HOMEGROWN BUDDHA
Chapter
One: Addiction: our basic existential predicament
Chapter Two: Meditation background
Chapter Three: Field study: a personal experiment in meditation
Chapter Four: Barebones meditation instructions
Chapter
Five: Changing perspectives
Chapter
Six: What do you believe?
Chapter
Seven: The self-perspective
Chapter Eight: The habitual mind
Chapter
Nine: Our stories; our lives
Chapter
Ten: Anatomy of Now
Chapter Eleven :
Barriers to meditation
Chapter Twelve:
The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous
glazed with rain water
beside the white chickens”
The common wisdom
in 12 step programs is that addiction is not ended with the giving up of the
object of addiction. Instead, it lays dormant, waiting to strike the
unprepared, the unvigilant. Worse, it is like the carnival game of Sock-a-mole.
You beat down one object only to be confronted by another and another. After
the struggle with alcohol and drugs comes the struggle with sex; after the
struggle with sex comes the struggle with material success and status; after
the struggle with material success and status comes the struggle with getting
old and it goes on and on until we die.
We all suffer.
Suffering is the defining feature of humanness. The world we live in is
unpredictable and chaotic. Nothing lasts. What we hold dear, like our lives and
our health, are purely transient. Much of our energy goes to trying to find
ways to achieve security in this insecure world. The way we accomplish this
security is fleeting and feeble since it cannot hold against the onslaught of
perpetual change. Our solution to the insecure world is the development of
absolutist habits and patterns. These absolutist habits and patterns are our
addictions. They begin with fundamental beliefs that support our attempts at
fending off chaos. These beliefs argue that if only we can hold on to these
beloved objects everything will be all right. We try our hardest to cling to
these fundamentalist positions, but eventually the tremendous forces contained
within change take away one beloved object after another. Addiction is not only
a malady in need of a remedy, but it is also our basic existential predicament.
Addiction can be
looked at either as a disease, a disorder or a moral failing. In all three of
these perspectives, addiction is not an average condition. In contrast, it is
also possible to see addiction on a continuum of experiences ranging from
complete freedom to complete enslavement. Using this measuring stick approach,
we can describe gradations of addiction. A little addiction can be when a
father believes that his son must get A’s or he will not be happy or
successful. He is addicted to his son’s successful academic performance. A
functional addiction might be an executive who gets depressed if he can’t play
golf on a weekend. All consuming addiction is the heroin addict who “boosts”
merchandise from Home Depot to supply his habit.
The biggest
barrier to seeing addiction as average is that some of the objects of
attachment are culturally perceived as positive, like getting A’s, and others,
like heroin, are culturally perceived as negative. The measuring stick approach
looks at the idea of addiction without getting stuck on the culturally
determined positives or negatives of particular objects. The measuring stick provides for degrees on
a continuum based on a novel premise. It is not what you are clinging to, but
the nature of clinging that characterizes addiction. To be addicted is to cling. Addiction is not a very highly
specific term like dependence, which is closely defined. We say a person is
addicted to chocolate or running. We could also say a person is addicted to
having his or her own way. In this continuum view of addiction, addicts are no
longer just the unlucky few with bad genes. There is no threshold of pathology
that says you are either an addict or you are not! Addiction is the everyday
world of average people. In this everyday world of average people, addiction
can be looked at as clinging to objects in order to feel secure.
Clinging is the
root of suffering. To understand how clinging leads to suffering requires an
examination of the ideas of pain and pleasure. We cling to an object either
because it feels good or because it would hurt us to stop. The degree of
intensity of our clinging may vary along the same kind of continuum as
addiction itself. Missing a soap opera to which you have a mild attachment may
be a disappointment while the loss of a spouse may be cataclysmic. Whether
mundane or precious, the insecure world is subject to impermanence. Clinging to your job leads to suffering
because someday you will have to leave your job. The parent who experiences
severe discomfort when her kids leave for college knows the price of clinging.
Sometimes these beloved objects are the things we want, but cannot have. Other
times they are unpleasant states that we wish to escape. In either case, we
cling to our absolutist positions and we suffer. It was the Buddha’s work to
alleviate suffering and teach us how to let go. The Buddha was a spiritual
trainer, teaching his followers how to over come self-will. Self-will equals
doing what you like, not doing what you don’t like and ignoring everything
else. The techniques of mindfulness meditation taught by the Buddha and many
other spiritual trainers from almost every religious tradition, provide the
path to letting go and acceptance. The path to happiness is to choose to not
want what you can’t have. Once the source of suffering is seen, then it can be
alleviated. This is the message of the Four Noble Truths, expounded by the
Buddha.
The Four Noble Truths are based on
a medical model. The model begins with signs and symptoms, and then proceeds to
mechanisms and causes, then to prognosis and finally the remedy. The Noble
Truth of Suffering identifies the signs and symptoms of the malady. The signs
of the malady are pain, sickness, old age and death and the symptoms are
stress, suffering and unhappiness.
The cause of suffering is captured
in The Nobel Truth of the Cause of Suffering. The cause of suffering, the
mechanism by which suffering is created, is based on an unrealistic vision of
the way the world works. Suffering results from wanting life to be other than
it is. We want what we cannot have. What has a beginning must have an end. Most
of all we want to be forever, solid and free from the changing conditions from
whence we spring. Nothing stays and everything passes away; to be born is to be
impermanent. This is the cause of suffering. The prognosis for the
alleviation of suffering is good. Since this disease has a cause and the cause
is known, it is possible to affect a cure. The Third Noble Truth recognizes
that to treat the malady, it will be necessary to find relief from
craving, hatred and bondage to ego.
The remedy to alleviate suffering,
The Fourth Noble Truth, the balm for suffering, is the Eightfold path which is
designed to free us from craving, hatred and the desire to be unique. The
remedy results in serenity by teaching the means of letting go of what we
crave, learning to live with what we hate and recognizing that we are not solid
but the changing itself, the alienating separation that we mistakenly believed
was the sickness of life gives way to freedom. If you want to carve a Buddha
from a block of wood, you remove all the unnecessary material from the wood and
what is left is the statue of Buddha. The same is true for me. Remove the
unnecessary parts and what remains is Buddha. The Buddha was waiting in the
block of wood and the Buddha is waiting in me.
Buddha did not invent
the way to end suffering; he discovered it, as have many others both before and
after him. The Eight-fold Path: (1) Right Vision, (2) Right Heart, (3) Right Speech, (4) Right Action, (5)
Right Livelihood, (6) Right Effort, (7) Right Mindfulness, (8) Right Meditation
is an integral web, dancing together as one. My hypothesis is that meditation
and mindfulness training is a gate to the Eight-fold path. The Buddha said
shortly before his death when asked by a seeker how to tell the authentic from
the false:
“Do not
accept any of my words on faith,
Believing them just because I said them.
Be like an analyst buying gold, who cuts, burns,
And critically examines his product for authenticity.
Only accept what passes the test
By proving useful and beneficial in your life.”
My test will be to see if
practicing mindfulness meditation, with sincere effort, will have a
transformative effect. Can the practice of meditation deliver a more serene
perspective? Can a regular habit of meditation translate into a reduction of
self-will? Can a more effective philosophy of life encourage positive emotions
like compassion? Will a practice of daily sitting meditation generalize into
everyday actions, speech and work? Is suffering subject to amelioration?
The practice of
meditation has roots in many religious and non-religious traditions but it is
most often associated with Eastern religions, in particular, Buddhism.
