--- ai_generation_date: '2026-08-05' ai_model: gemini-3-pro-preview audiodharma: talks: - date: '2022-02-14' mp3_url: https://audiodharma.us-east-1.linodeobjects.com/talks/15071/20220214-Marjolein_Janssen-IMC-four_supports_for_the_mindfulness_practice.mp3 speakers: - speaker_name: Marjolein Janssen speaker_url: https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/393 talk_start_time_seconds: 0 title: Four Supports for Mindfulness Practice url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/15071 video_unavailable: false location_city: Redwood City, CA video_unavailable: false youtube: id: 5x-0sCYdY2s imprecise_upload_date: '2022-05-04' title: Four Supports for Mindfulness Practice upload_date: null uploader_str: Insight Meditation Center uploader_url: https://www.youtube.com/@InsightMeditationCenter youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x-0sCYdY2s --- # Four Supports for Mindfulness Practice - [Marjolein Janssen](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/393) _This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers._ ## [Four Supports for Mindfulness Practice](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/15071) ## Introduction My name is Marjolein Janssen. I am from the Netherlands and I live in the US, so that's where the accent and the weird name come from. I'm very happy to be here with some of you here in person and some online through YouTube. For those who celebrate, Happy Valentine's Day. I want to thank the volunteers who make it possible for us to be here in person at IMC, and to make the recording and the YouTube stream possible. Big bow for the volunteers. Thank you. Today, I'd like to talk about four helpful, supportive ways that we can use in our practice, both on and off the cushion. I came up with these supports a while ago when I was doing a retreat, and they were very helpful reminders for me to stay balanced and on course on the path towards a more easeful, wholesome, and free life. I still use them regularly in my practice, so I thought I'd share them in the hope that they are also of use to you. I will briefly mention them first before diving deeper into each. The first might be familiar, which is mindfulness. Mindfulness is, of course, the ability to be aware of what is happening while it is happening. The second support I'd like to talk about is relaxation. If we can relax a little bit in our often stressful lives, this can be very helpful, and I will give some tips and tools on how to do that. The third support is kindness. I'd like to specifically focus on kindness towards ourselves because I think that's something that, in our society, is often difficult while it is vital for our well-being. The fourth support will be returning to the present moment. We all recognize when we are in meditation, we just go off, lost in thoughts of past or future. Just a simple reminder to be in the present moment can be very helpful. So: mindfulness, relaxation, kindness, and returning to the present moment. ## Mindfulness First, mindfulness. The Buddha says mindfulness is always useful. We can never go wrong by being mindful. It's a very special quality of mind if you think about it, because it really helps us to be aware of things. We see what is happening while it is happening; there's not really another aspect of our mind that can do that. Most people live their lives without really knowing, without really being present for what is here right now or what is happening in our body. We live mostly out of old patterns, conditionings, and tendencies that we cultivated throughout our life, in our childhood and later on, without really knowing that we're doing that. A simple example in my own life is that I used to be super aversive towards cleaning. If I had to clean my house, I was like, "Oh, I have to go clean again, and it's really needed again, and I really don't want to do it." Days and days would build up like, "Oh, I really need to clean, and I really don't want to." Then when I was actually cleaning, I was still aversive towards it. I thought, "I really want to do something else; I really don't like this." Through mindfulness practice, I started recognizing that pattern of aversion towards cleaning. I became aware, "Maybe this is actually not so useful. Maybe this is actually painful to be aversive the whole time." I had to see it maybe a hundred times before it started to shift a little bit towards letting it go, being more present, and finding it a bit more neutral to clean. Sometimes I now even like it; sometimes it's just a pleasant way of being mindful of the body, so it can actually change. Mindfulness can really help us to see all these old patterns and conditionings that we tend to live from and might find very unhelpful—unwholesome patterns and tendencies that are based on greed, aversion, or delusion. Delusion is sometimes also called confusion. It's very useful to keep an eye out: Is there any greed or wanting in the mind? Is there any aversion? Is there any confusion present? But we can also find very helpful and wholesome states of mind when we start being mindful—patterns that are based on generosity, compassion, and wisdom. If we find those kinds of patterns, that is very useful to see. If we acknowledge them, they strengthen and become more. This mindfulness, _sati_[^1] in Pali, can really help us gain insight into our own minds and insight into what is governing our lives. A tiny, simple example is when we just start meditating, we find out, "Oh, the mind thinks a lot. I didn't know how much the mind is thinking." Seeing these patterns is, of course, not always