Trying Something Different

Here is a collection of strategies that can be useful in practicing the Second Difficulty: Trying Something Different. All of them are helpful in breaking the pattern of habitual behavior at the moment when I notice myself entering it. The practices are listed more or less in order, from the simplest to the most complex.

“Where Are My Feet?”

I learned this practice from Acharya Dale Asrael, the Director of Meditation Instruction for Naropa University.

  1. Just ask myself (or someone else could ask me): “Where are my feet?”
  2. Notice where my attention goes. Feel the sensations in my feet rather than just thinking about my feet.
  3. Consider that my feet are connected to the earth, which is vast and solid beyond imagination. I am grounded.
  4. Consider that my feet are also connected to my body, which is so much more than just my mind. I am not my thoughts.
  5. From this place of connection, return my attention to whatever is happening outside of my body.

Three-Fold Attention

I learned this practice from Being Zen, a book about meditation by Ezra Bayda.

  1. Place my attention on the sensation of breathing in the body.
  2. While maintaining attention on breathing, also place my attention on the sensation in the palms of my hands.
  3. While maintaining attention on breathing and the palms of my hands, also place my attention on the sounds in my environment.
  4. From this place of connection, return my attention to whatever is happening outside of my body.

Inviting All of My Thoughts at Once

I learned this practice from my beloved partner Gabrielle. She learned it from one of her teachers in the context of Spiritual Emotional Healing.

  1. Notice that my mind is super busy and lots of thoughts are arising.
  2. Without paying great attention to any specific thought, invite them all to come up at once.
  3. Add some more thoughts, even ones I wasn’t already thinking.
  4. See what happens to my mind and notice my resulting mental state.

LESR (Locate-Embrace-Stop-Remain)

This practice comes from Welcoming the Unwelcome by Pema Chödrön. She attributes it to Richard Reoch. Pema says, “whenever you feel yourself getting worked up or having any unpleasant, uncomfortable, or stuck feelings, follow these four steps.”

  1. Locate the sensation of discomfort, contraction or grasping in your body and make contact with it.
  2. Embrace that feeling or sensation by sending unconditional love to that part or breathing peace into it.
  3. Stop the storyline. This is more about interrupting the train of thoughts or just noticing them than trying to stop thinking. Get beneath the details of the story and connect with the feeling of being hooked.
  4. Remain present with the feeling. Just let it be what it is until it shifts on its own, or until it becomes conceptual or too much effort. Then let this attention dissolve.

The Four R’s

This is essentially Laying Down Evil Deeds, the second of the “four practices which are the best of methods” described in Slogan 22. This specific practice comes from Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living by Pema Chödrön. It consists of four steps that I can enter when I find myself “hooked” into habitual thoughts, speech or action:

  1. Recognizing what I have done: This is essentially a restatement of the first difficulty – I can only work with the things I see.
  2. Refraining from continuing to do it: This is sort of a bridge between the first and second difficulties; once I notice myself acting habitually, I can immediately stop.
  3. Reconnecting with my inner wisdom and practice: This is the second difficulty – trying something new through meditation, awareness or another practice.
  4. Resolving not to do this again: Making it a way of life through the aspiration to continue doing something other than my habitual pattern.