Buddhism, in its migrations, has adapted well to indigenous cultures and
traditional religions. Meditation can be looked at in at least four different
ways e.g. a psycho-behavioral health perspective, a traditional religious
perspective, a mystical perspective and a non-conceptual perspective. Whichever
perspective, meditation remains co-occurring deep relaxation and highly
concentrated focus that is the result of practice. The term practice is used in
association with meditation to denote a behavior acquired through the
repetition of skillful means and effort.
THE PSYCHO-BEHAVIORAL PERSPECTIVE
In the West, the basic
elements of meditation, concentration and mindfulness, have found a welcome
home in modern psychotherapy. It has been the use of meditation techniques such
as progressive relaxation, systematic desensitization and stress management by
behaviorists that has placed meditation in the spotlight in psychological
research. In concentrative meditation, the meditator forcefully keeps his
attention on one object, such as the breath, resulting in stimulus habituation
and suspension of the anticipatory stance that is customary to cognitive
processing. In contrast, mindfulness meditation concentrates on the natural
stream of consciousness, according to every object of mind a detached, curious
openness that is a result of not taking a position on the object either pro or
con. The object is just the object.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, one of the
very early proponents of the psycho-behavioral health perspective of
meditation, suggests that increased mindfulness resulting from
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Training (MBSR) leads to an attitude of not
taking thoughts to be facts, reducing the need to escape unpleasant thinking.
The idea of avoiding aversive emotional states by self-regulating attention
would be like looking at a scary monster as a passing object without making an
appraisal or interpretation that engenders a fearful reaction. The use of
(MBSR) with pre-medical and medical students suggests that overall measures of
stress were reduced, including depression and anxiety and there was an increase
in compassion towards patients. Jon Kabat-Zinn found a lessening of stress
levels using a variety of measures with chronic pain patients, patients with
anxiety disorders and other stress-related maladies such as fibromyalgia and
psoriasis. Another researcher found indications of improvement in the quality
of life on several instruments resulting from MBSR training with clients
suffering from a closed head injury.
In Mindfulness Based
Cognitive Therapy for Depression (MBCT), a treatment program that is based on
mindfulness meditation, researchers have developed an encouraging direction for
relapse prevention in formerly depressed clients. The mechanism by which
relapse into depression is avoided is self-regulation of attention rather than
the more traditional cognitive approach of restructuring or disputation of
unhealthy beliefs. It was determined that beliefs did not change from active
depression to periods of remission. Instead, researchers identified a worrying
cognitive process that deepens depression. Using MBCT, relapse into depression
could be avoided by breaking the cycle before it reaches the point of no
return. MBCT reduced the re-occurrence of depression by approximately half in a
study of depressive relapse. Mindfulness meditation training has been studied
in clients with a history of over-general memory, which appears to be a
component of depression. The present focusing effect of mindfulness training,
including mindfulness meditation, indicated a reduction in over-general memory
unrelated to current affect.
Researchers found that the
MBSR eight week course, including mindfulness meditation, led to a decrease in
the worrying processes associated with depression as well as anxious symptoms,
dysfunctional beliefs and need for approval. Kabat-Zinn suggests that MBSR can
strengthen mental self-regulation and thus contribute to symptom reduction in
Generalized Anxiety Disorder. On the other hand, some caution that the
particular focus of mindfulness meditation may contribute to ideas of control
as opposed to disconfirmation of catastrophic beliefs. The suggestion is, that
if mindfulness is posed as an experiment in not worrying as opposed to a
control technique, it will have better results.
Relapse in chemical dependency is often
associated with avoiding negative affect, a control technique, as opposed to
facing negative affect without using mood-altering chemicals, an acceptance
technique. Relapse prevention tactics that encourage thought suppression might
contribute to relapse because they are basically escapist in some of the same
ways as control techniques such as drug or alcohol use. Tactics that encourage
avoidance may confirm that dealing with negative affect can’t be survived
without using drugs or alcohol.
Mindfulness based relapse prevention
tactics however allow the addict to face the unsatisfactory emotions squarely
while not seeing the negative emotions as dangerous. Instead, the negative
emotion is approached as a mental event and then the meditator returns to the
breath. The inclusion of the concentrative anchor of the breath in meditation
produces relaxation making it an attractive method for stress reduction while
desensitizing the meditator to the idea that he or she cannot tolerate negative
affect without a drink or a drug. It was noted that the awareness created by
mindfulness meditation of cues that activate hidden programs that lead to
relapse might make it possible to circumvent those programs before they are
activated. Thus mindfulness meditation may replace automaticity with awareness
in some key areas responsible for relapse. Separating the relaxation aspects of
mindfulness meditation from the mindfulness aspects has been accomplished in a
study of prison inmates. In a head to head comparison of progressive relaxation
versus mindfulness meditation, mindfulness meditation significantly reduced
stress as measured by objective testing.
THE RELIGOUS PERSPECTIVE
When
considered as a part of a religious perspective, such as in Zen, meditation
becomes subject to tradition and ritual. The exact posture, hand position, type
of accoutrements, chants, and techniques are passed down over the centuries
from master to student. Teachers are designated in an exacting procedure
prescribed by tradition. This ensures the teacher is properly vetted by his predecessor
and is an accurate and reputable representative of the tradition. In Zen, there
are many stories of how a master passes the bowl and robe, symbols of the
transmission, to his student. The result is a lineage that dates back to the
first master-student transfer when the Buddha transmitted his seal of approval
to Mahakashyapa’s understanding of the way. Mahakashyapa then transmitted his
bowl and robe to Ananda and on through the centuries from teacher to student
until a contemporary teacher can account for his or her place in the lineage of
teachers. In the religious perspective, there is a right and a wrong way to
meditate based on tradition. There is a right object or focus of meditation.
There is a right way to sit. There is a right way to hold your hands. A Zen
teacher may encourage a student to sit cross-legged, to face the wall, to place
his or her hands in the shape of a triangle beneath their abdomen and to follow
the breath. Meditation may be done differently depending on the phases of the
moon or holidays and even types of clothing may be prescribed. Meditation
becomes part of the ritual of worship in the same way that Communion is part of
Christian service.
THE MYSTICAL PERSPECTIVE
In
the mystical perspective, meditation is a means to an end. It has been said
that prayer is talking to God and that meditation is listening for the answer.
The meditator might be described as communing with God or even being absorbed
in God. In the mystical perspective, the meditator is becoming a perfect vessel.
Since any residue left over in the glass would taint the new spiritual wine, a
perfect vessel must be empty. To accomplish this, the meditator uses silence
because if the body of the meditator was restless and the mind a cacophony of
thought, the still- small voice of God would be drowned out in the babble.
The use of the word God in the
mystical perspective is a useful prop pointing at the unborn, undying,
unconditioned, omnipresent and undivided. God, Jesus, Buddha, Krishna,
Mohammad, Nirvana--all are archetypes of ultimate reality. They are the images
that we give utterance to when we are trying to conceive the inconceivable.
They are representations that help in our struggle to know reality. God is
unconditioned, undying, omnipresent, and undivided. There is
nowhere that God is not. This would mean that every aspect of the material
world, every person, every object is in God. In this formulation, there is
no need for a non-material level of reality. If you had a set of boxes of
varying sizes, how would you decide on which box to affix the following labels:
God, heaven, earth, ocean, fish? One way you might precede would be to put the
God label on the biggest box. God would be the primary category. Heaven would
be a sub-category and so on like nesting Russian Santa’s. Everything is a sub-
category of the God category so heaven, earth, sea and fish are a categorical
hierarchy with God as the super-category. This is the unity of all things.
Maybe, a monotheist may say I am here and God is there while a monist might say
I am here and God is here.
"To see the World in a grain of sand,
And Heaven in a wildflower,
To hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour."