pleasant. Sylvia Boorstein[^2], a meditation teacher, says, "Mindfulness meditation doesn't change life. Life remains as fragile and unpredictable as ever. Mindfulness meditation changes the heart's capacity to accept life as it is." Mindfulness can help us grow this heart's capacity to be with both the pleasant and the unpleasant, to really have the capacity to be with what is. Mindfulness itself is a non-judgmental presence for life. For mindfulness, it doesn't really matter what happens; it doesn't have a judgment or need anything to be different than it is. It's just seeing life as it is in this present moment. In a way, we can learn to be less reactive and not necessarily want things to change, push them away, or pull them towards us, but just to open to whatever it is, however difficult it might be. I do have to say it's a training; it's not something we can do in an instant. Sometimes we need time in this process, so it can be useful to practice with easy things first. We shouldn't start with the biggest thing in our life. Start with something small, like if someone cuts you off on the highway and you feel anger coming up, start with that anger. Or when you have an itch during your meditation and you don't want to move, feel the irritation of the itch. Slowly we will build some resilience, and bit by bit, we will have more and more capacity to be with difficult things. Patience is really important in this process; see it as a gradual learning process. I do want to say that we sometimes need to back off. Sometimes what we experience is just overwhelming, and then it can be really skillful to turn the attention away. That's an important side note. But when it's not overwhelming, and we do open to difficulty, to help us get motivated we could ask ourselves: Do we want to live in ignorance, or do we want to know what's happening, even if it's not so pleasant? Because only when we know what is happening can we change it and work towards a more wholesome way of living with a bit less reactivity. When we know, we can start to learn from it and gain wisdom. We can practice this knowing in formal meditation and in our daily lives. Especially in daily life, we can see those patterns and conditionings that govern our activities. We can see simple things like craving for coffee in the morning, or realizing that saying hello to our neighbor actually comes from a kind heart, or watching the change of mood during the day from energized, to down, to at ease, to stressed. When we start to know more and more about our own minds and hearts, we develop more wisdom and skillfulness. One of my teachers said Atisha[^3] talks about how wisdom is a separate part of the mind, just like anger and love are little entities in themselves. They can grow or weaken. When we start to see things with mindfulness, the wisdom part of our minds can start to learn from that. We start to see what leads to happiness, freedom, and peace, and what leads to suffering. That's a very important thing to start seeing. Like what I realized with the cleaning: my response of being super aversive was actually not leading to happiness but contributing to more suffering in my life. We start to see the painful habits and let go of them, because wisdom is the part of the mind that can let go. It's not _us_ that lets go; wisdom lets go. We don't necessarily meditate to get rid of a problem. A more helpful way to see it is that we meditate to start to understand, to learn, and to gain wisdom. In this way, your whole life becomes your path because it becomes this fertile ground for wisdom. ## Relaxation The second support I'd like to talk about is relaxation. Maybe you recognize that sometimes you sit down for meditation, you do your thing, but you don't really start anywhere. You just sit there. What often is very helpful is having a little bit of a beginning, and one of the things we can do to start is to relax. Deliberately relaxing will condition the next moment. Every moment conditions the next moment, so if we deliberately relax, that helps us in our meditation. We can also relax during daily life. We don't have to wait until we sit down for meditation. Anytime you think about it, you can relax—when you drive to work, when you're in the bathroom, or when you're eating. How do we do that? The first easy thing to do is to relax the body, because the body and mind are connected. If you consciously relax your body, it will affect your mind as well. One way to relax the body is to do a body scan, touching each part of the body with your attention. Often, just a little bit of attention for the body relaxes it. Sometimes a direct invitation helps: you can say, "May the body relax." If we have tensions in certain parts, we can invite those parts to relax, like the shoulders, the forehead, or the little muscles around the eyes. Sometimes just breathing in and out a bit deeper a few times can really relax us as well. We can also work with the mind to relax. The simplest way is, again, an invitation. You can say, "May the mind relax," and see if that does anything. Sometimes it will, sometimes it won't, because relaxation is actually an absence of unwholesome mind states. Unwholesome roots like greed, wanting, aversion, and delusion cause all sorts of unwholesome mind states to arise—attachment, frustration, despair, sadness, fear, or anger. If we experience any of those, relaxation becomes a bit harder. When these mind states subside, relaxation will automatically follow. Relaxation is about the absence of desire, aversion, or confusion. Anytime you find yourself not relaxed, you could ask, "Is there maybe