Let me also add here that there are some yogins who develop such deep states of concentration that they would not have even heard the car alarm. Their awareness would have been so focused and restricted that the sound of the car alarm simply would not exist for them. But such a concentrated state, however impressive it may seem, eventually ends when the yogin has to get up from his seat. Such narrow awareness simply does not move out into the world of daily life. Nor does it help us learn how to be free where we are—with car alarms, noisy trucks, commuting, taxes, bills, and all the rest.
CHAPTER FIVE
BEGINNING MINDFULNESS MEDITATION
I HAVE HAD MANY STUDENTS tell me that they’ve tried meditation and it “didn’t work” for them, or they “just couldn’t do it.” Of course, the real problem is their misunderstanding of what meditation is rather than anything inherently wrong with them.
Many students simply are unaware that there are indeed many various approaches to meditation, along with a multitude of philosophical and religious traditions behind those approaches. They haven’t been told this or, what’s worse, they’re told that the particular tradition or school that they have been exposed to is either the best or the only true teaching.
A lot of confusion arises because many teachers and writers of books about meditation do not take the time to point this out. So statements that refer to specific practices within a given tradition or school are taken to be general statements about meditation. When students hear something different, also stated as a sweeping generality, from a representative of another school or tradition, their confusion mounts. And when they hear so many similar things from representatives of different traditions, and yet are told how unique and specific a particular practice is, they grow even more confused.
One school places attention on the nostrils while observing the breath, another has the attention placed at the abdomen or just below the navel. Some schools teach that one should begin by counting the breaths, while others say you should “note” or “label” your experience. Still others say you should never count or note. Some traditions emphasize mantras, while others eschew them.
I am not selling any particular tradition or school of thought other than the focus of mindfulness—which no tradition has a special claim to. I have practiced in the Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean Zen traditions and sat with Chinese Zen (Chan) teachers as well. I have also practiced in the vipassana tradition as espoused by S. N. Goenka and as taught by the teachers within the Insight Meditation Society. And I have learned quite a lot from a variety of Tibetan Buddhist teachers, although I have not formally practiced in that tradition. I am grateful to all of the teachers I have learned from and practiced with, but the juice of dharma has one taste. I wish to impart a bit of that taste and stay away from partisan posturing as clearly as possible.
The Buddha taught that one can, and should, practice mindfulness when sitting, standing, lying down, and walking. He further taught that one should be fully aware while “stretching one’s limbs” and while “bending over,” so it is clear that the practice of hatha yoga asanas can certainly be the locus of our practice of mindfulness meditation. However, if you do not already have some established form of sitting meditation, it may be a bit more difficult to maintain a solid, stable, and easeful awareness while doing the TRIANGLE or WARRIOR postures (See Part Three for a discussion of these.) So, for those who do not have an established meditation practice, I offer the following basic instruction.
Sitting Meditation
In Buddhist circles, it is not uncommon to hear of “formal practice” as distinguished from informal practice. Formal practice is the time set aside to actually sit, and may include other practices such as chanting, prostrations, bell-ringing and candle-lighting, or the making of various offerings. But the real heart of formal practice is just to sit, to make the commitment to do so every day, with regularity and consistency. We sit so that we can cultivate the quality of mindfulness in order to maintain awareness throughout the day. It might be said that “informal practice” is simply the rest of our lives!
Where Should I Sit?
The first order of business is to determine a good spot within your house to sit. It should be relatively quiet and secluded. While it would be a great boon if houses were designed with what Thich Nhat Hanh calls a “breathing room,” for most of us it will probably not be possible to have a room devoted to the practice of meditation. Even a corner in your bedroom that is set aside just for this purpose will do nicely. I had a student in the East Village of New York City who lived in a very small studio, and she would sit between her bed and her dresser. From under her bed she would remove a shoe box that contained a small candle, some incense, and an incense holder, and a cloth that she would then drape over the top of the box that became her little altar. The candle and incense helped her to create a warm and inviting environment conducive to her practice.
The most important thing is that you create a specific place that you will return to each day for practice. Eventually, the association of that space with your practice will become so strong that you will find yourself able to move more quickly into your practice. Whether you see this as mere Pavlovian conditioning or as the creation of a specific energetic or sacred space, it does indeed have a beneficial effect on one’s practice to sit in the same place daily.
When Should I Sit?
Experiment at first to see what works best for you. Then set up a schedule and stick to it with determination—but beware of rigidity. If you find yourself not looking forward to your practice and instead begin to see it as a burden or “one more thing to do,” then something is wrong and should be changed. While meditation is a deeply psychological, existential, and experiential practice, and quite a lot of difficult “material” may arise, the overall experience should not feel like a chore or distasteful drudgery.