William Blake
Due to inherent limitations on our
part, it is very hard to see the wholeness that is God all around us. The
Buddha is said to have given this example. Suppose you are a blind person
trying to understand reality. You are examining an elephant. The elephant at
first appears to be like a snake because you have it by the tail. Another
fellow examiner believes that the elephant is a huge, rough wall and yet
another a hard, bony spike because their points of contact are the elephant’s
flank and tusk. None of the examiners understand the elephant. Instead they
have confused the parts for the whole. Now imagine that the elephant is
infinite in size but now you can see. You cannot get far enough back from the
elephant to appreciate its wholeness so you are condemned to see the elephant
as tail, flank and tusk. That does not change things; you have still confused
the parts for the whole. You could become so lost in the parts that you would
forget that you are dealing with a really big elephant.
It is our way to disassemble
reality so that it is easier to comprehend, but God is everywhere. To be
everywhere is to know all that can be known. To be everything is
to be the determining factor in all that is. God is implied in everything.
Reality in this formulation becomes holy. Each face is God's countenance.
The earth is God as the platform of being. Everything that is seen as mundane
is holy and worthy of reverence. Each human being is God in skin. Jesus
knew this and elevated love, the ultimate expression of reverence, to
the upper most place in his Sermon on the Mount. To love your fellow is to love
God. To protect the earth is to love God. To heal the sick is to love
God. To be a peacemaker is to love God. To make dinner for your friends is
to love God. In each and every action you take; love God. The reverse is
also true. To commit an act of cruelty, to miss an opportunity to
do service, to avert your eyes from suffering, to not resist war, to
be greedy at another's expense, is to despise God.
Quote:” God is in the
rain."
If
God were communicating with a person, why would his communications be limited
to human language? In a science fiction movie, after painstaking analysis, the
scientists discover that the aliens were not communicating in a linear manner
as was first thought. Instead, the aliens, whose intellect was vastly superior
to humans, communicated in many dimensions simultaneously. Humans, with their
cognitive limitations, would never be able to fully comprehend the alien
message. They could only hope to understand a small portion of it. In
mindfulness meditation the focus is on the whole stream of experience. If God
is a mystery beyond understanding, then might not the entire stream of
experience be a communication from God. The idea of understanding itself comes
into question. If God were beyond understanding, wouldn’t it be something like
the problem with the aliens. One would never be able to fully comprehend the
message, but maybe listening is good enough.
THE NON-CONCEPTUAL PERSPECTIVE
In
the non-conceptual perspective, the whole way of doing business that is based
on conceptualizing is avoided. Normally, I
impose (conceptualize) over raw experience, a low-resolution grid of concepts
(language matrix) to assist me in comprehending so I can describe and
manipulate (translate) my experience into an explanation for myself (a story).
I can either increase the resolution and therefore the complexity of the story,
resulting in an elaborate version of the experience or I can be more
parsimonious and simplify the story. The more complex, the more detail (that the
story has) the more accurate the representation but the less understandable and
harder to communicate the information. The story meanders with excessive
specificity. When the resolution is too low (too simple) the portrayal of the
raw experience is more understandable but less accurate, more distant from the
reality of the original raw experience. Meditation is an attempt to break free from
the conceptual mind and conventional reality. It is not the idea that precedes
the experience, but the experience itself that the meditator seeks. Meditation
is an experiment that does not proceed from a desire to confirm an ideal, but
instead is an operation designed to accept the mystery with an open mind. The
non-conceptual perspective involves direct, personal participation in an
experience without the interference of the slicing and dicing mind. It is the
felt-sense of the religious ceremony without the religion. It is the pure taste
of the banana without thought.
Imagine
you were going to have a conversation, but prior to beginning, you established
ground rules. Basically, you could not talk about anything that you did not
know first hand. You could only describe what you have directly experienced.
All second-hand data would be excluded for this experiment. The second ground
rule would be that you could not use terms that could not be defined explicitly
from your own direct experience. You could use the term dog because all
participants could probably agree, but the word God would be problematic as
would most abstract concepts. While everybody might like to talk about Nirvana
or Heaven or Jesus or Buddha, nobody would have had a direct experience that
corresponds. Meditation is an experience. You sit. You’re quite. You breathe.
It is what it is. You could tell a story about it. A simple story or an
elaborate story, but in the end it is a person, sitting quietly and
breathing.
It
might be useful to see the project of the meditator as a form of research with
the subject of the research being the meditator herself. The method of the
research would be experimentation. An experiment entails that an observer or
witness collect data without prejudice. The technique of data collection would
be the meditative experience as an experiment. The researcher, in the act of
meditating, would see thought without being caught in thought, resulting in
insights into the movements of mind. The data that results from each
experimental session would increase the researcher’s understanding of the self.
The ability to observe the self as an object of experience would be the result
of the meditative practice itself. Meditation would be the tool of inner
research just as blood work is the tool of outer research.
All
of the above perspectives, psycho-behavioral health, religious, mystical and
non-conceptual can reside side by side. Meditation can be a way for a Christian
to commune with God. It can be a solution to prevent relapse into drugs or
depression. It can be a part of the ceremony in a Zen Buddhist temple or it can
be a way to transcend the automaticity of the conventional mind. It is not
unreasonable for a non-theist to use meditation to explore his cognitive
processes or a fundamentalist Christian to use it to walk in the ways of
Christ. Scientists, Franciscan Monks, Buddhists, nature lovers and members of
Alcoholics Anonymous use meditation. The Eleventh Step of the Twelve Steps of
AA recommends meditation to improve your conscious contact with God.
The meditator (Buddha) is like a
living tree, roots in the stony soil of the earth and leaves in the infinite
expanses of eternity.
While there are
numerous types of meditation perspectives, it is possible to characterize all
meditative attentional modes as having essentially the same objective e.g. the
production of insight into the nature of consciousness. Concentration on an
object such as the breath or a repeated mantra resists habitual patterns of
thought by constantly coming back to the object of meditation when the mind
wanders. The result of this attentional resistance can produce insights into
cognitive processes that may have otherwise hidden in automaticity.
Meditation is not
about achieving a goal. It is process. In other activities, we do in order to
achieve an end. Mindfulness Meditation is designed to help a person to be where
they are and to make the most of any experience. Mindfulness Meditation allows
a person to just be with the experience. Your experiencing a
moment---patting your dog, then you begin to think about the
experience. From that point on you are experiencing yourself thinking
about the experience of patting the dog. Rather than directly experiencing
the dog, you become an interpreter of the experience. You move from process to
analysis, from being in the experience to moving outside the experience. There
are times when it would be a useful to set yourself outside of an experience
like the proverbial fly on the wall, but being unable to be with the experience
would be like going to the movies with a friend who kept up a continual
analysis of the movie while you were trying to let the movie take you into it’s
world. Instead of being, he would be
creating content. From his alienated position, he would ruin the movie
experience for you.
It is easy to
see that both concentrative and mindfulness meditation require focus on an
object. The idea that mindfulness practice is dependant on the skillful
application of concentration leads naturally to the combining of concentrative
meditation and mindfulness meditation in a single practice. When the
mindfulness meditator gets lost in thought, returning to the concentrative
technique of following the breath can have a centering affect. With both
strategies working in tandem, concentrative meditation can be seen as a form of
thought suppression while mindfulness meditation can be seen as the
non-judgmental acceptance of thought or the seeing of thought as a passing
object without interpretation. The combination of the two types, concentrative
and mindfulness techniques, switching, presents the potential for acceptance of
experience.
