Life's in-between moments

"Now (after meditating for a while) I started to see life's in-between moments - sitting at a red light, waiting for a my crew to get set up for an interview - as a chance to focus on my breath, or just take in my surroundings. As soon as I began playing this game, I really noticed how much sleepwalking I did, how powerfully my mind propelled me forward or backward. Mostly, I saw the world through a scrim (a piece of gauze cloth that appears opaque until lit from behind, used as a screen or backdrop) of skittering (move lightly and quickly or hurriedly) thoughts, which created a kind of buffer between me and reality. As one Buddhist author put it, the "craving to be otherwise, to be elsewhere" permeated my whole life."

- 10% Happier by Dan Harris

Every moment ... an opportunity for a do-over

"(after meditating for a while)...Pretty quickly, my efforts began to bear fruit "off the cushion,"...I started to be able to use the breath to jolt myself back to the present moment - in airport security lines, waiting for elevators, you name it. I found it to be a surprisingly satisfying exercise. Life became a little bit like walking into a familiar room where all the furniture had been rearranged. And I was much better at forgiving myself out in the real world than while actually meditating. Every moment was an opportunity for a do-over. A million mulligans (A Mulligan, in a game, happens when a player gets a second chance to perform a certain move or action; usually due to lack of skill or bitter luck. A "Do-Over")."

- 10% Happier by Dan Harris

Meditation Instructions

"1. Sit Comfortably. You don't have to be cross-legged. Plop yourself in a chair, on a cushion, on the floor - wherever. Just make sure your spine is reasonably straight.
2. Feel the sensations of your breath as it goes in and out. Pick a spot: nostrils, chest, or gut. Focus your attention there and really try to feel the breath. If it helps to direct your attention, you can use a soft mental note, like "in" and "out".
3. This one, according to all of the books I read, was the biggie. Whenever your attention wanders, just forgive yourself and gently come back to the breath. You don't need to clear the mind of all thinking; that's pretty much impossible. (True, when you are focused on the feeling of the breath, the chatter will momentarily cease, but this won't last too long.) The whole game is to catch your mind wondering and then come back to the breath, over and over again."

- 10% Happier by Dan Harris

Painful practice for a pleasurable race

"MWG (Marvin Goldberg - the author's coach) taught his athletes to love self-discipline and to beware of the temptations of self-indulgence.
"I want to make your practice painful," he would say, "so that the race will be a pleasure." It was his way of reminding us that life is full of occasional hardships. We should get used to it.
Self-discipline was an issue in every part of life, in little things as well as big. One minute, self-discipline might mean pushing to break a personal record on the track. In another moment, it might be a matter of seemingly insignificant details."

- A Resilient Life by Gordon Macdonald

Convince ourselves that we had far more stamina than we believed we had

"One day he (Marvin Goldberg - the author's coach) said to his cross-country team, "When you near the finish line tomorrow, I want you to sprint, even if no one is near you, and I want you to continue running a good pace for another quarter mile past the finish line."... It was meant to convince us that we had far more stamina than we believed we had. And furthermore, it was to teach us the importance of finishing any kind of race in life with vigor and to exceed the minimum requirements."

- A Resilient Life by Gordon Macdonald

The route to true happiness is by understanding impermanence

"The Buddha was... promising salvation...through the embrace of the very stuff that will destroy us. The route to true happiness, he argued, was to achieve a visceral understanding of impermanence, which would take you off the emotional roller coaster and allow you to see your dramas and desires through a wider lens.Waking up to the reality of our situation allows you to , as the Buddhists say, "let go," to drop your "attachments." As one Buddhist writer put it, the key is to recognize the "wisdom of insecurity.""

- 10% Happier by Dan Harris

Impermanence

"The Buddha's main thesis was that in a world where everything is constantly changing, we suffer because we cling to things that won't last. A central theme of the Buddha's "dharma" (which roughly translates to "teaching") revolved around the very word that had been wafting through my consciousness when I used to lie on my office couch, pondering the unpredictability of television news: "impermanence." The Buddha embraced an often overlooked truism: nothing lasts - including us. We and everyone we live will die. Fame fizzles, beauty fades, continents shift. Pharaohs are swallowed by emperors, who fall to sultans, kings, kaisers and presidents - and it all plays out against the backdrop of an infinite universe in which our bodies are made up of atoms from the very first exploring stars. We may know this intellectually, but on as emotional level we seem to be hardwired for denial."

- 10% Happier by Dan Harris

Monkey Mind

(The Buddhists) "compiled meticulous lists: The Three Characteristics of All Phenomena, the Four Noble Truths, The Four Highest Emotions, The Seven Factors of Enlightenment, etc. They also came up with names for so many of the mental habits I'd come to notice in myself, such as "comparing mind," and "wanting mind." They had a term, too, for that thing I did where something would bother me and I would immediately project forward to an unpleasant future... the Buddhists called this prapanca (pra-PUN-cha), which roughly translates to "proliferation," or "the imperialistic tendency of mind." That captures it beautifully, I thought: something happens, I worry, and that concern instantaneously colonizes my future. My favorite Buddhist catchphrase, however, was the one they used to describe the churning of the ego: "monkey mind"."

Lurch headlong from one pleasurable experience to the next without ever achieving satisfaction

"We are constantly murmuring, muttering, scheming or wondering to ourselves under our breath," wrote (Dr. Mark) Epstein. "'I like this. I don't like that. She hurt me. How can I get that? More of this, no more of that.' Much of our inner dialogue is this constant reaction to experience by a selfish, childish protagonist. None of us has moved very far from the seven-year-old who vigilantly watches to see who got more." There were also delightful passages about the human tendency to lurch headlong from one pleasurable experience to the next without ever achieving satisfaction. Epstein totally nailed my habit of hunting around my plate for the next bite before I'd tasted what was in my mouth. As he described it, "I do not want to experience the fading of the flavor - the colorless, cottony pulp that succeeds that spectacular burst over my taste buds."

- 10% Happier by Dan Harris