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Mindfulness And The Body: Second Week of Sharon Salzberg's Retreat
In this second week of Sharon Salzberg's retreat, "Mindfulness and the Body," she expands our understanding of mindfulness as a practice and perceptual tool. She describes mindfulness as a "quality of awareness where our attention is not distorted by bias." Developing awareness of our minds' habitual thoughts that invade and color our perception is essential to changing the way we relate to our experiences.
In clear and precise language, Sharon articulates the ways that mindfulness helps us to connect more fully and deeply to our experiences, bringing our attention to the details of the present. Resting our attention on the sensations of our bodies, Sharon shows us how to apply the same concentration principles from the first week in order to develop a more balanced awareness.
As she says, "Our goal here is simply to be aware, and have awareness itself be the vehicle of transformation."
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Check out the preview of this week's retreat below:
I do not require my prophets to be perfect. Teachers with challenges in their lives have taught me everything I know about Buddhism. They teach me how to work with my own life's difficulties.
Sharon "describes mindfulness as a 'quality of awareness where our attention is not distorted by bias.'" I suggest that it is a bias to prejudge what you can learn from someone based on how they look.
"Habitual thoughts" "color our perception"--indeed they do! Yet this bias is correctible if we open our minds to that to which they have previously been closed.
Maitri to all participants