by Om Swami
This is the question you ask to draw yourself to the present moment. What are you doing right now? You are reading this book. Maybe you are reading the paperback version. Immediately you will notice the quality and color of the paper, the style and size of text, lighting in your room, your seat, everything around you and so on. Such awareness also helps you in retaining more information. As soon as you ask, “What am I doing right now?” you become aware, instantaneously. Its simplicity is what makes it effective. This is the secret of its potency. It is the difference between overseeing your actions versus overlooking them. You no longer remain ignorant about what you are doing.
To build on the practice of mindful meditation, you have to remember to ask yourself this question as many times as you can during the day. “What am I doing now?” – I’m brushing my teeth; Now, I am eating my breakfast; I’m drinking juice; I’m reading a newspaper; I am driving to work; I am checking my emails; I am in a meeting; I am working on a report; I am having my lunch, and so on and so forth. Your question and the answers to it, both are in the present continuous tense. In this manner you capture the essence of any moment as it’s passing.
Within a matter of weeks, you will find yourself calmer, sharper and more alert. You will slow down only to become a lot more efficient. You will eat less but you will gain more (not calories but nutrition) from each bite. Most people forget to chew their food, you won’t. As you become an adept at this meditation, you will get most of your work done without the slightest of stress. As you progress, not only do you become aware of your actions, you become increasingly aware of your emotions, feelings and thoughts.
At the beginning, you will keep forgetting to do this meditation. Perhaps during the whole day, you may only remember to ask this question thrice as opposed to the targeted thirty or three hundred times. You could set an alarm to remind you every hour, just a buzz or a soft beep. If you also practice concentrative meditation, you will excel at mindful meditation much faster. Predominantly because concentrative meditation makes you more alert and vigilant. You could go into the greatest depth at the minutest level in mindful meditation.
Next time you have trouble sleeping, ask yourself, what am I doing right now? Now, I’m sleeping. Your mind may feel restless and wander off to thoughts to keep you awake, ask yourself the question again and answer it again. Keep doing it each time your mind drifts away and before long, you will be fast asleep. This meditation is the easiest way to remove distractions. Practicing it also makes you better at other methods of meditation because you are able to filter out distractions.
If you choose to practice this meditation in a timed session of meditation, where you are sitting on your cushion and meditating, the question will change. Instead of saying what am I doing now, you have to ask: “Which thought is on my mind right now?” As soon as you will ask this question, you will experience a subtle thoughtless state for a few moments. It is a beautiful experience, addictive even. After a little while, your mind will wander off into its world of thoughts again. Repeat the question. It will come back to the present moment. Keep bringing your mind back to the present moment with the imperative question: “Which thought is on my mind right now?” Gradually, the duration of thoughtlessness will increase and you will become increasingly joyous and composed.
The mindful practice is a powerful way of staying in the present moment. And the present moment is always stress free.
It is complete in every sense of the word. Above all, the present moment is the only one we are actually in touch with. It’s the only moment in which we can act or do anything to affect a change.
For those who have physical challenges with meditational postures, and those who are pressed for time, mindful meditation is the answer. Like all the other types, the more you practice correctly, the better you get at it. There are other variations of this meditation like watching the sensations you experience in your body (starting from toe to your head and back again), or being mindful of a certain music that may be playing. Similar to the story of Buddha eating tangerine, there’s a famous tea ritual in Zen meditations, where you make, pour, and take every sip with utmost awareness. In Zen, there’s also another form of meditation called kinhin or walking meditation. It’s a type of mindful meditation where you take each step with complete awareness, feeling how your body weight shifts from one step to another. It’s a remarkable way of building mindfulness in the simple act of walking that we take for granted.
While there are many flavours of mindful meditation, in this chapter, I have elucidated for you one of the most effective and primary methods of mindful meditation. Let’s not lose the present moment for this is nature’s greatest ‘present’ that we are alive in this moment. This moment is the only guarantee of life. Put it to use, mindfully.
Observant Meditation
Once upon a time, some 2,500 years ago, there was a little girl agile as a monkey. She and her widower father would go around towns performing a difficult feat. The father would balance a 20 feet long bamboo pole on his forehead and the girl would climb up the pole in a heartbeat and stand on top of it on one foot. As soon as she would find her balance, the father would walk around with the girl poised steadily on top of the pole. Her father worried about his daughter’s safety every time they did this act.
“I’ve told you a million times,” he said to her, “that, you must keep an eye on me. I’m always watching you so I may balance the pole. You should watch me as well so we may avoid any accident. You are all I have, little one.”
“No, father, no,” she protested, “during the performance, you have to focus on your part and I’ll take care of mine. We must not distract ourselves by watching each other. Let’s both stay very stable, very alert and I’ll concentrate on what I must do. This is the only way we are going to pull off this feat every time.”
The father remained unconvinced so they approached Buddha. It didn’t take long for Buddha to conclude that the little girl was right. “If you learn to watch yourself,” Buddha declared, “there’s nothing and no one left to gaze at.”
