Mindfulness Meditation 20 min

A common idea is that everything we experience is comprised of the 5 senses, thoughts, and emotions. Nothing we experience contains anything else.
I used to think this way for a long time, until I read Joseph Goldstein’s book, “Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening.” In the book, Goldstein mentions another element of experience, the idea of volition. He does not describe volition in detail, so here is my personal definition from my experience. Volition is the idea that when I move my arm (or body), I know that I am the one moving it. It is different than a thought or emotion, I am simply aware that I move my body. Another common meditation example is if I decide to think a thought, or if I sit in silence and a thought just appears in my mind. The idea that we can observe thoughts just appearing, or we can feel we are consciously trying to think certain thoughts, I think is another example of volition. I consider volition the idea that I am approving something, disapproving it, or not putting my will into it at all by letting it happen. We can feel volition towards each of our 5 senses, and we can also feel volition and decide whether we approve, disapprove, or let the thoughts and emotions in our mind appear and disappear on their own. My meditation is different in some ways to the typical mindfulness meditation. It is based on my own ideas, which I am testing out. My experience with other meditations is being told to focus on an object of experience and notice it nonjudgmentally, always, at every time. Instead, my meditation uses each of the 5 senses (and thoughts and emotions) as an object of experience and involves deciding whether to use my volition (or will) to approve, disapprove, or let things continue without my (volition) will in them at all. These are based on my personal meditation ideas, which may be correct or incorrect. Joseph Goldstein’s book served as some initial inspiration, and there are some things I like in the book, but I also find the book wordy and has much advice in it that I did not find helpful. My meditation practice is based on a lot of my own ideas, and I am not using my meditation as a means to give anyone medical advice.