desire, aversion, or confusion present right now? Is there anything I want to be different right now?" Because if we're in contention with reality, it's really hard to relax. When I was feeling tense about the cleaning, I couldn't relax. I was aversive; you feel your whole body contracting. When that lets go, there can be relaxation and an ease in the cleaning. It's a process. It's not that once we recognize we are aversive or stressed, it lets go immediately. Sometimes it does, but sometimes we need to see those patterns over and over again. Just recognizing it is the first step. This ties back into mindfulness. Mindfulness is the basis for relaxation. With mindfulness, we can start to recognize, "I am not relaxed right now, and indeed there is aversion or wanting," or "I'm actually really relaxed, and the mind is pretty wholesome right now." You start to see that those things are connected. ## Kindness The third support is kindness. I'd like to talk about kindness towards ourselves, even though kindness towards others is very useful and wholesome, of course. But I think for a lot of people here in the West, kindness for ourselves is a bit underdeveloped. Many of us are somewhat unkind towards ourselves; we experience self-judgment, self-hatred, or self-loathing. These can be pretty strong patterns of the mind. The Buddha says, "Hatred never ends with hatred; by love alone it ends. This is an ancient truth." Sometimes we try to overcome these patterns of self-judgment or self-hatred with hatred, thinking, "I don't want this pattern; it needs to go away." But it doesn't really work because we're trying to end hatred with hatred. (Aversion is a milder form of hatred.) We can actually overcome these patterns through kindness towards ourselves. Developing this kindness is often a fast track to more ease and peace in our lives. I admit it's not easy. It can be quite a challenge, especially because patterns of self-judgment can be very strong. But we all have to start somewhere. Even if it's not easy, it's worth it to incrementally try to practice this. Trying to cultivate kindness will be beneficial for almost anyone. Imagine how being kind to yourself influences every aspect of your life. There are several ways to practice kindness towards ourselves. The first is a simple intention: the intention to cultivate kindness. Intention shapes our mind and shapes the next moment. It's a very powerful tool. The mind will start to direct us in that direction, even if we might be miles away from kindness right now. It's like advancing one of those big tanker ships and trying to change course. You might not notice it much in the beginning, but every tiny pull on the wheel is going to have an effect in the long run. The second way to develop kindness is through _mettā_[^4] meditation. _Mettā_ is one of the _Brahma Viharas_[^5], the heavenly abodes, often translated as loving-kindness. It's a Buddhist meditation form that uses phrases to generate this heart quality of loving-kindness. We silently express phrases in the mind as a wish for ourselves, such as, "May I be happy," "May I live with ease," or "May I be healthy." You can start your meditation with kindness. You can also try this in your daily life. I use it a lot when I feel a bit down. I realize I can do a little bit of _mettā_ for myself, and it sometimes lightens the heart up right away. The third way to cultivate kindness is to pay attention to when we are kind to ourselves and when we are not. This requires mindfulness of the body and the mind state. We can learn and grow from those moments when we are not kind to ourselves. As we see those moments over and over, the mind starts to realize that experiencing unkindness towards ourselves is painful and unpleasant. Recognizing that it is painful is wisdom at work. As wisdom grows, it might slowly let go of these patterns. Wisdom works in the background. Like that big tanker ship, only when we are way down the path do we see that our course actually changed. It can be a slow process—weeks, months, or years. Sharon Salzberg[^6], a _Vipassanā_[^7] and _mettā_ teacher, describes in her book on loving-kindness a time she was on a long retreat doing only _mettā_ for herself. After some weeks, she got a message that something was wrong at home and she needed to leave early. She felt she had sat all these weeks for nothing because she didn't feel any _mettā_. While packing her stuff, she dropped a bottle, and it shattered all over the floor. Her thought was, "It's okay, dear." She realized _mettā_ had just come up for herself. Before the retreat, she would never have thought anything like that. Even though she didn't notice anything during the practice, it had worked in the background. Of course, we can be aware of the moments we're unkind towards ourselves, but it's also very important to see the moments we _are_ kind and really take those moments in. Savor the moments. Savoring any wholesome state reinforces that state of mind so it can grow. This is not an ego trip at all. It's actually the building of a healthy self. We kind of need a healthy sense of self before we can let go of ourselves. In Buddhism, we talk about the not-self aspect of life, and kindness towards ourselves actually contributes to a wholesome and free life. ## Returning to the Present Moment The last support for our practice today is returning to the present moment. I'll quote the Buddha again: "Don't chase the past or long for the future. The past is left behind; the future is not yet reached. Right where it is, have insight into whatever experience appears." How much of our lives do we spend not