Meditation, Yoga, Body and Mind Connection
Buddhists have
generally assumed that the body is not that important for the practice of
meditation, that meditation just concerns the mind. After experiencing a lot of
pain and sleepiness during meditation, many beginning and out of shape meditators
feel they are “meditating more but enjoying it less;” they get discouraged and
may discontinue the practice. After trying certain yoga breathing and
bending/stretching exercises offered in retreats many get more encouragement
and hope for re-establishing their practice. They begin to “meditate more and
enjoy it more.” There is very little written about the integration of Yoga with
Buddhist meditation, about body-mind connection. This small booklet has been
requested to fill this need.
The
Physiology of Meditation:
Can
Yoga and Buddhist Meditation Mix?
It has been a
widely held belief among traditional Theravada Buddhists that the practice of
Yoga and Buddhism do not or should not be mixed. Yoga comes out of the Vedas
and Hindu tradition with its central belief in the “Atman” or “Supreme Self,”
which appears to be diametrically opposite to the Buddha’s teaching of “Anatta”
or “NO-Self.” In addition to that is the stigma of the Buddha having practiced
yoga as self-mortification and ultimately rejected it (self-mortification) as futile.
And it doesn’t help that, outside of India, Yoga is perceived and practiced
mainly as a system of physical exercises for health, energy or relaxation, not
to mention a good figure.
At some vipassana
meditation centers there are rules against doing yoga exercises while
undergoing intensive retreat; they are considered to be a distraction from the
pure inward mental focus or an escape from dealing with the physical pain of
long motionless sitting or from boredom. I have experienced these disapproving
attitudes myself (from others) during my initial training in Asia, and when
starting to teach vipassana retreats at which time I included some yogic
breathing and exercises. There may be a degree of truth that a number of
practices of yoga may not be applicable to some forms of Buddhist meditation.
However, it doesn’t mean that we have to “throw the baby out with the
bathwater.” The Buddha, in the opening segments of some prominent Pali suttas,
recommended sitting cross-legged (presumably the full lotus yoga posture) and
keeping the spine erect to begin sitting meditation. But little else concerning
specific physical conditioning, besides good health and walking meditation, is
mentioned in the Pali texts, the oldest of he Buddha’s teachings. In the Ningyma
School of Tibetan Buddhism, a system of physical awareness exercises called Kum
Nye has been developed and taught to Western practitioners. Many Chinese
Buddhist practice Tai Chi, Qi Gong or other martial arts. Other than this,
physical exercise as an aid to meditative/spiritual development has been
largely neglected among Buddhists, besides sometimes being frowned upon. This
has resulted in some earnest Buddhist meditators resorting to being “closet
yogis,” not wanting to be seen doing yoga.
However, the
recognition and popularity of Hatha Yoga practice among Western Buddhist
meditators is increasing. Even some prominent Western Dhamma teachers have
recently “come out” to more or less endorse it. A well-known Yoga magazine has
done a feature article on Yoga practice for Buddhist meditators. This current
Western Yoga practice is confined primarily to the notion of Yoga being a
system of beneficial body and breathing exercises to promote health, cure
physical problems, increase physical energy, etc….all of which are beneficial for meditation. Long-time meditators,
as well as beginners, who have suffered through stiff, sluggish, or sick
bodies, and restless or drowsy minds have experienced noticeable, sometimes
dramatic, improvements in their meditation after practicing Yoga exercises even
for just a short time.
To be fair, Yoga
is an ancient spiritual science of body and mind that also has as its goals,
“Enlightenment” and “Moksha” (liberation from “Samsara,” the repeated rounds of
birth and death), as does Buddhism. And, like Buddhism, Yoga has its own
version of the “Eight-fold Path;” “Ashtanga Yoga” (Eight-Limbed Yoga”). “Asana”
and “pranayama” (posture and breath control), which comprise current popular
Yoga, are the third and fourth steps of that eightfold path. They precede the
higher “inner practices” of concentration and meditation. Under the Yogic
system, purifying, strengthening, and balancing the respiration, circulation,
glandular, and nervous systems are seen as necessary prerequisites for deeper meditation
to progress steadily toward the goals of “Realization” and “Enlightenment.”
Whether the Hindu/Yoga goal of “self-Realization” and “Moksha” is equivalent to
the Buddha’s “Enlightenment” and “Liberation” is beyond the scope of this
article, and could be a testy debate among scholars.
