Meditation.. what does it mean? As millions struggle to clear their minds of spurious uncontrolled thoughts, vicious self-attacks, fears and trauma's, they do so in the knowledge that there has been a promise extended that if they can achieve a proper state of mind.. wisdom, bliss and peace will quickly follow..
As I joined the herd of wild humans to clear my my of thoughts and achieve peace, I turned to an old friend for assistance. My mind. My mind has been a faithful companion. As I struggled to clear it, quiet it, and silence it, I found I had a most perplexing problem.I did not want to clear and silence my mind. My whole life had been an exercise in training my mind to become better able to verbalize and translate the deep uprisings of my consciousness into words. I wanted to silence it, but then again, I didn't.
Listening to the instructors, they kept saying the same things. "Keep returning to the breath." "Watch your breath." "Be patient." "It's OK" "Be forgiving" hmmmm.... What did I take from this? I understood that I was on my own to figure this thing out. I yearned for a bit more instruction. A bit more specificity, a bit more luxurious detail... "Keep coming back to the breath" "get comfortable" "Keep trying". Yes, I and everyone there, were truly on our own. I had no doubt that the teachers there had experienced very deep states of understanding and Meditative proficiency, but what I yearned for, was instruction.
So, I found that If i focused on my breath, arduously, stridently, pedantically, I could eliminate thought from my mind as I drew a breath in.. and, then, I could eliminate thought as I breathed out. and then again, as I breathed in. And yet again, as I breathed out. But it felt as if I was holding a difficult yoga pose. It was depleting, difficult, monotonous, and as suffocating as if I had been holding my breath.
I finally took from this, that the point is not to hold your breath. So I tried a new way that was not suggested by the teachers. Instead of focusing on my breath, I just kept my breathing within my focus. aware of it, watching it gently. As if i was laying peacefully in the grass, in the hills, on a sunny day, after a picnic, listening to the bells of the church ringing in the distance. I cold hear them, but i wasn't focused on them, but they were within my focus as a part of my focus.
I have since found that Sakyamundi's great contribution (besides everything else) was the "watching the breath" technique. I'm sure the teachers took it for granted that everyone knew this, and that's what they meant when they said "focus on the breath". but I, being a babe from the woods, didn't know that, so, as in all things in life, we hear the truth, struggle to make sense of it and then break through.. or not....
I then thought of how when I sleep, I breath. People in comas breath. People who are brain dead breath, and I realized that one error was in "breathing". Breathing was clearly not something I "had" to do. rather is was something my body would do on it's own accord, as long as I was not holding my breath. And so, i allowed my body to breath, as i kept the breathing within my focus. something really wonderful happened. I was free from breathing. and I would be forever freed of breathing. I spoke in ecstatic terms within my mind, "I'm free! I don't have to breath ever again!"
And then I wondered how i could breath, or, how could my body breath, if "I" was not breathing it? Well, it was existence breathing my body. It was existence's body. Just the same as I did not have to beat my heart, I did not have to breath. God, or the original creator was breathing my body, and if i listened, i could listen to god breath my body.. amazing...
i felt a deep warm pleasure in this thought. in truth, it was more than a thought. it was a truth. for do we "breath" or are we "breathed?" unless you're an asthmatic, or have lung issues, or disease, or are a seriously conditioned athlete who pushes your self to the brink of your physical capacity. you generally do not have to struggle for breath. how long humans have struggled to hear the voice of God, and all we had to do was listen to our own breathing, and we can hear the very existence breathing.. which is surely a voice of god. Those of us who are parents, know the beauty and tenderness of listening to our children breath. What a wonderful sound to hear as we ease into their rooms to hear if everything is all right. or before we wake them, or as we pull the covers up over their bodies, or stroke their hair and plant gentle kisses on their cheeks or forehead as they sleep....
I thought to myself (still being in ignorance of the actual technique), "i bet if you look in the scriptures, or wherever meditation and breathing are discussed, they will say, "watch your breath" and not to focus on it. once again. ignorance has been proven to be bliss...
So then, I came up with a visual for the meditation.
Freed from breathing, and from "focusing" on my breath, I imagined myself in a large darkened theater. There were only two in this whole theater. Me and in the row behind me, God, and I listened to his voice.
Then, filling out the meditation. I did not venture deep into my mind to meditate. my breath, kept me on the periphery of my awareness and out of the depth of my mind. To venture deep into the mind is to ask for constant attack from ideas, deep, petty and meaningless.. all ideas, however unimportant exist within your mind, your own voice giving voice to the ideas, each according to the strength of their impulse. So what I did was open my eyes slightly, and then using my eyes, i brought my awareness to the front of my retina, or the "back" of the curtain, here, there are no thoughts, there is only the backs of our eyelids.
When chatter arose within my mind, I pushed it easily along. As part of the theater analogy, I was waiting in anticipation for the "show" to start. I didn't want idle talk, silly digressions to distract me from the "show". The "show" for me were deep insights, deep realizations.. which came fast or slow, and which could then be taken and meditated upon to bring them ever deeper... This is what my meditations consisted of. As we continued to meditate 15 times or more per day over the course of 6 days, my focus got deeper. my realizations deeper, and the ease in which I could hold my focus and push away idle chatter became easier and easier and easier.