The idea of mindfulness can
be seen as both means and ends. Concentrating on the flow of thoughts, feelings
and sensations as they occur in a non-judgmental manner is the practice of
mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness is also a skill that results from this
effort or a quality of consciousness itself. It has been suggested that
mindfulness, as a meta-cognitive skill, is subject to enhancement by means
other than meditation. It has been asserted that mindfulness can be measured
with the Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS) and can be seen as both a
persistent trait of personality and as a state that can fluctuate in any given
context. The value of mindfulness may reside in the ability to concentrate on an object that is essentially a moving target,
a constantly changing stream of sensations, feelings and thoughts without the
anticipatory scaling that is typical of normal thought processes. The resulting
meta-cognitive skill, which can be measured as it develops, can lead to an
increase in perspective taking, flexibility and self-regulation. Using the
MAAS, scientists were able to correlate various measures of well being with
increased MAAS scores including inverse correlations with neuroticism, anxiety
and depression.
Since the
beginning of my mindfulness meditation practice, this writer has kept regular
notes on the experience of beginning to meditate. It is generally suggested
that as a meditation practice is started that the meditator get in the habit of
keeping a journal of his experiences. It has been the practice of this writer
to treat meditation as an experiment. The process of journaling in my case
seemed more like lab notes with records of lengths of sessions, reasons for
missed sessions, descriptions of states of mind, insights that resulted either
during or after the session and anything else I associated with the experiment
of meditation. My approach to meditation was to start at
the beginning, like a scientist, letting the data speak for itself. It was my
intention to avoid becoming attached to the results or preconceived notions
about outcomes. This, it would seem, is in keeping with the basic spirit of the
idea of mindfulness or awareness as a metacognitive skill. Each session was
treated as a unique experiment and direct experience was the teacher. As a
meditator, I became an observer of my own thinking, sensing, feeling system. These notes will serve as a useful starting point for researching
the experience of the beginning meditator.
The idea that a meditation
practice is a series of experiments seems to be in keeping with the teachings
of the Buddha. I have heard that the Buddha suggested that direct experience is
the best teacher. The Buddha
is reputed to have encouraged his students to test his and anybody else’s
teachings out through experimentation.
You try an approach and if it seems to work you incorporate it into your practice. It may be practical to have a teacher direct you around failed paths based on his experience, but someone has had to have an experience in the first place in order to see what will work and what will not. A problem might arise if the experience of a teacher, based on his or her direct experience is so specific to his or her experiential context that it fails to generalize to his students. In that case, the students are taught a failed path which they will eventually have to overcome. Each meditation session is an experiment. Each session is a different experiment because the subject of the experiment changes from day to day. Experimental is the basic theme of the experience. An experiment is at once playful and edgy and at the same time considered and focused. It is the plan to try various experiments just to see how they will turn out.
I started by creating
a place in my upstairs bedroom that would be set-aside specifically as a sacred
space. This space is a pleasant, well-ventilated area, with an altar on which I
have placed a variety of ambience creating items. There is a kindly looking
Buddha, candles and incense. The objects are not as important as the feelings
they create. I picked a place with minimal traffic. In the beginning, it was
important that I not be disturbed by household activity. I even took the phone
out of the room. The only member of the family I could not convince to stay out
of the bedroom during meditation was my dog Iggy. He eventually began to work
on his own meditation practice that looked a lot like taking a nap.
The next problem I
encountered was what would be the most sensible posture for me. I am an
arthritic, sixty year old who does not bend well. I tried a cross-legged
posture. I could do it if I propped myself against the wall. If I sat away from
the wall my back ached badly. I realized that if I looked forward to pain and
unpleasantness I would not last long. I tried sitting in a chair, but while I
felt natural, it seemed wrong in some way.
The kneeling position with a pillow between my legs was perfect. My back
could be straight without discomfort. I realized that my torso needed to be
erect in order to breathe comfortably and when I kneeled, breathing flowed
easily. This was not true for me in the cross-legged position no matter how I
tried to support myself with pillows. I won’t even go into the leg discomfort
that the cross-legged position entailed. Suffice it to say that it is either
for a younger yogi or a person with a high tolerance for pain.
Eventually, the kneeling
position caused a very mild tendonitis because of the weight of my body resting
on my ankles. I tried many work a rounds to solve this problem, but to no
avail. I finally stumbled upon a seat that solved the problem. This simple
wooden seat allowed me to sit in the kneeling position while it bore my weight
thus saving my ankles. My back could be straight on the seat, freeing my breath
to flow without too much effort. An equivalent possibility might be a kneeling
computer chair. I tried the computer chair as an alternative to the kneeling bench,
but while this might be even better for some people, especially if getting up
and down are difficult, I found I preferred the simple wooden kneeling bench
for comfort. The most persistent problem I faced and still face in the kneeling
position is the tendency to sink. Gravity results in sinking into the posture,
compressing and shortening so that breathing becomes more labored. When sitting
for periods of sixty minutes or more, I found myself folding. The only solution
I have come up with is to be very aware (mindful) of my sense of uprightness
and to pull myself up if, as a result of lapse in awareness, I sink.
Then
there is the question of eyes open or eyes closed. I have encountered reasons
for both meditating with eyes open and meditating with eyes closed. Initially,
I opted for eyes closed since it seemed easier to stay concentrated. If
concentration is a problem, then keeping eyes closed and gradually opening them
over many sessions, while keeping a soft focus, will allow concentration to
strengthen slowly before eyes are routinely kept open. Some warn that you may encounter visions of
an unpleasant or pleasant nature with eyes closed which may distract you. I
have so far adopted the strategy of keeping my eyes partially open when sleepy
and closed in most other instances. So far I have had only changes in light
quality, no visions. When meditating in a public setting, I tend to just barely
open my eyes into slits and focus on the floor several feet ahead of my
position.
It is harder not to fall
asleep with my eyes closed. This is rarely a problem for me unless I am very
tired. If I am so tired that I can't stay awake when I am meditating, I either
complete the session in a standing posture or just go to bed and call it a day.
Normally, I do not fall asleep when I am meditating. Most people have a natural
biorhythm that plays a big part in their energy levels and thus the times of
the day when they are likely to feel sleepy. I am least sleepy in the morning,
assuming I have had a normal nights sleep and more sleepy after lunch and
before bedtime. Obviously, the best time to meditate is in the morning for me.
This brings up an important issue. In the beginning of attempting to develop
the meditation habit feeling successful is going to be important. When you fall
asleep instead of meditating, you don’t feel like you have accomplished
anything. Engineering the optimum conditions for success is common sense at
this stage. Drink tea if that helps sharpen your mind for meditation. This may
not be good advice however if you are over stimulated by drinking tea and your
mind becomes as hard to hold as a two year old on cola.
Breath: The breath is the
fuel for the meditative experience.
Energy: With an ample fuel
supply, the energy will flow.
Focus: Focus is strenuous
and requires energy.
Intent: Staying focused
requires the will to over come barriers.
Vibration: Focus for
substantial periods allows the energy to fill you up.
Action: The life force
flows from the energy of stillness and silence.
Later, when your meditation
habit is well ingrained, then take on challenges like struggling to meditate
under less than optimum conditions. Examples of meditating in difficult
circumstance are sitting with pain, enduring very prolonged sessions,
meditating through illness or sadness. I have had some very interesting
sessions in all of these areas, but not in the beginning before my
concentration was well established. I discovered very early on that meditating
through an upper respiratory infection changed the whole way I saw the breath.
I have been able to successfully eliminate congestion by breathing around the
blockages for sustained periods. Once I had a bronchial spasm from mold while I
was raking leaves. As soon as I settled into meditation and slowed my breath
rate down, the spasm relented. Meditating for prolonged periods, as is the
custom on Zen retreats, can be very painful, but turning pain into an object of
meditation can change your whole perspective on pain. These are considerations
for a well-established practice. In the earliest stages, when concentration is
fragile, it is better to keep it simple and workable.