in the present moment? How much of our lives are we off daydreaming about the future, worrying, planning, or ruminating about the past—thinking about a fun vacation we had years ago or a difficult conversation we had yesterday? Of course, we do need to think about the future and make plans, otherwise, we wouldn't all be here or watching this Dharma talk. But a big chunk of the time we spend lost in the future or past is just this habit pattern of thinking that doesn't really contribute much to our lives. Being in the present moment and really experiencing what's happening right now in the body and mind can be very skillful, grounding, and stabilizing. If you think about it, do you ever get anything else than this present moment? Not really. We only ever get this moment, and this one, and this one. Our lives are just this flow of everlasting present moments. Even if we plan for the future, worry, or have wanting or aversion, the only thing we have is those worries or thoughts in the present moment. Even if you think, "I want a pizza right now," it's always wanting to get something in the future. Once you get it, it's not wanting anymore. We can't really escape this present moment. Returning to the present moment is a simple recognition: "Oh, I was lost in thoughts about the future or the past." It involves mindfulness. Often, when we recognize that, we are already back in the present moment. We can also more actively tune back in. We can check, "What is the body like now? There's some tension here, or some softness there." We can tune actively into what's happening in the mind. It doesn't have to be a big, elaborate investigation; it can just be a tiny moment in our daily lives. (You could try it even right now while I'm talking: tune into the body, tune into the mind, recognizing, "It's like this right now.") ## Conclusion Throughout all these supports, mindfulness is actually the basis for the other three. We need mindfulness to recognize: Is there any stress present? Is there an unwholesome mind state, or do I need to relax? Mindfulness can recognize if we are kind towards ourselves or if there's harshness or judgment. Mindfulness helps us learn from these patterns and maybe eventually let go and cultivate kindness. And mindfulness recognizes if we're off into the future or past, helping us remember to return to the present moment. If you have bandwidth for only one of those four supports, pick mindfulness, because then you cover all of them. But you can also pick and choose which one resonates most with you right now. What I do is write them down in a digital notebook. Every time I open it, they're clearly there, reminding me multiple times a day: "Oh yeah, I was supposed to be mindful," or I take a conscious moment to invite the body and mind to relax. Or I see the kindness reminder and think, "Oh yeah, let's cultivate a little bit of kindness." Sometimes when I'm really stressed out with my to-do list, I remember, "Oh yeah, I can be kind towards myself." Or I consciously return to the present moment, realizing I only have to take care of _this_ moment, not four weeks from now. Of course, there are many other supports we can use for our lives and our meditation practice. These are just four that I came up with that were very helpful for me. Other supports might be the other _Brahma Viharas_ (compassion, joy, equanimity), or things like acceptance, patience, or reflecting on impermanence. We all have different conditionings, habit patterns, and tendencies, and we all need different types of supports at different times. We don't have to be attached to the four I talked about today. The invitation is to discover for yourself what is supportive for you in your practice and your life, which might change over time. I'd like to end with a poem by the poet and teacher Kaveri Patel. The poem is called _Dear You_: _Dear you,_ _You who always have so many things to do,_ _So many places to be,_ _Your mind spinning like fan blades at high speed,_ _Each moment always a blur because you're never still._ _I know you're tired._ _I also know it's not your fault._ _The constant brain buzz is like a swarm of bees threatening to sting if you close your eyes._ _You've forgotten something again._ _You need to prepare for that, or else you should have done that differently._ _What if you closed your eyes?_ _Would the world fall apart without you?_ _Or would your mind become the open sky,_ _Flock of thoughts flying across the sunrise,_ _As you just watched and smiled._ Thank you for your kind attention. --- [^1]: **Sati:** The Pali word for mindfulness, present moment awareness, or active attention. [^2]: **Sylvia Boorstein:** An American author, psychotherapist, and leading meditation teacher in the Vipassanā tradition. [^3]: **Atisha:** (982–1054 CE) A Buddhist Bengali religious leader and master who was a major figure in the spread of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism in Asia. [^4]: **Mettā:** A Pali word meaning loving-kindness, friendliness, or goodwill. [^5]: **Brahma Viharas:** The "four immeasurables" or "heavenly abodes" in Buddhist practice, consisting of loving-kindness (_mettā_), compassion (_karuṇā_), empathetic joy (_muditā_), and equanimity (_upekkhā_). (_Original transcript read "the other brand of harass," corrected based on context._) [^6]: **Sharon Salzberg:** A central figure in the field of meditation, a world-renowned teacher, and a co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society. [^7]: **Vipassanā:** A Pali word often translated as "insight" or "clear-seeing," referring to insight into the true nature of reality.