Cloudscape

When you are too distracted by thoughts during meditation while being still, try to meditate more while moving, for instance, in yoga, tai chi, dancing, walking, exercise, work, or another activity. If you are too distracted by thoughts during active meditation, try a more passive meditation, like insight meditation, mantric meditation, prayer or hypnosis.

Since meditation is merely mindful experience, meditation can be both active or passive. There must be a balance between active and passive meditation, and if this balance is not respected, then the meditation may cease to be effective or even become harmful. People have slipped into psychosis from too much passive and too little active meditation. On the other hand, too much active and too little passive meditation will only lead to an obsessive concentration.

In any case, however it is very important that any activity during meditation can be more or less automatized, that is to say, that it can happen without much thought, as it is not concentration, but experience, that matters in meditation. It is impossible to experience if one is forced to concentrate on thought.

People who have too little yang might focus more on active meditation, lest they only lose focus in passive meditation. People who have too little yin might instead focus more on passive meditation.

To be mindful of every experience can uplift one to such state of bliss that, ironically, there is soon the danger that one becomes attached to it, which, once you are no longer in a state of mindfulness, causes negative emotions which prevent us from becoming mindful again. In order not to become attached to the state of being mindful of your experiences of every moment, try to see the transience of every moment, which, after all, lasts only for a moment before it is replaced with the next.

Do not regret when you have allowed an experience to pass you by without you having thankfully enjoyed it, for every experience lasts only an infinitely short time. It does not matter to have lost it, for in doing so, you have lost nearly nothing. In the awareness that every moment fades after an infinitely short time, you may better be able to detach from it.

Whether you were mindful or not at some time in the past does not change your chance of being mindful now, for if at a given moment you wish to be mindful merely for the experience of mindfulness at this moment, and not for its effect on long term, then you certainly will be at that given moment. You may no longer be so the next moment, but that does not matter, for if you do not, it is because you no longer wish to be mindful for that moment, and that, at most, you wish to be mindful merely for the long-term effect of it.

If you try to be mindful but fail, it is because you have forgotten why you want to be mindful. At this point, you no longer truly want to mindful to experience, but merely to be in a state you can call mindful.

Whenever you fail to be fully mindful in whatever you do, stop doing it for a few seconds to become mindful again.

Attention is as much a place in one's mind as one's location is a place in one's world. One must therefore remember to accept not only where one is in the world but also where one is in one's mind. Accept where your attention is as long as it is there where it is, as you should accept where your location is as long as you are there.

If your senses are focussed on sensations you experience as negative, learn to love them, and so too if your mind is focussed on emotions you experience as negative, accept them as well.

Conceive of all reality as impossible, and it will stand out in all the clearer reality. Say to yourself at everything you perceive that for all the mysteries of its wonders, it simply cannot possibly exist — when this thought then collides with the undeniable fact of its existence, it will stare you in the face and defiantly stand out in all the sharper contrast.

Whatever happens to you, it will have a positive as well as a negative influence. By being aware of its positive influence, one can make it stronger by thus opening oneself to it; by being aware of its negative influence, one may avoid it by closing oneself to it. It is important to be aware of both, but remain detached, remain objective.

When you have the intention to become conscious, remember thereafter now and then to renew that intention, so that you do not become unconscious again. Do this as often as is needed to remain conscious continuously, at least every minute; to do this, you might use a mantra, such as "I am aware" or "I live" to remember your intention quickly. Repeat your mantra whenever you catch yourself becoming les conscious than you want to be, and resolve at that moment to remain conscious for as long as you are able.

Similarly, oneironauts have made use of the mantra "I am dreaming" to prolong lucidity when finding their dreams to become less vivid. Analogously, one can use the mantra "I am living" to prolong mindfulness when finding one's awareness to become less vivid.

When you focus on our experience, you may sometimes feel anxieties as soon as you do so. If so, note that they are there, accept them as part of your experience, and do not give up.

Thought should start with questions, not with wanderings. Think only when the need is felt, and otherwise, feel.

Wonder and ask yourself with an open curiosity what will happen the next instant, both without you as within you in feelings, thoughts or actions, and experience the answer as it comes. Control it all the while, but only when you find yourself feeling or thinking that it is needed. In this way, observing yourself in every way as though you were someone else, you will become more aware.

We slip into unconsciousness not because we are forgetful, but because consciousness tends to hurt at times. If we wish to be conscious, then we must endure it. Discursive thought is a means of dissociation. We must face this shame to recognize that we are afraid of every single moment, lest we never conquer that fear — everything we feel would become overwhelming were it not that we seek to escape from it.