Table of Contents
Introduction 1
Part I Entering 7
Beginners Mind 9
The Breath 11
Who Is Breathing? 13
The Hardest Work in the World 14
Taking Care of This Moment 16
Mindfulness Is Awareness 17
Doing Mode and Being Mode 18
A Grounding in Science 19
Mindfulness Is Universal 21
Wakefulness 22
Stabilizing and Calibrating Your Instrument 24
Inhabiting Awareness Is the Essence of Practice 26
The Beauty of Discipline 27
Adjusting Your Default Setting 29
Awareness; Our Only Capacity Robust Enough to Balance Thinking 31
Attention and Awareness Are Trainable Skills 33
Nothing Wrong with Thinking 34
Befriending Our Thinking 35
Images of Your Mind That Might Be Useful 37
Not Taking Our Thoughts Personally 39
Selfing 40
Our Love Affair with Personal Pronouns-Especially I, Me, and Mine 41
Awareness Is a Big Container 43
The Objects of Attention Are Not as Important as the Attending Itself 45
Part II Sustaining 47
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction 49
A World-Wide Phenomenon 51
An Affectionate Attention 53
Mindfulness Brought to All the Senses 54
Proprioception and Interoception 56
The Unity of Awareness 58
The Knowing Is Awareness 60
Life Itself Becomes the Meditation Practice 61
You Already Belong 62
Right Beneath Our Noses 63
Mindfulness Is Not Merely a Good Idea 64
To Come Back in Touch 65
Who Am I? Questioning Our Own Narrative 66
You Are More Than Any Narrative 67
You Are Never Not Whole 70
Paying Attention in a Different Way 72
Not Knowing 73
The Prepared Mind 74
What Is Yours to See? 75
Part III Deepening 77
No Place to Go, Nothing to Do 79
The Doing That Comes Out of Being 80
To Act Appropriately 82
If You Are Aware of What Is Happening, You Are Doing It Right 83
Non-Judging Is an Act of Intelligence and Kindness 85
You Can Only Be Yourself-Thank Goodness! 87
Embodied Knowing 88
Feeling Joy for Others 90
The Full Catastrophe 91
Is My Awareness of Suffering Suffering? 92
What Does Liberation from Suffering Mean? 94
Hell Realms 96
Liberation Is in the Practice Itself 98
The Beauty of the Mind That Knows Itself 101
Taking Care of Your Meditation Practice 103
Energy Conservation in Meditation Practice 104
An Attitude of Non-Harming 106
Greed: The Cascade of Dissatisfactions 108
Aversion: The Flip Side of Greed 110
Delusion and the Trap of Self Fulfilling Prophecies 113
Now Is Always the Right Time 114
The "Curriculum" Is "Just This" 115
Giving Your Life Back to Yourself 117
Bringing Mindfulness Further into the World 118
Part IV Ripening 121
The Attitudinal Foundations of Mindfulness Practice 123
Non-Judging 123
Patience 124
Beginners Mind 124
Trust 126
Non-Striving 127
Acceptance 130
Letting Go 132
Part V Practicing 135
Getting Started with Formal Practice 137
Mindfulness of Eating 143
Mindfulness of Breathing 145
Mindfulness of the Body as a Whole 147
Mindfulness of Sounds, Thoughts, and Emotions 148
Mindfulness as Pure Awareness 151
Epilogue 153
Acknowledgments 155
Recommended Reading 157
About the Author 165