My
approach to meditation as I said was experimental. I tried mantras at first,
but did not feel as if they were my cup of tea. I settled on the oldest and
simplest technique, mindfulness training. I decided to approach the project in
partial actions. The first step would be to learn to pay attention to my body.
My experience suggests that meditation practice is progressive in the same way
that weight lifting is progressive. I am an old weight lifter. You don't walk
into the gym and bench press a cow. You start with a small dog and progress to
a cow.
When most
people think of meditation, they picture themselves in a calm, peaceful state,
but meditation is more than just being relaxed or peaceful. It includes deep
concentration. A person who uses depressant chemicals like opiates or
tranquilizers has a pretty good idea what it means to be relaxed but while she
is relaxed she is very unfocused, in a fog. Stimulant chemicals such as cocaine
or speed can produce a sense of being very focused, but you would be jittery as
a June bug. Meditation is the combination of deep peace and clear-minded focus.
The following is a basic meditation exercise in body awareness or body
mindfulness that is used by a lot of meditation approaches.
Begin by taking a
comfortable position laying on a mat or soft carpet. If it improves the comfort
use a pillow or bolster to support your head or neck as you see fit. The goal
is comfort with the middle areas of the body free to move so that breathing can
proceed naturally. The room should be either dimly lit or dark. First take a
deep breath through your nose and notice how your lungs fill with air. Take
another deep breath and allow yourself to feel the sensation of your lungs
expanding your chest, opening your chest up as it expands, to make room for the
incoming air. Now place your fingertips gently on your belly. Let your belly
become soft and loose. Now imagine that your belly is like a balloon or beach
ball. As you inhale air through your nose, feel the beach ball growing larger
as it fills with air. Notice how the air expands and inflates the beach ball.
When the beach ball is full of inhaled air, allow the air to move naturally
into the lungs. Take four or five breaths in this manner, filling the beach
ball, allowing the air to rise up naturally into the lungs and then let go of
the air as you exhale through your nose. Keep you attention on the opening up
of the belly and lungs as you inhale and the closing up of the beach ball and
lungs as you let go of the air through your nose.
Now let’s work
with concentration. Imagine that your focus or concentration is like a really good
flashlight. Where ever you point the beam of the flashlight, in that place you
can see very clearly, allowing you to make a close examination of the area in
the spot of light. Begin by pointing the flashlight at your eyes and the area
around your eyes and even the bridge of your nose. Just see what you find as
you examine these areas with the light. Maybe, there is heaviness or
scratchiness. Spend a time examining your eyes and the area around your eyes.
Then as you inhale through your nose, let your belly fill with air and let the
air rise up naturally into your lungs and then breath into and through your
eyes and the areas around your eyes before you exhale through your nose. Notice
your eyes and the area around your eyes opening up and expanding with your
breath. Repeat this breath cycle, inhaling and then exhaling two or three times
for each area that is explored. Next point the beam of your flashlight at your
forehead. Allow the beam to move from temple to temple, seeing what you find
along the way. Maybe you have a headache? Then, as you inhale through your
nose, let your belly fill with air and let the air rise up naturally into your
lungs and then breath into and through your forehead before you exhale through
your nose. Notice your forehead opening up and expanding with your breath.
Repeat this breath cycle two or three times. Next point the flashlight at the
very top of your head and then make slow concentric circles with the spot
starting from the center and moving outward. Just see what you discover as you
explore your scalp. Maybe you will feel nothing at all or maybe you can feel
your hair. Then, as you inhale through your nose, let your belly fill with air
and let the air flow up into your lungs and then breathe into and through the
top of your head before you let go the air through your nose. Notice the top of
your head opening up and expanding with your breath. As you exhale, let go of
the tension that you discovered in your exploration.
Continue the above
process moving down to your neck, then to your shoulders and back, first
exploring an area with your flashlight and then breathing into and through each
area two or three times and releasing the tense energy with the out breath. Pay
special attention to the area opening up and expanding with your breath. Eventually you will develop a pattern of
moving around your body. Sometimes you will have enough time to make a very
detailed exploration and other times your exploration will be more cursory. You
may explore in a predetermined pattern or follow the sensations that seem to
call out along your route. As a last cycle, allow the beam to spread out so
that it takes in your entire body and then explore what your entire body feels
like all at once. Then, as you inhale through your nose and your belly fills
with air let the air flow naturally up into your lungs and then breathe into
and through your entire body. Feel your entire body as it grows to fill the
space around you, as it expands and opens up with your breath. As your body
opens up into the space around you, feel the roominess that you have created
melting away the old sense of separation between your small self and the world
of breath, sounds, smells, sensations, thoughts, pains, restlessness. If you
feel yourself, deflating, becoming small and confined, then allow the beam to
spread out again so that it takes in your entire body and then explore what
your entire body feels like all at once. Then, as you inhale through your nose
and your belly fills with air let the air flow naturally up into your lungs and
then breathe into and through your entire body. Feel your entire body as it
grows to fill the space around you, as it expands and opens up with your
breath. We see the world as outside and fragmentary. We try and assemble the
fragments into a workable whole by giving each fragment a label that refers to
its qualities and categories. Then, we evaluate each fragment as something we
like or something we don’t like. Instead, in the meditation experiment, we let
the world be whole by creating a space inside big enough to include everything.
Normally, we approach our experience, both inside and outside, like a bag of
puzzle-pieces. The pieces are spread out and organized into like colors, common
characteristics and shapes. If we are painstaking enough, we will eventually
get a total picture. In the meditation experiment, experience is an integral
whole that exists in the mind of the meditator. Accept the experience as it is
rather than sifting through the pieces with your like-it-or-not mind. It is all
in me and I in it.
The next exercise, labeling the breath with
a number, is recommended fairly often and focuses your attention on your breath
from the moment you inhale the air through your nose until you exhale the air
through your nose. Your
Position or posture should be
comfortable and capable of being sustained for 15-20 minutes. The most
important feature of any position is that the spine should be as straight as it
can be without discomfort so that the breath can flow freely. Some suggested examples
are a kneeling meditation bench, a kneeling computer chair, laying on your back
on a firm surface, sitting on a chair with your back straight without resting
against the chair back or if you are able sitting cross-legged on a pillow on
the floor, making sure that your buttocks are raised higher than your feet.
Make sure that the position allows for you to breath freely and comfortably.
Clothing should be loose so that nothing encumbers your stomach area that would
interfere with breathing.
The following is
premeditation warm up to test your position. Are you comfortable? Place the
tips of your fingers on your stomach. Feel the natural movement of your stomach
as you breath. Separate the breathing in from the breathing out. Feel how as
you breath in your stomach rises and as you breath out your stomach descends.
Imagine that your stomach is a beach ball. Imagine that as you breath in the
beach ball fills with air. Imagine as you breath out that the beach ball
empties of air. For a few minutes and without changing your natural pattern of
breathing do this beach ball exercise. Notice when the breath is long, it takes
longer to fill the beach ball. Notice when the breath is short, it takes less
time to fill the ball. Check up. Are you comfortable? Is the breath flowing
freely?
Place your hands
in a natural position. You have noticed the separation of the in and out
breath. Your breathing is natural and flows easily. If it is not, make any
adjustments necessary to gain a comfortable, natural flow of the breath. The
first step in beginning to meditate on the breath is to place your attention on
your breathing. Notice the breathing in and the filling of the stomach area
(the beach ball). Notice the breathing out and the deflating of the stomach
area. Begin to count each successive out breath. As you breath in, notice that
you breath in. As you breath out, notice that you breath out and count the out
breath as one. As you breath in, notice that you breath in. As you breath out,
notice that you breath out and count the out breath as two. As you breath in,
notice that you breath in. As you breath out, notice that you breath out and
count the out breath as three. As you breath in, notice that you breath in. As
you breath out, notice that you breath out and count the out breath as four.