What would
probably not be a testy debate is the
connection between the body and mind, at least on the relative level where most
of us live and meditate most of the time. The body affects the mind and the
mind affects the body. When one is sick, in chronic pain, or weak in energy,
one finds it difficult to put forth the effort to meditate. If the body is
stiff with poor blood and life force circulation, if one cannot keep the spine
erect and sitting is uncomfortable, then meditation is less enjoyable, painful,
discouraging and of slow progress. Only those who have already attained a high
level of meditative development could perhaps transcend the body/mind
connection. Physical pain and drowsiness are two main obstacles that hinder the
beginner in meditation. A regular practice of Hatha Yoga can help correct and
alleviate some of the physical and energy blocks that make meditation more
difficult than it needs to be. And this holds true for other body/energy based
disciplines like Tai Chi and Qi Gong, both of which are also gaining a modest
following among Buddhist meditators in Western countries.
The main purpose
or effect of Hatha Yoga is to purify and condition the body/mind nervous system
so that it becomes a fit vehicle for the practice of meditation. Meditation
happens through the nervous system. The mind is affected by the state of the
nervous system. Purifying and strengthening the body allows you to progress in
meditation without undue physical hindrances such as poor circulation,
inability to keep the back straight, pain due to stiff joints or tense, tight
muscles, low energy, or poor health. Hatha Yoga deals with generating and
circulating generous amount of vital life force called prana (Chi in Chinese)
throughout the entire body/brain nervous system. You can think of prana as the
invisible cosmic electricity which pervades the Universe and which sustain all
life forms, animate and inanimate. If you believe in Astronomy, then each star
is a sun and all of their energy combined pervades the entire solar system.
Since there are millions of suns throughout the Universe, it is not hard to
imagine and/or sympathize with this concept of prana. We all know what happens
when exposure to sunlight is cut off for too long. Similarly, prana is not
oxygen, hydrogen, or nitrogen, but it is what gives life to these essential
elements which keeps our cells alive. Prana is referred to in Yoga as the
“cosmic plasma.”
This body, any
material body, is made up of billions of cells. Prana life force must pass
through each cell to keep it charged up. This is similar to how a battery is
kept charged by the steady current flowing from the positive to negative
post. If the flow of the current is
interrupted then the battery loses its power and the battery becomes dead.
Sickness, disease, undue aches and pains, and even mental problems arise when
not enough life force is available and/or is not circulating properly to
maintain the body’s defenses and other vital functions. The breathing and physical
exercises in Hatha Yoga are designed to keep this prana life force flowing
through the body in a harmonious way and in perfect balance. (See fig1.)
The body receives
most of the prana through the breathing process. Smaller amounts come in
through the food eat and the water we drink. Prana circulates through the body
along innumerable invisible etheric channels called nadis, which allow the life
force to reach all areas/cells of the body. In yoga anatomy, these nadis pass
through major nerve plexi (such as solar plexus) and those located along the
spine. These nerve plexi are associated with centers called chakras that have
specific emotional and psychic characteristics associated with them. The
circulation of prana can become inadequate and inhibited due to poor shallow
breathing, slouching posture, stiffness and inflexibility of muscle tissue and
joints, and even by negative emotions such as anger, lust, stress, anxiety and
fear. When the flow of prana is inadequate, disturbed or blocked, pain and many
other physical and psychological problems can ensue. Restoring the adequate and
free flow of the vital force is most important for the overall health of the
body/mind system. This is all the more true and pertinent for people who are
beginning to meditate or who have been meditating but find that their progress
is stagnating or degenerating; they are meditating more but enjoying it less.
The ABCs or
foundation of yogic breathing is learning how to breathe into the three main
sections of the lungs. (See fig.2) This is called three-part breathing or
complete breathing, (vibhaga pranayama). The lungs have three main
lobe/sections; the lower or abdominal lobes, the middle or intercostal lobes
and the upper clavicle lobes. Each of these lobes affects the flow of prana
life force to a specific part of the body, Air in the lower lobes affect the
flow of prana to the pelvis, hips and legs; mid-lobe breathing affects the
whole trunk section of the body and the vital organs therein; upper lobe
breathing sends prana up to the neck, head/brain and arms. If we do not breathe
sufficiently into these three lobes, then those corresponding body areas do not
receive enough vital force to maintain optimum correct functioning; therefore,
many associated problems may arise. It is a fact that most people under normal
conditions breathe only about one tenth of the lung’s capacity, usually only a
small amount into the lower or middle lobes. Rarely does air reach up to the
high lobes unless one is doing some heavy exertion. Nature made the lungs the
shape and size they are for a good reason—to use fully! But, because of
slouching postures, modern stress, neuroses and other negative emotional
states, breathing in most people is short, quick and shallow. Because of short,
shallow breathing, the body must breathe quickly in order to get more oxygen to
keep the cells alive.