In line with the six principles of meditation (no recollection, calculation, imagination, examination, construction and digression), observant meditation is about watching your thoughts in the most dispassionate manner possible.
Observant meditation is particularly useful to pacify your mind. Most other meditations I’ve detailed so far can usually only be done when your mind is at peace. It’s hard to concentrate or be mindful when you are angry. Observant meditation on the other hand can be done when your mind is agitated or you are stressed. It helps you in calming down.
Unlike other meditations, it does not directly improve your concentration or memory. It does not increase the power of your thought either, but with the calmness that it brings, you may end up being more productive at home and at work.
This meditation is also called witness meditation for you are simply playing the role of a witness while you meditate. The soul of this meditation is to simply watch your thoughts as if you are watching a movie on a screen, as if whatever comes to your mind is not something that happened to you but to a third person. You realize that when an actor dies on screen, he or she isn’t truly dead. In the same manner, you realize that all thoughts are empty, they are devoid of any true essence, and that you don’t have to react to those thoughts.
Due to our ego, we strongly identify ourselves with our bodies and individual existence. It makes us take things personally. If someone calls you an idiot, it’s hard to be mindful in that time or simply act as a witness thinking,” I’m the soul, I’m divine, and this person is not saying it to me.” On the contrary, you may feel like giving it back right then thinking, “How dare he say that to me!” You may end up calling him names.
Observant meditation allows you to downplay the role of individual ego. It helps you in putting your ego on the backburner and see yourself as a third person. You’ll be amazed how
quickly your reactions will change. I’m not suggesting that you shouldn’t defend yourself. But for your own peace of mind, you may choose to respond differently, gently, even gracefully to being called an idiot.
A disciple said to his master, “You say ego is bad, but it’s not possible to live without ego, otherwise the world will crush us.”
“Perhaps.”
“So, how much ego am I allowed to have?” he asked.
“Just enough so you don’t step in front of a moving bus,” the master replied mindfully sipping his tea.
This is the underlying principle of being a witness while operating in this world that can be very difficult at times: watch yourself and that is it.
All thoughts – good or bad, right or wrong, moral or immoral, loving or hateful – are just thoughts. Your emotions and desires stem from these thoughts. You start observing your thoughts and they begin to disappear like one sound of a clap disperses all birds on the tree. Once you start watching your thoughts, they all evaporate, leaving you calm and blissful.
How to Do It Right
Sit in any comfortable posture. The standard posture of meditation is even more useful as channelizing the energies while your mind is empty is extremely helpful in swiftly moving towards a state of complete tranquility of the mind.
Take a few deep breaths.
Remind yourself that you are simply playing the role of an observer, a passive spectator who doesn’t cheer or jeer.
You can close your eyes and wait for your thoughts to emerge, or you can open your eyes and fix your gaze at any object, close or distant.
Simply watch your thoughts as they come.
Now wait for the thoughts to come and knock on the door of your consciousness. The first thing you’ll notice is that that the flow of thoughts is immediately checked when you sit there anticipating their arrival. If you maintain the lucidity of your passivity (which means, be a good witness), you will be able to observe your thoughts lot more clearly.
Let any thought come, of any nature, just don’t entertain it. Just let it come and let it go, repeatedly. Don’t analyze them, don’t pursue them, don’t reject them – just don’t react. They are like billboards and banners you see on the road while you are driving, just don’t pay attention as they are not important to your journey.
Intrinsically, these thoughts are immaterial and barren. One by one they will come incessantly, let them. When you no longer react to your thoughts with this meditation, a strange thing starts to happen. The gap between one thought and the next increases.
That gap is a type of quietude, a variety of mental stillness that’s priceless. Immerse in it by being aware of such quietude.
But if you have been practicing concentrative meditation with great sincerity, you will master this one in no time.
Witness meditation helps you become more mindful and is particularly good to overcome restlessness fueled by passions and emotions. I have intentionally separated it from the mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness is a sharper form of awareness; it is an active state.
If you have ever been on a Ferris wheel then you know the feeling when your basket goes up. You see a different view of the city. A tickling feeling courses through your body when you go down. Everyone is helpless – some scream, some laugh, some are more quiet, some are scared, some are trying not to throw up, some hold onto the handle tightly and so on.
The moment you step out and sit on the side, you see all these people in various baskets of the Ferris wheel. It looks funny that they are screaming and shouting in joy. You see the same baskets going round and round. One large swing and everything is just going around. But when you step outside, step aside, you don’t feel the same emotions. You become a bystander. You see how this is just a swing where riders are literally going around in circles.
Observant meditation is stepping aside. Rather than being in the Ferris wheel of your mind, you step outside and you observe it as a third party. You realize that all those rounds of emotions, passions, feelings, thoughts, desires and all that anxiety and excitement you’d felt at various times was only because you were riding the swing.