Continue to count each successive out breath until you reach the count of ten.
On the tenth count of the out breath, start the count over again at one and
repeat until you get to ten. Continue counting out breaths to ten for approximately
the first half to three quarters of the session. You will get better at
figuring out where you are in a session as sessions pass.
While counting out
breaths there will be a tendency to lose count. When you realize that you have
lost count, simply return to counting by starting over at one. Your mind will
wander. You will get lost in thought, but when you do very gently and without
recriminations return to counting your out breathes. Counting keeps your
attention on your breathing, but your mind will want to do what it is used to
doing and it will resist. Don’t get frustrated. Just notice that your mind has
wandered and bring it back to the breath. Start the count over at one.
The idea is to breath naturally. This is
not a breathing exercise, but a mind training (strengthening) exercise. You let
the breath be itself, but as you breathe in you note that you are inhaling and
as you breathe out you note that you are exhaling. After the exhalation is
ended, you give it a number and repeat this process until you have counted up
to ten. Once you get to ten, you start back at one.
Now this sounds pretty easy, but you would
be amazed how hard it is to keep your mind on the task. The exercise is
designed to help build concentration and the focus is the breath. When you lose
count, you return to the breath and begin again. Basically, it is hard to count
and think at the same time. Your mind will begin to drift to a thought or a
plan and you just pull it gently back to the breath. You would think that the
goal was successfully staying concentrated on the breath for prolonged periods
of time, but this is deceptive. The activity of coming back to the breath is
like weight lifting, the more you do it the stronger you get. It is the process
of refocusing that is important not how long you can stop the thought flow.
This exercise turns out to be very powerful because as you do it you become
more and more concentrated until you can follow the breath without the count.
It is a common mistake to believe the point
of meditation is to stop thinking or to get calm or highly focused, but while
these things may be side-effects of meditative practice, the point of
meditation is to do the exercise until you have completed the session or
portion of the session. The point of following the breath is to follow the
breath. The point of labeling is to label. The point of scanning the body is to
scan the body. Again weight lifting can be used as a parallel. The point of
doing the bench press is to press the weight for a predetermined number of
times. The point of doing the bench press is not to get stronger. The point of doing the bench press is to do
the bench press and if you are focused anywhere else, you will miss the point.
At about the half or
three quarter point in your session, try to maintain the focus on your
breathing without the count. Notice the in breath. Is it long or short? Notice
the out breath. Is it long or short? Keep your attention on your breathing
without counting. Instead of counting, label the in-breath as breathing in or
just in and label the out breath as breathing out or just out. If the in-breath
is long, label it long. If the in-breath is short, label it short. Do the same
for the out-breath. Continue in this manner, labeling in and out breaths, until
you become fluid at labeling the breaths.
Continue to follow
the breath as it moves in and out, long and short, but without the labels. When
your mind drifts, just like you did while you where labeling or counting,
gently bring it back to the breath. When a thought, sensation, feeling or sound
intrudes on your concentration on the breath, just label the thought,
sensation, feeling or sound as thought, sensation, feeling or sound without
your normal tendency to mull it over and then return to concentrating on the
breath. If you find that your mind wandering is getting out of control, return
to counting the breath as before. Once the concentration has been stabilized,
try concentrating on the breath without the count again and continue to label
thought, sensation, feeling or sound. Do this for the remainder of the session.
Working on all of
the above in one session may be too much. Try just doing each part for a couple
of weeks instead. Just count the breath until you get really good at counting
the breath. Just label the breath in or out or long or short until you get
really good at labeling the breath. After awhile, try following the breath
without the count or the label. Finally, while following the breath without the
count or labels, try labeling thoughts, sensations, feelings or sounds. Any of
these techniques can be done separately or together. It is not unusual to do
the counting the breath technique all by itself for years before moving on to
other techniques.
I counted the breath
religiously for over a year before I moved to the other labeling techniques.
Whenever I would feel my concentration flagging or I lost focus during a
session, I always returned to the count even if I was pursuing another
meditation technique. While I rarely fall asleep when I meditate, I do become
dreamy. Dreamy is inattentive, unfocused and meandering in a mindscape of
formless mental objects which evaporate from memory when focus returns. For at
least the first few years of my meditation practice, counting the breath was
the place I would go to steady myself. At first, counting the breath was
tedious. My mind fought against the repetitive, boring nature of the exercise.
The mind wanted to be free of the constraints breath counting placed on it. It
wanted to chatter, to bounce from thought to thought, to plan and
worry. The way I worked with this resistance was to take frequent breaks,
counting for a few cycles, then letting the mind return to its habitual
ramblings and then returning again to the breath. Instead of forceful, I was
patient, gentle and pliant, but steady. Each time I stayed a little longer on
the breath.
Another
difficulty I encountered is pushing the breath or following it? It is very
difficult to discern. Sometimes I would discover I was practically
hyperventilating because I was pushing so hard and others times the length of
time between breaths seemed excessive. I would discover I wasn’t letting myself
breath, resulting in having to gulp air to catch up. The way turned out to be
to follow the natural flow of the breath with the count. Just let the breath go
and give each breath a number label after it has passed. If it was natural to
take a deep breath, I took a deep breath. If it felt natural to take a shallow
breath, I took a shallow breath. Placing your attention on a place where the
breath is flowing, like the sound or feel of the breath being exhaled through
the nose, might make it easier to keep the count. It is not a breathing
exercise. Breathing changes with posture. If you are pressed in because you are
hunched or your shoulders are pressing inward, this compresses the chest area
constricting the breath. A straight spine, belly thrust outward, shoulders back
slightly seems to encourage natural breathing as does belly breathing, but
still this is not a breathing exercise.
At first I tried to not
completely close my mouth or leave it open very wide. This is maybe because I
have a crushed nostril, but it just did not feel right to close my mouth tight.
Later, I began to experiment with keeping my mouth closed in order to reduce
the accumulation of saliva, which sometimes caused me to have to swallow
frequently. Swallowing distracted me from following the breath by interfering
with the flow. Placing my tongue on the roof of my mouth behind my teeth helped
to reduce the saliva production. The kneeling computer chair seems to maximize
natural breath flow, but can be harder on the back. Eventually, as the
depth of meditation increased I noticed that my breathing slowed markedly so
that I barely breathed compared to the beginning when I seemed to huff and
puff. The more relaxed and easy the breathing becomes, the deeper the
meditation and the deeper the meditation, the more relaxed and easy the
breathing becomes. I have also noticed that the time that it takes to achieve a
deep state of meditation is shortening.
As
I moved to the natural next step of following the breath without counting, I
became more aware of my whole experience. I found that my mind was pulled by
sounds, feelings and thoughts. During one period when I had been involved in a
conflict at work with my employer, I got to experiment with the tenacity of my
thoughts. The conflict was a blow to my sense of self worth and, since I had
been cut off before I could defend my position, I felt an urgency to finish the
business of the conflict out in imaginary conversations with my employer. I
would drive to school and work with my mind cranking out these conversations
practically non-stop. When I came to meditation, I found that the relaxed state
seemed to be an ideal time to enter into this imaginary discourse. I would
become lost in it and then remember that I was meditating. This went on for
weeks. I would go back to counting the breath for a while and that would hold back
the flood of self-validating thoughts. Counting the breath was an effective
method of temporarily suppressing thought, however, if I let up for any length
of time, it was back to the discourse. I decided to add another labeling
exercise to my routine as a result of this experience.