From a yoga point
of view this is unhealthy. Healthier breathing is slower, deeper, complete
breathing that evenly bathes the whole body, including the brain, with gentle
waves of cosmic electricity. An ideal rate of breathing involves taking between
four to eight seconds to breathe into all three lobes, holding the breath for
three or four seconds (to allow for the complete absorption of the oxygen into
the blood), allowing four to eight seconds for breathing out, and pausing one
or two seconds before breathing in again. Training one to breathe like this,
even just for three to five minutes several times a day, allows more oxygen and
life force to be brought in and evenly distributed throughout the whole body in
a relaxing mellow way so respiration rate and heart rate may go down. This is
one of the main reasons why Yogis practice pranayama breathing; to regulate,
purify and slow their respiration in order to facilitate the practice of deeper
meditation. Breathing in this regulated way also helps as an initial
concentration technique to draw attention inside and get the mind off the
external world and out of our thoughts.
In addition to
three-part breathing, the body itself needs to be strong and flexible so that
it can handle and distribute the vital life force in the most effective way,
especially in terms of aiding meditation. Asana (literally, firm seat) is the
third step of the Yogic Eightfold Path. Traditionally this seat is one of the
various cross-legged sitting positions; generally, the padma asana or lotus
posture. In order to develop deep concentration (Samadhi) the body should be
held still for long periods of time (one to three hours) with the spine erect
so that the breath and prana energy can flow freely, allowing the mind to
become calm, concentrated and focused. If the joints and muscle tissue are
stiff and inflexible, then blood and life force has difficulty penetrating
them. Numbness, discomfort, and pain easily arise to disturb the mind,
hindering concentration. This is where yoga exercises come in.
There are two
main ways of doing yoga exercises. Postures can be held for varying periods of
time—thirty seconds to three minutes. Or, they can be done as rhythmic
movements in coordination with deep slow breathing. In this latter method, one
goes into a position with a slow (4-6 seconds) in-breath, holds the position
with the breath a few moments, then returns to the starting position or
opposite direction on a slow (4-6 seconds) out-breath. One pauses a moment or
two and repeats the sequence two more times for a total of three repetitions.
Then, one takes a longer pause to relax and feel the subtle body sensations
before going on to different exercises done in the same flowing, mindful way.
It is this style
of doing yoga exercises, coupled with deep slow breathing, which I have found
to be of the greatest benefit especially for practicing body-based vipassana
meditation. Awareness of the breathing is the first foundation of mindfulness.
Coordinating slow, even breathing with the repetition of fairly simple bending
and stretching movements generates a powerful but soothing current of
life-force sensation which can be noticeably felt. It tranquilizes the nervous
system naturally and helps the mind become calm and concentrated. If done just
before sitting in meditation it allows for a nice light breathing/body
awareness and one feels nicely grounded, hitting the cushion already meditating
or having created the space for deeper mediation.
In
yoga,
the body is regarded as a temple that needs to be fit enough to sustain the
development of spiritual awareness. The mind has to function through the
body/brain nervous system to accurately experience and understand the
conditioned world in its three characteristics, “Anicca,” “Dukkha,” and
“Anatta” (impermanence, suffering, and “not-self”), in order to transcend
attachment/clinging to experience the spiritual dimensions. If respiration and
circulation are faulty, this disturbs the nervous system and other vital organs
that, in turn, give rise to many disturbances in the mind/body. This makes it
all the more difficult to develop mindfulness, concentration and wisdom.
In brief, this is
the physiology of meditation. This outlines the benefits of yoga on meditation
practice and demonstrates how it is appropriate for vipassana and other
Buddhist meditators.
The
ABCs of Mindfulness Meditation
The main
teachings of the Buddha are summarized and centered in the Four Noble Truths:
Suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering, and the eightfold path
to end suffering. It is no secret that the world is full of confusion , hatred,
madness, and suffering. This suffering arises because people are trying to
manipulate or change the external world to suit their viewpoint and satisfy
their desires; they are caught up in greed, hatred, and delusion. The Theravada
Buddhist approach advises a person to first change one’s inner world, to change
and purify one’s mind; then the external world will gradually come along and be
more peaceful. When people purify their own mind and learn to live peacefully
and harmoniously within their surroundings, then they will be able to live at
peace with the whole world. This is just a brief and basic overview of the
Buddha’s teachings. Mindfulness and meditation play the most important roles in
bringing about this inner mental transformation. The inner transformation
brings about the outer transformation.