It’s a defining moment in the life of any meditator – the moment when you step out of your own mind, your own ego, your body and see the world for what it is, transient and illusory. You come to understand that you have other choices available than being on the ride. After all, no matter how exhilarating a ride, it gets tiring after a while.
Witness meditation rejuvenates you and makes you more mindful of your choices. You get to decide whether you to want to ride or just watch. You get to hop on and hop off the wheel at will (hopefully, you won’t do that when the wheel is moving. Meditate to stop it). This is the power of witness meditation.
Spirited Meditation
There was a time, only a couple of hundred years ago, when most people engaged in hard physical labor during the course of their daily lives. Everything required physical effort, from cooking a simple meal to procuring its ingredients. People would walk miles for simple things like fetching water, sourcing firewood, ploughing their fields and turning barren fields into fertile land. Blacksmiths, tailors, porters, cart-pullers, everyone had to do some manual work to earn their living. Shepherds would rear their cattle. The very act of living was a physically intensive, often a back breaking task.
Today, however, we have cars with automatic transmission and cruise control, even changing gears or stepping on gas seems like work. We barely perspire in climate-controlled indoor environments from our homes to shopping malls. We have dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, washing machines and tumble dryers. We turn on a tap and water comes swishing through. We turn on a knob and there’s fire for cooking. This has led to a precarious situation: we have excess of physical energy in us and we don’t know how and where to channelize it. The advent of television hasn’t helped either. There’s only so many calories you can burn in the gym or in clicking the TV remote.
It’s no rocket science that when we consume food, we produce energy. When we rest, we preserve energy. Our lifestyle today is driven by mental work (as opposed to physical). Unable to burn the energy our body stores, we experience chronic lethargy and sluggishness, a lack of freshness. As a result of which, more and more of us are restless. We try to keep our minds engaged so we may forget about this energy brimming in us. Thanks to video games, phones and social media, young adults today are busy staring at screens, which makes them only more restless, agitated and angry.
It’s like a mouse is trapped in a carton, let’s say a box of cake, and it’s trying to free itself, to find an opening when there is none. All you hear is commotion in the carton.
Mental activities can’t substitute the physical ones. Meditation is not a substitute for exercising. The physical fitness we gain from exercising can’t be replaced by the peace we experience in meditation. The yogis of the yore ate frugally because they knew their training demanded spending more time in meditation. Even during my days of intense practice, I never ate twice in one day, only one frugal meal in 24 hours. Other than that, I sometimes would drink a bit of water from my water-pot in between my meditation sessions (there were only one or two breaks in 24 hours).
Spirited meditation, also known as active meditation, is based on the premise that if I could devise a system of meditation, which, while keeping the virtues intact, allowed me to get rid of the excess physical energy in my body. I refrain from calling it active meditation because it may imply that the other five systems of meditation are passive and inert. Clearly, that’s not the case.
The fundamental difference between spirited and other forms of meditation is the use of physical energy. In this meditation, rather than sitting still in one posture, you do the opposite – you dance.
Even true yoga asana are done with great mindfulness and they burn your physical energy. Spirited meditation however is not about stretching your limbs
and staying in that posture for a little while. It is about getting the physical energy out of your system. You may think it’s like playing sports then. Well, it isn’t. In sports, there are many emotions that come into play. You may feel down on losing a game, you may have to sit and wait for a while, you may envy your partner playing better than you or a spurt of ego upon winning. What the other player does is not in your control.
The closest to spirited meditation would be dancing with one fundamental difference – in dance you are focusing on the rhythm and perhaps the music. In meditation, you are entirely focused on a sense of mindfulness, on your breathing, on surrender.
Roughly 800 years ago, Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, a great Sufi saint, deeply influenced by the Turkish culture and customs, started a unique ritual called the Sema ritual. Later it came to be known as The Order of the Whirling Dervishes. In this carefully crafted and choreographed ritual, a few dervishes dressed in a certain way would dance in the love of God.
During the Sema ritual, semazen or the whirling dervishes, dance in great synchronization, as if in perfect harmony. There are four distinct musical shifts, each one with a different tempo and rhythm. The first stage is to testify God’s existence, the second is devoted to unity, the third stage is about his majesty and the fourth about God’s power.
The Whirling Dervishes of Rumi states:
In the symbolism of the Sema ritual, the semazen’s camel’s hair hat (sikke) represents the tombstone of the ego; his wide, white skirt represents the ego’s shroud. By removing his black cloak, he is spiritually reborn to the truth. At the beginning of the Sema, by holding his arms crosswise, the semazen appears to represent the number one, thus testifying to God’s unity. While whirling, his arms are open: his right arm is directed to the sky, ready to receive God’s beneficence; his left hand, upon which his eyes are fastened, is turned toward the earth. The semazen conveys God’s spiritual gift to those who are witnessing the Sema. Revolving from right to left around the heart, the semazen embraces all humanity with love. The human being has been created with love in order to love. Mevlâna Jalâluddîn Rumi says, “All loves are a bridge to Divine love. Yet, those who have not had a taste of it do not know!”33