Through monitoring the experience of many people over many years, I can say that most practitioners find the early morning, just after arising, to be the best time to meditate. It is a time when the mind is relatively calm and not yet caught in the daily whirl of activity. I consider the transition from sleep to daytime activity a great time for meditation. I do some physical practice to work out any stiffness and get respiration and circulation “primed,” and then I sit. If for any reason daily activities intrude in this routine, I know that it may be difficult to sit later in the day, so I make sitting a high priority.
The potential benefit of sitting in the evening is that we can transition from the workaday world and unburden our minds of all the stuff we have accumulated during the day. Sitting in the evening can be a real tonic to the soul! However, many people find that if they schedule their sitting too close to bedtime, they may be struggling to stay awake. So, again, see for yourself. In the beginning, try various times of the day and see what is most conducive to consistent, deep, and relaxed practice.
In the beginning, a once-a-day commitment should be made. Eventually, you may find that you desire to practice more than once a day. Just remember not to force your practice. Let it grow and develop organically. If you over-commit, you run the risk of giving up totally on your practice because it may feel like it drains too much of your time. When practice has seasoned, you may well find yourself wanting to meditate even longer on those days when you’re facing more stress than usual.
There’s a story about Mahatma Gandhi who, when told he would be meeting with three different world leaders that day, is reported to have said, “Then I had better meditate for twice as long this morning.”
How Long Should I Sit?
There is no magic formula. Most beginners begin with twenty to thirty minutes, but for others five or ten minutes can be challenging enough. What is most important to keep in mind here is that this practice of mindfulness is not a practice of masochism. While a certain amount of discomfort—physical and mental—is bound to arise, real physical pain is not necessary. Some people make it into an endurance test to see if they ca
n “take it.” To me this just seems like a self-aggrandizing activity that has little to do with compassion and wisdom. Two related points are helpful in determining how long you should sit. First, find out what length of time is comfortable for you to sit at this point, and then add a few minutes, perhaps five, to stretch your “comfort zone.” This will help you to move gracefully into a different relationship with discomfort but shouldn’t be too much of a strain. Second, try to establish a firm minimum and stick to it. But on those days when even that is impossible, try to sit even if for just a few minutes. It is the regularity of going to your cushion (or chair or bench) and sitting every day that is important. And, though I hesitate to add this, one of my earliest teachers of meditation said to me once, “If you miss a day of meditation, just miss it.” In other words, don’t carry around the burden of having missed it throughout the day and use it to whip yourself into guilt. And then when the next day comes, “just sit.”
What you do want to avoid is “winging it”—sitting haphazardly when the feeling strikes you for as many minutes as you happen to feel like it. Instead, make a contract with yourself before you sit that you will be sitting for x amount of time. This can be seen as a minimum. You can sit longer if you wish. But, if you decide to just sit for only as long as you like, you will too easily give into restlessness or boredom and curtail your meditation. This will only serve to strengthen your habitual reactivity to cling to the pleasant and push away out of aversion all that you find unpleasant. As an experiment, and to garner more self-awareness, you might try sitting haphazardly for a week or so—but not as a regular practice.
To time your meditation, you can set a timer or a watch, or simply place a watch where you can glance at it periodically. Be careful not to slip into just watching the clock and counting down the time left to go. Check the time briefly, and then return to your meditation practice. Try not to check too often though.
What Should I Do While Sitting?
Perhaps the most important thing to establish for meditation is a posture that is steady and comfortable. In Appendix C you will find detailed instructions along with photos of various seated meditation postures. Notice that in all of them a straight back is maintained. I should mention that a “straight” back actually has natural curves—moving in at the lower back, out in the upper back, and in again at the neck.
To maintain the integrity of these natural curves, whether you are sitting on the floor or on a chair, I recommend that you use a cushion or pillow to gently tilt the pelvis (the front of the hips) slightly forward and down. The pillow helps to keep your hips higher than your knees, which is important. The shoulders should be completely relaxed, with your shoulder blades flat on your upper back and not rolling forward. This helps keep the heart open and the breath can flow more fully.
The crown of the head lengthens upward as if reaching to the sky. You might think of the gracefulness of African and Asian women who balance heavy loads on their heads. The chin is tucked in just a bit to release strain in the back of the neck and to keep the throat open. Imagine a line of force moving from the perineum up through the center of the torso and out through the top of the head.
Your eyes can be closed or slightly open and gazing down at the floor about eighteen inches to three feet in front of you, or whatever distance you find most comfortable. Do not stare but keep a soft focus, as if you were looking at something either in front of or beyond the floor. Some schools suggest keeping the eyes fully open, but this is usually after working with them partially open.