Allowing
my experience to become an object of meditation was a logical extension of the
other labeling techniques I had been using. Counting the breath is a labeling
exercise. My next experiment in meditation was to continue following the
breath, but when a sound, feeling or thought occurred, I simply noted its
appearance with a label like thinking, feeling, or hearing and then returned to
the breath. Instead of labeling the breath with numbers, I placed labels on
sounds, feelings and thoughts. I should point out that I use the term feeling
to mean bodily sensations in contrast to its more common use as being
synonymous with emotion. Emotion in this formulation is feeling interacting
with thought. When the discourse with
my employer would begin, I would label it a thought and return to the breath.
At first, I experimented with just noting sounds, then, in another session,
bodily sensations or feelings and then finally thoughts. I would practice
labeling each different experiential object until it became comfortable. When I
gained some facility with a particular technique, I would move to the next.
Finally, I would combine labeling techniques in a single session, responding to
each experience with its own appropriate label. When I became comfortable with
labeling, using whole word labels like sound, feeling, thought, I began to just
use the first letter of the whole words instead of the words. When I heard a
sound, I would label it S. When the mental conversation began, I would whisper
in my mind, T. Eventually, I could drop the letters too. I would label without
words, numbers or letters like I touched the breath, sound, feeling and thought
with a silent mental wand. The trajectory of mindfulness training moves from
awareness of the breath as an aspect of experience, to awareness of each aspect
of experience like sound, thought, sensation and emotion to the totality of
experience as a unitary happening. The trajectory moves from the forced
confines of the meditation bench to the natural moment to moment flow of
everyday life.
I changed from experiencing
the sounds, smells, plans, worries and irritations as distractions to beginning
to see meditation as being with the experience without judging it. I was an
observer of experience in the momentary stream. I could really be the scientist
studying myself. As I
began to observe my own thinking, sensing,
feeling system, I could see that when I became aware of a thought, it melted
away. I would think about what I needed to do at work and then I would label
the work-thought, ‘thinking’. As soon as I would label the work-thought, it
would be gone. I would hear my wife rustling around in her office. I would
label the sound and return to the breath. Soon the sound of her rustling would
cease. Thoughts, feelings and sensations would present themselves to awareness.
Sometimes thoughts, feelings and sensations would be persistent and hang around
for a while, other times they would come and go. When a sound would persist, I
would turn it into an object of meditation and note the sound with a gentle
label (sound) and then gradually return to following the breath either with the
count or without. If the sound continued to draw my attention, I would repeat
the procedure again. Soon, the sounds, sensations, thoughts or whatever
distracted me would pass and the impermanence of experience became clear.
Experiences would come and experiences would go.
“The moment one gives close
attention to anything, even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome,
indescribably magnificent world in itself.”
Henry Miller
An
example of looking in a more mindful way at a familiar thing is the discovery I
made about the part time played in my meditation sessions. Early on in my
practice, I played music very quietly in the background while I meditated. The
music seemed like white noise and when it stopped, I new the meditation session
was over. It was kind of a timer. After a long period of playing music in the
background, I decided to meditate mindfully without the music as an experiment.
I discovered that the music had become a predictable pattern that I used to
discriminate time increments. I not only knew when the meditation session
should end, but where I was in the meditation session based on the place in the
music. The music was like meditating watching a clock. This became apparent
when I began to meditate without the music. I discovered that without the music
timing the intervals, my sense of time passing seemed to dissolve. The music
seems to have distracted me from staying in the moment without my really having
noticed it. The music had to be gone for me to really see it.
The lack of a sense of time
while meditating created the problem of the session lasting longer than I
planned. I never expected that to be a problem because with the music I was
always ready to quit meditating as the music reached the end. My back would
ache and my legs would throb, telling me I had accomplished my work and that my
well-deserved break was about to come. Without the music and the cues it
presented, I had no sense of when the end was coming and the aching sense
of accomplishment disappeared. I eventually started to use a variety of timing
devices such as an alarm clock and later a software program that played gongs
at various intervals. When the bell rang I was surprised. I was lost in
meditation without the aches and pains that used to tell where I was in a
sitting.
There is a great deal of
emphasis on the length of sessions. There is even a kind of athletic
competition with endurance being a badge of success. Many books and tapes
proclaim an arbitrary length of time for a session. A beginning meditator makes
an attempt at achieving these arbitrary expectations but discovers he is not
able to sit for forty-five minutes. The leg pain, the immense energy that it
takes to sustain concentration or restlessness rears its ugly head and the
beginning meditator feels like a failure. Again, the weight lifting analogy can
be a useful model. A weight lifter starts with a small weight that he can, with
significant effort, press six times. When he is able to press this weight ten
times with decreased effort, he then adds weight to the exercise so that he now
can only lift the weight six times and so it goes. This model works well for
meditation. Start with a period of time you can tolerate with effort and then
gradually, as you grow stronger, add time to the session. The length of the
session should present a challenge because it is from the effort that growth
derives. If the weight lifter stayed at the same weight, it would get easier
and easier to lift and the result would be that he would get no stronger. If
the session required no effort, it was too short or too easy, improvements in
focus would not occur.
In meditation increasing the
difficulty of the exercise can be accomplished in many ways including
lengthening sessions, taking on a more difficult technique and meditating when
circumstance are not ideal. By not ideal, it can mean to meditate when you are
not in the mood or you are sick. Another way to increase the difficulty of
meditation is to meditate around circumstances that are distracting. Instead of
ending a session because there are noises that cause you to defocus, try and
practice despite the distractions. I gradually increased the length of sessions
as my stamina and concentration improved. Other factors also played a part. I
discovered that I really liked to start my day with a meditation session. Since
I had limited time in the mornings, I sat for thirty-five to forty-five
minutes. I also discovered that if I meditated in the evenings before I went to
bed I slept much better so I did a second thirty to forty-minute session at
night. On Saturdays and Sundays, when I had a much less hectic schedule, I
combined the two sessions into one long session and sat for an hour. Each
session’s length had it’s own unique qualities.
Where do ritual, chanting,
bowing and malas come in? Rituals can be both helpful and destructive. If a
ritual becomes nothing but the mindless repetition of a series of behaviors, it
can interfere with the meditative project. If, on the other hand, a ritual
serves to set intention to free the mind then the entire meditative project can
be energized. I usually begin my sessions by creating a holy space. I light
candles and incense. I set my alarm clock. I place my seiza bench and pillow in
position and take my seat in the kneeling position. I begin the sitting by
striking a bell gong three times, listening each time until the sound of the
gong completely expires. My mind is tuned to the third bell sound and I become
still. I hold a mala in my left hand, wrapped around my wrist so that my hands
can rest flat against my upper thighs. My intention is to sit still and
practice and the smell of the incense, the sound of the bell and the feel of
the mala remind me that I am part of a tradition that has been sitting, just
like this, for thousands of years. When the alarm rings, I shut it off, bow
once and strike the bell gong three more times, listening each time to the
whole bell sound. I then unwrap the mala from my wrist and chant the mantra
that is traditionally chanted at the end of the Heart Sutra. “Gate Gate
Paragate Parasam Gate Bodhi Svaha.” The Heart Sutra is said to be a
distillization of the entire Buddhist perspective in a single sutra and the
mantra at its end is said to be the crystal of the Heart Sutra. I don’t know if
any of that is really true but I like the feel of it anyway. I use the mala to
count until I reach a predetermined number of repetitions of “Gate Gate
Paragate Parasam Gate Bodhi Svaha.” I then wrap the mala around the bowl gong
striker and place the striker back in the bowl. I then return the bowl to its
place, blow out the candles and put everything but the bench away. I end the
session by bowing to the bench, which, in the absence of a teacher, is my
primary source of instruction.
