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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
Benefits of Mindfulness: Mindful Living Can Change Your Life
Mindfulness 101: A Beginner's Guide
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Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness.
Today, I'm going to talk about the
four stages of competence that we go
through when learning mindfulness as
spoken about in Rick hanson's really
awesome book, the Buddha's Brain.
So stage one is called
unconscious incompetence.
So to begin with, in meditation practice,
we're so caught up in our patterns
of thought and behavior that we don't
even know we're caught up in them.
We're completely identified with the mind.
In this stage, we tend to repeat
the same unhelpful thought
patterns again and again in loop.
So how this shows up in meditation
is that we might find ourselves just
constantly being caught up in thoughts,
struggling with emotions, or just really
unable to stay present with the breath.
We may keep getting caught up in
worries, negative thinking, strong
emotions, restlessness, for example.
Or we might just totally
phase out during meditation.
So after some time in practice,
we move into stage two, which is
called conscious incompetence.
So as we practice mindfulness, we start
to become more aware about thoughts
and emotions and our behavioral
patterns and how they're affecting us.
This is often the trickiest phase of the
four stages, because it can be really
uncomfortable to be more aware of the
unhelpful patterns we have and the
suffering they cause, but not yet quite
have developed enough mindfulness to be
able to set ourselves free from them.
This stage is where many
people want to quit.
Before we move on, two things that
really help during this phase.
One is understanding that it's not
personal what your mind is doing.
What your crazy mind is doing,
all of our crazy minds do.
It's just part of the shared human
condition that our minds get caught
up in all this kind of stuff.
The other thing is
learning self-compassion.
So instead of beating yourself up for
not being able to master everything right
away, seeing if you can have the attitude
towards yourself that you would have
towards a child learning to ride a bike.
And give yourself gentle encouragement
to simply try again, knowing that it's
normal to fall a few times before you fly.
Okay.
So stage three is conscious competence.
As mindfulness starts to become
familiar and we kind of get the
hang of it, difficult thoughts and
feelings still arise, but we're
no longer so identified with them.
So because we're less caught up and
reactive to them because we've learned
to be the observer of our thoughts, to
allow them to rise and pass away without
always disturbing our inner state, we
feel a lot more calm and grounded within.
Of course, we still get caught out
sometimes, but a lot of the time we don't.
And so we're more able to
respond to life with awareness
instead of reacting out of habit.
And stage four, unconscious competence.
At some point along the way, after a
long time of consistently practicing
mindfulness, it just kind of
becomes second nature to be present,
non-reactive and non-judgemental.
To some degree, the practice becomes
effortless or without too much effort, in
the same way that driving a car becomes
effortless after a lot of practice.
You just don't really have
to think about it anymore.
So like anything in life, you can have
faith that the more effort you put
in, the more benefits you'll gain.
And although some stages on the path
will feel a little bit difficult, you
can be confident that with continued
practice, you'll be a more calm,
compassionate, and happy person.
So as always, thank you for your
practice and your presence here with us.
And let's now settle in
for today's meditation.
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