Interestingly, the reasons given for keeping your eyes open in some traditions is to encourage you to stay connected to your surroundings and to keep yourself from growing sleepy or daydreaming. The reason given by other traditions for closing your eyes is to keep you from becoming distracted by your surroundings! After years of sitting with my eyes open and not ever really getting distracted, but still occasionally getting sleepy, and sometimes having wild, eyes-open visions or hallucinations, I began to sit in a vipassana tradition that encouraged eyes closed. I didn’t find myself getting sleepy any more than I had with my eyes open, and I was not plagued by images arising—but I would occasionally find myself distracted. The moral of this story is that whatever I was told to do, sometimes I’d get sleepy or lost in fantasy and sometimes I’d get distracted. This is the nature of the mind. Try both ways and see what works for you. And then consider trying to challenge yourself occasionally with what doesn’t work so easily.
Your hands can be kept on your lap or gently resting on your knees. Or you can use any of the various mudra (hand positions) that have been used since time immemorial. Several of them are described in Appendix C, but the one I use most is dhyani mudra, also referred to as the cosmic mudra. For this, let the fingers of your nondominant hand rest on top of the fingers of the dominant hand, palms turned up and the tips of your thumbs just touching.
Then turn your awareness to your breath.
Anapanasati is the awareness of breathing in and out. Take a few deep and moderately forceful breaths and then settle into your natural rhythm of respiration. This is a practice of simply watching the breath, being with the breath. Doing this practice, we do not imagine it moving into and throughout the body, or as different colors. Instead, we are letting ourselves experience the process of breathing, unmediated by any sense of how we “should be” breathing. Let the breath come and go. See for yourself that sometimes it is short or shallow, sometimes deep, sometimes it is soft and subtle and sometimes it can be rough. Most of all, we see that it changes over time.
Various schools have their opinions as to where in the body to place your attention to the breathing process. Some suggest keeping the awareness focused on the area of the nostrils, not following the breath into the body, but keeping the awareness just at the nostrils like a ticket taker at the movies—“taking” each breath as it comes. Observe the sensations at the nostrils and perhaps just at the top lip.
Other schools recommend placing your awareness at the abdomen or what the Japanese call the hara—the area about two fingers width below the navel. “Nostril adherents” say that placing attention on the nostrils develops a more refined and sharp concentration. The belly, they say, is too broad an area for the development of concentration. “Belly adherents” say that focusing here helps get us out of the head and into the body. It develops a more spacious sense of awareness. My opinion: they are both right.
My suggestion is, again, to try both ways for yourself and see what suits you best. But do not mix them up in any one sitting. In fact, try one way for at least a week or two and then try the other way for a week or so, and then make your choice and stick with it. This goes for all my suggestions where there is a choice as to how you can practice. Never try more than one approach in any one sitting. In any inquiry we make, we do not want to have so many variables that it’s not clear what is linked to what.
As an aid to developing concentration most schools, but not all, suggest either counting breaths or noting them. If you choose to try counting, please, please remember, the practice is not “to count to ten” (or whatever number you are working with) but to observe the breath. There are no gold stars if you get to ten. You simply go back to one. Counting is just a tool to help keep you focused on the breath.
So, as you breathe in, mentally count to yourself “one”; as you breathe out, count “two.” The next in-breath is “three,” the next exhalation “four,” and so on until you reach ten. As it is the nature of mind to want to be quite active, you will find yourself beginning to think as you count. In fact, do not be surprised if you start to think of something else (something better to do, perhaps!) between “one” and “two.” When this happens, see that that is taking place, let it go, and return to “one.” So you may, in fact, never get to ten for the first few weeks or months. So what? This becomes a problem only if you choose to make it one.
At first, you may find that you have gotten completely caught up in some fabulous s
tory line—a regular Gone with the Wind spectacular. When you notice this, let it go and return to “one.” You may find yourself counting way beyond “ten” before you become aware that you have lost your concentration. Other times you will catch the thought way before it can develop. These thoughts are light little flashes of discursiveness that go nowhere.
One of my first meditation instructors put it this way: Imagine you have been given the task of standing at the Port Authority bus terminal in New York City, observing people getting on to the bus to Albany, 140 miles away. Your job is to just stand there and watch people get on and off the bus. But instead of doing that you get caught up in all the activity, you get on the bus, and you don’t realize this until you’re just past Kingston, 110 miles away. So you get off and go back to the bus terminal in New York. Over time, your lapses grow less frequent, and you catch yourself ever more quickly. Maybe you realize you’ve wandered before you’ve even left Manhattan. Later, after more practice, you catch yourself just as you’re about to board the bus. Your concentration has grown stronger, as has your mindfulness, which is the quality of mind that notices that your concentration has lapsed.
Mindfulness Yoga Page 10