Ritual

Resistance To This Mindfulness Practice

At the same time, the ego part of your mind will likely be doing things to push you away from further investigation. Becoming the observer of these resistance dynamics such as procrastination challenges the status quo of the ego and unconscious belief system.  This may cause uncomfortable feelings. This will lead to the next layer of practice for an observer. You will need to observe these uncomfortable feelings and refrain from acting on them. You might notice that these feelings send the signal to your mind that you should get busy doing something so you feel better. The result of acting on these feelings will likely be that you become so busy that you don’t have time to practice being the observer as intently as you were doing. You might notice that this is a kind of defense by the belief system to stop the changes in new behavior you are making.  What I am saying here is that your ego mind and unconscious beliefs will put up various kinds of resistance and roadblocks to your practice of becoming the observer. And of course each person’s experience will vary. Some people might find it easy, but I have found those people to be rare. Sometimes it happens that a person is in a place in their life that such a self awareness happens quickly and easily. For most people becoming a self aware observer is to be worked at.

As a practical exercise, begin sitting still and noticing all the sensations you feel with each inhale and exhale of your breath. Then begin to observe all the things that come to pull your attention away from observing the sensation of breathing. This will give you a good start for developing the skills of a conscious observer.

We might have a question – How does one go about freeing oneself from accumulated knowledge so that one can observe?

If you had no accumulated knowledge, you would not be able to get home or recognise anyone. You need to have accumulated knowledge to function in your job or speak a language. But see how knowledge destroys relationship – knowledge being the image you have built about the other through years or a day. That image is preventing right relationship. So you need knowledge to function, but be aware of the danger of knowledge accumulating and building an image in relationship. To be aware of this, where knowledge is essential and its danger, is to have a very good, intelligent mind. One has to be extraordinarily alert.