food, like a grape or a piece of chocolate. Consider where it was grown or made, and the process it took to get onto your plate. Observe it closely, smell it, look at it, feel it. Then slowly and deliberately place it into your mouth. Notice your intention to chew, and then slowly do so. What does it taste like?