Sitting in my theater, watching/listening to god breath, sitting behind my eyes, waiting for the show, pushing away idle chatter... I remembered the teachings of Osho, who spoke of the great Zen Master Bankei, who talked constantly and singularly on the "unborn Buddha mind"
In this state of meditation, I felt that I was in the unborn mind, or my version of it. in this peaceful state, it was not hard to imagine being a baby. "you" are still there, but you are not as polished, knowledgeable or sophisticated, but you are still you. and when you mind is devoid of thought, the difference between you now, and you as a baby, is the tools at your disposal to experience, interact with, communicate, and think about the world.. as well as to articulate your level of consciousness. In this meditation, is was profoundly insightful to empty my mind and throw a simple sound into the empty space. A sound we all know. "ma-ma" to listen to that early classic reverberate, and to remember the emotions that came along with this word, was truly amazing, when contemplated with a meditative, "unborn" mind.
Like a nuclear accelerator, we can take individual thoughts and break them down to simple, profound, peaceful and meditative contemplations.
After one meditation session, I looked on the wall and looked at a picture of the buddha. What did I see? Was the picture blank? Was the buddha somber? no. he was smiling. his head and body were adorned. and around him were all things concerned with existence on Earth. What did this mean? The Buddha did not empty his mind. He filled his consciousness. He filled his consciousness by refusing to admit only base thoughts or distractions. He let in the truth of existence, he let in existence and all truth. His mind was far from empty. it was filled. The smile of the Buddha in his many representations is a vital clue to us all. Love is the reason for existence, and as we struggle, suffer and grope, he smiles at us, not in mockery of our efforts, but in loving kindness and as a clue to how we should view our sufferings and struggles. lightly. suffer lightly, endeavor passionately. grope hard and long and with dilligence, and yes, the buddha will laugh at you as we all laugh at someone who attempts to lift 10 times what they can carry and attempts over and over and over again. We suffer because the nature of man is to suffer until they are enlightened of the burden of suffering, through truth.
Earlier, before contemplating the nature of he Buddha's representation, I looked at sakyamundi on the alter. There is a hand position that is shown in some representations of the Buddha. but as i looked at this particular carving, in it i didn't see a hand signal a smiling face which was laughing while at the same time saying "OOOOOOOMMMMMMM". i had to wonder if that was the meaning of the hand position.. well, surely that's the meaning it held for me. So in these two representations of the buddha, in all representations of the Buddha we are given a vital, vital clue. be light. laugh, grope, and when you grope hard and do not profit, don't be cruel to yourself for your failures. laugh at your failures, reach for bliss and continue to focus and prosper!
Anyway, enough of truth. back to my struggles... Another issue I faced was after 30 minutes of meditation, I began to grow restless and look at my watch. The first 30 minutes went quickly, the last 10 minutes was like an hour. I imagined that as i grew more effective in my meditations, I could see how this last 10-13 minutes of a 45 minute meditation could become the most productive time.. and that I may begin meditating for an hour or 90 minutes at a time to maximize this time dilation aspect.. if indeed it would persist. What I did to combat this problem, was when I began to grow restless, i would superimpose another meditation upon the theater meditation. I would hold the theater meditation while holding a second meditation of being on a cruise ship, sailing into port. As we glided alongside the piers, throngs of people would line the way cheering and waving. For me, I enjoyed coming into port, but, i did not know which pier we were going to sail into.. but it was OK, because I knew it would not be much longer.. and so, i was put into a position of savoring the last moments, instead of being held in a purgatory.
This was quite effective, but by the end of the 6 days, I began to use a new, simpler meditation for the end. I never reached dread because what I substituted cruise ship meditation for a simple idea, which was, the joy of being surprised and caught unawares of when the bell would ring to signal the end. The excitement and surprise of the bell was more than rewarding. and so, i was able to abandon the cumbersome cruise ship meditation.
Also, the theater analogy softened. Instead of being in a theater, i was simple watching my breath (not "focused" on it) and not allowing my consciousness to rise into the deep part of my mind. Later still, I didn't have to "hold" my consciousness down. i found that the comfort of the space behind my eyes, or in the non-thinking part of my brain became so comfortable as to create a niche or groove that i naturally found rest in..
All of this and the naturalness of the evolution also reminded me of the wonders of the mind. just as in driving a car, at first the number of things we have to do seem overwhelming, soon, the mind learns to "automate" these tasks, so that little of our conscious energy is used to "focus" on the actual task of driving. Meditation is one of these things. with practice and experimentation, we can slowly discover what "works" for us, and from these initial comfortable positions, we can then deepen our living space, and create real "homes" to reside in. And once we have these homes, we can explore the other realms of our minds, challenging ourselves by moving into the busiest parts of our minds and with our consciousness and awareness, bringing peace and calm. In this sense, our minds can become our world, and as we move into our world's and our bodies, we are our own savior, bringing peace, harmony and enlightenment across the lands of our inner space.
Like in our lives, in meditation we are all left to figure this stuff out on our own. It helps to not try to do everything, at first. we can give ourselves training wheels. simple meditations, meditations that help to train our mind for ever expanding challenges as we approximate textbook "meditation" and from this base, we can then venture ever deeper into deeper and deeper fields of meditation.
The way can be taught, or given, if we can provide the time, the space, and seek instruction, but regardless... we must all grope and till and sow to reap.
Let me say this again, because this is of ultimate importance. The act of groping, is perhaps the most important thing that humans do, or have ever done. All fruits, have been born, of groping. Even lightening realizations, have sprung forth from groping either on a conscious, or unconscious level... this is the thing we all need to know as we struggle. that it's OK to struggle, and that struggling is perhaps the most noble fruit, because one day, the seed of that fruit will find itself in a situation to find earth, germinate and spring forth.
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