Shinzen Young describes Mindfulness Meditation - as only he can.

With the way you teach meditation different than how other People teach like right now. You've said things that I've not heard from other teachers about focusing on all these different places. I've heard People talk about focusing on the breath and the few things that I said, before, but you've now brought up all these different objects of meditation is that how what you teach is different than what other well. If I were to describe I think first. I'd want to emphasize how what I teach is similar to what the other People teach.

But of course, we can you know there's lumpers in their splitters right world this expansion and contraction. This split or love? Well, you asked me to split but I would prefer to initially lump and then I'll split so the.

I would say that.

Well, I teach People to elevate their base level of concentration so from that perspective. I would be identical to any other competent meditation teacher.

I work within the mindfulness tradition.

Mindfulness can be called a kind of meditation if you want to in that it one of the things that it does is dramatically elevate your base level of concentration, but mindfulness has 2 other components. Mindful awareness has I think of mindful awareness as a threefold attentional skill set.

So one of the components. We've already talked about it. Some length that's your base level of concentration power? Which I define as the ability to focus on what is deemed relevant at any given moment?

However, In addition to that? Which.

Any form of meditation mindful meditation or

Christian centering prayer or TM they would all achieve that mindfulness. In addition to that has 2 other components or features that are strongly emphasized in our distinctive to it.

One is I call sensory clarity, which you can think of as the ability to keep track of the components of your sensory experience.

For example, to make that tangible when you're having a an emotional experience. What part of that emotion is mental image?

What part of that emotion is internal talk? What part of that emotion is emotional feelings in your body to keep track of the feel image talk components of emotion. Specifically, an subjective experience in general that would be an example of sensory clarity or to know when you have an external sound the sound is one thing your feel image talk reactions to the sound or something else.

And it's those feel image talk reactions that create the sense of and I listening to and it called the sound to be able to keep track of what part is sound? What part is my reaction? What part is site? What part is my reaction things like that are what I call sensory clarity and we give just as we give People exercises that specifically develop their concentration power. We also give People exercises that develop their sensory clarity.

So that's that's sort of distinctive to the mindfulness tradition, then another thing. That's distinctive to the mindfulness tradition is a conscious development of what we call equanimity, which is a little bit of a strange word is not ordinarily used and in fact that's why we use it to sort of sort of give drain well, not to create an aura of Mystical Mystical, but to give People a heads up. Hey this is a technical term and it means something very specific and it's defined in a certain way.

So equanimity sounds like being cooled out into attached but actually as we would define it in the mindfulness tradition. It's radical non interference with the natural flow of sensory experience, so if you have.

Emotions in the body you don't push them down. But you don't latch on to them inappropriately either. It's a sort of non pushing and pulling a hands off. With regards to the flow of your senses which does not for a moment imply a hands off. With regards to the flow of events in the world. You can be very, very proactive and even pushy with regards to.

Circumstances and conditions, but equanimity means that you're not pushing and pulling the natural operation of your senses your sense is defined as external site external sound physical type body sensations meant your mental images your internal talk and your emotional body sensations. You let touch sight sound feel image talk expanded contract as they wish without interference. Let me just make sure I.

I get that right so equanimity is my experience.

Thoughts and feelings and body sensation.

How I'm experiencing the world in terms of sight and sound I'm just letting that?

Happen in watching that kind of flow. I don't know like waves or something but that's separate from my wanting to do an action in the world to change things. Yes, In other words, as you become passive innocence. With regards to in the sense that you're passive in the sense that you don't fight yourself. Your train another way to look at equanimity is it straining your sensory circuits, not to interfere with themselves.

So you could compare it to, if your sensory experience is the engine of a car equanimity is oiling. The engin so the parts don't grind against each other.

Causing the Dow or well well it going for it can lead to an experience of Fluidity, but sometimes it can lead to an experience of solidity because you're willing to let things melt and freeze. There's another TS. This is going to be TS Eliot time there's another TS Eliot Line Mid Winter Spring is its own season.

Between melting and freezing the soles SAP quivers. You have to be willing to melt an freeze the equanimity is equanimity with whatever form the senses take, but what equanimity does is it's a skill.

Yeah, so it's another way to look at it is. It's learning to love every sensory experience as it arises but not to hold onto it inappropriately as it passes? How do you develop that skill I'd like that one everyone would because it's a good skill? Yeah, it's a good skill all have some equanimity.

I concur.

And why it's a good skill is you'll discover that when you have equanimity with pain. It still hurts but it doesn't bother you and when you have equanimity with pleasure. It not only feels good. It satisfies you. People think they want to be free from pain and to have pleasure. But what they really want is to be free from pain being a problem and to have pleasure that gives satisfaction and it turns out that the quality of equanimity.

Does that so when you say yeah? I'd like? Yeah, it's like that joke it's like I'd like to have like, she's having that's right well. That's in the equanimity is definitely something and how People desirable highly desirable and in fact, more than desirable may be absolutely essential. If you have some physical and or emotional pain that cannot be gotten rid of by changing circumstances or biannual jesiah.

Or psychotropics or whatever, then you've got a choice of either developing equanimity or being mired in abject suffering.

So definitely equanimity is not only desirable it may be pivotal to making life worth living under certain circumstances.