As an experiment, I decided
to depart from my regular routine and just let whatever happens, happen. It is
a good idea to vary your routine. Doing the same exercises in the same way,
over and over, will get you in a rut. Instead, change it up. Do new exercises
or make some changes in an old exercise. Go back to an early set of exercises
and see if you don’t have a fresh perspective. I sat following the breath,
mindful of the breath, because paying attention to the breath has become second
nature to me. I make no effort to follow the breath. I was sitting on my back
porch and the sun has just come up. As I sat the world around came to life.
Bird sounds at first predominated, but soon my dog, Iggy, began to bark.
Workmen at a nearby house started to hammer and shout to each other. From the early morning silence, the world
became a hubbub. I could feel energy flowing through me and around me. Sounds
from the world entered the energy like oxygen. The more energetic the sounds,
the more the brightly I burned.
So sitting very still,
Only the breathing in and
the breathing out,
Deeply calm, there is the
barking of a dog
And then the barking stops,
Birds and then no birds,
Thoughts slowed to a
trickle, an itch, a tiny point of pain,
Then back to the breath.
No time passes.
The dog barks again.
The bark vibrates the air,
Which moves the membranes
of memories
To form the pictures
reflected in awareness.
It vanishes.
Back to the breath
Slowing now to an almost
imperceptible wave,
Like the mirages on
highways caused by heat,
There but not there, still
but not still.
Open until the openness is
sized up,
Followed by a brief pat on
the ego
And then it is gone.
So sitting very still,
Only the breathing in and
the breathing out
Until the gong rings.
The writer’s outcomes: changing perspectives
I began to see my
meditation experience as a series of mental objects. When I hear the bell
sound, my idea-mind turns the sound into a mental object so I note, sound and
let go without further penetration. This does not deny the experience of the
sound. On the contrary, the experience is the experience whether I think about
it or not. When I have love for a friend, my idea-mind turns the emotion of
love into a mental object, so I note feeling plus thought. This does not take
away from the experience of warm caring or add to it either. When a dark
emotion like hopelessness or futility occurs to me, if I allow idea-mind to
have a go at it, it will bring me a flood of thoughts of despair. This flood
can be the beginning of a low mood that can take on a life of its own. If I
were to note it as feeling plus thought and return to the breath, I would have
taken a step back as an impartial witness to the mental events that appeared on
the otherwise empty stage of consciousness. Rather than doing what has in the
past been the habitual thing, I just note the momentary object of mind without
making any attempt at penetrating beyond its general label. Penetration turns
the reflection of the mind into an apparent fact. In the case of despair, it
can lead into a full-blown depressive episode.
Awareness is like
oil in a glass bowl. The body is the glass bowl, which is experienced as the
edge of awareness or where awareness makes contact with the other. The other is
anything that is non-self. The transparent nature of the glass bowl is eyes,
ears, nose and feelings e.g. the senses. No real contact occurs between
awareness and the other. The body is the membrane between the two and has the
quality of being at the edge of the inner at the same time as being other
itself, wholly outside awareness. The oil is always background and the
foreground, a thought, is like a paper boat floating in the oil. But the paper
boat is really a reflection of the actual paper boat that either exists as
(other) outside awareness or existed as (other) in a memory of a past
encounter. Awareness cannot reflect itself because the minute it tries it forms
an idea, which then takes shape as a paper boat, which is the foreground to the
invisible background of awareness. No paper boat, no mind. No mind, no body. No
body, no senses. No senses, no other. No other, no inside or outside. No
duality, one hand clapping.
No
subjective awareness without mind
No
mind without specific brain function
No
specific brain function without general brain function
No
general brain function without input/output system
No
input/output system without information
No
information without subjective awareness
Idea-mind owns
what it names. Penetration projects the object back on to the outside world
giving one the illusion that thought is real. Once you cease to interpret,
mental objects, of whatever kind, thoughts, feelings, images, have no
independent reality. They arise or disappear as a result of conditions. A dog
barks in the distance. I hear the sound. The dog stops barking and the sounds
disappear. Idea-mind believes that if it gives a thing a name that it has
distinction. It becomes unique. The very process of naming causes the thing to
become manifest from the shadows of substance. You see the letter A on a page
and you name it A, and in so doing, A becomes separate from the white emptiness
of the page upon which the A stands. Substance means to stand underneath.
Underneath mental objects is emptiness.
Imagine a body of water with
gentle waves. The still water is pure awareness. Following the breath with or
without the count would be like following the waves. As a wave rises, you note
its rising. As a wave falls--- you note it’s falling. Just like following the
breath. Now imagine as you have begun to concentrate on the rise and fall of
the waves, a brilliant, silver fish breaks the surface of the water and your
concentration on the rise and fall of the waves is drawn to the fish. A fish is
a mental object. You might even lose count of the waves. The fish is like a
thought, feeling, sensation or sound. All are mental objects. You calmly
acknowledge the fish with acceptance, even curiosity, and then you return your
concentration to the rise and fall of the waves. As the meditation becomes
deeper, there is a growing awareness that beneath the surface of the water
inscrutable shadows make the water seem murky. Perhaps, the shadows, the
subconscious swarm prior to differentiation, are the birthing grounds of
pre-intentional mental objects. Note the shadows with acceptance and return
concentration to the rise and fall of the waves.
Thinking is like the flow of water
in a millstream. The wheel of life would cease to turn, or so we believe,
without it. But if the pressure of the water pressing against the wheel is too
much, thoughts seem to race, and then we yearn for peacefulness of mind. We
like to vegetate with a good book or an entertaining movie. If the flow of the
millstream is fast and furious, it becomes muddy, unclear and so our mind’s
turmoil makes it hard to tell the flotsam from the jetsam. No single piece of
thought can be distinguished from another. Sustaining the pressure requires
energy, which results in tension and wears you out. Sometimes it feels really
good to stop the conversation in our head and lose yourself in a momentary
activity. In meditation slowing down and even stopping the flow of thought
becomes possible. In order to see what lies beneath the water the dam weirs
must be closed so that the mud can settle, the water can clear and things can
be seen for what they are without obfuscation. We realize that thoughts are not
facts. They are just passing, mental objects that supplant one another in a
steady flow even in our sleep. That is just the way it is.
As you sit quietly in meditation
imagine that the flood of mental objects cluttering your mind are rubber ducks.
As one rubber duck occupies your focus, it encourages others to be created and
these new rubber ducks then begin to occupy your focus as well. The result is a
gaggle of rubber ducks cluttering your mind. As the meditation progresses, the
flow of rubber ducks into the pond begins to slow. Soon the ducks are coming
one at a time as you calm your mind and witness each duck without encouraging
the creation of new ducks. You cease to discriminate the ducks you like from
the ducks you don't like and let go of each duck as it passes thru the pond.
You witness the spaces between ducks as they grow more frequent and persist for
longer periods. You realize that the rubber ducks are impermanent. You begin to
see clearly the duck-less pond. Finally, one last duck slides across the water.
It is you. The duck observing the ducks is a duck too.
If meditation is opening up the
space between mental objects resulting in seeing the mental objects
with increasing clarity, then when you observe the "I" observing
the space between mental objects then the "I" can be seen clearly
for what it is: a mental object, impermanent and fleeting like the sound
of a bird or the cry of a child. It has no enduring nature. It comes and
it goes depending on conditions.
You are an air traffic controller, sitting in front of your screen. As you sit scanning the screen there are blips that either you like to see or you do not like to see. There are also blips that