In Buddhist teachings
taking care of the body is not often addressed. But the truth is that the mind
operates through the body. The mind is not separate form the body and the body
is not separate from the mind. They are intimately connected, especially for
the day-to-day activity of ordinary persons. If the body is sick and weak, if
it has tired blood and/or poor energy, this will affect our life. Because of
poor shallow breathing and stiffness and inflexibility in the body, our psychic
energy, the nervous system energy, is not able to flow freely throughout the
body. Thus, the body and mind remain lethargic and dull, or will be easily
excitable and restless. Our perceptions and thinking ability won’t be very
orderly and clear. So Yoga practice emphasizes and enhances having a healthy
nervous system and body, having good posture and blood circulation. The posture
is important in meditation to keep the spine straight.
Most people have
difficulty in meditation because they are not able to keep their back straight.
This is because we sit in chairs most of the time; when we travel in the car,
sit at the computer, watch television or sit at the dining table, people are
usually slouching or hunched over. So the trunk muscles are not very strong and
it is difficult to keep the back straight. It becomes a constant battle to your
back and head erect in order to have a clear and relatively painless
meditation. Despite keeping the back straight, however, there will still be a
certain amount of physical discomfort and pain involved in meditation. Learning
how to skillfully deal with physical pain and mental pain is a large part of
meditation. There is a saying: “Pain is a fact of life, suffering is optional.”
When people are born into this world pain
is “a given;” they’re going to experience pain. But the struggles against pain
and the mental anguish that arises is optional. When you have pain and then add
mental suffering onto it, then you get “double trouble.” There is also a
mathematic formula you can remember: “suffering = pain × resistance.” The Buddha’s teaching and meditation practice is not
about removing pain. However, it is about the lessening and eventual
eradication of the causes of suffering.
The simplest,
most basic definition of mindfulness is “to remember.” To remember what? In the
Dhamma teaching, mindfulness is very specific. It means remembering the present
moment, remembering what the body is doing right now and remembering what the
mind is doing right now. Normally, our body is doing one thing and the mind is
doing another. We might be eating or driving a car but we are often lost in
thought and/or distractions. The first stage of mindfulness then is to bring
the mind back to the body, remembering what the body is doing. The beginning of
mindfulness practice is mindfulness of the body. The body is always in the
present moment, it is always here and now. Now you’re sitting. That’s what the
body is doing right now. But, as you will see in meditation, after five minutes
of sitting your mind may have gone traveling around the world several times
already. So, when your body is sitting you should be mindful that it is
sitting; when breathing in and out, you should be mindful of breathing in,
breathing out. At any time of the day the body is sitting,
We use our
centered attention on the body to act as a home base or anchor in order to
restrain the wild mind, to tame the “monkey mind.” The mind of the untrained
person is constantly thinking about this and that, getting lost in worries or
anxieties, is in the past or future, is running here and there all over the
inner world or all over the external universe. This is what produces stress,
tension, anxiety, and suffering. The mind is usually lost in the past and
future; all problems arise from dwelling in the past or the future. When the
mind is resting fully in the present moment no problems can exist. This is an
essential but hidden truth. So the basic practice is remembering what the body
and mind are doing right now. You remember by directly feeling your body: you
feel the weight or heaviness of the buttocks pressing into the seat; you feel
the way your feet are tucked under your body; you feel the straightness of the
back or the head balanced between the shoulders; you feel the hands touching
together. You are aware of “sitting” and aware of “breathing in—breathing out.”
Breathing
awareness forms a special focus of concentrated mindfulness. In the beginning
we want to develop what is called “deep slow breathing.” The breath and the
mind are related. The quicker and shorter your breaths are, the more agitated
your mind is. However, the slower and deeper the breaths are, the more calm and
peaceful the mind is. That is because the body needs oxygen to live. Every cell
in this body needs oxygen to do its work, but because we often breathe in a
very shallow way, the cells do not get enough of this essential life force. We
have to breathe faster and the heart and lungs have to work harder. This causes
wear and tear in the body and agitation in the nervous system. When you breathe
deeply, you get enough oxygen in one breath. When you hold the breath in for
two or three seconds, even more oxygen will absorb into the blood and enter
into circulation. So the heart does not need to beat faster. The body and mind
become more peaceful and we can get into meditation more easily.
What you need to learn when starting
to meditate is to establish a good foundation for the practice. We talk about
establishing a long-term foundation because the practice of meditation is a
continuous life-long process. Most people sit in a slouching posture that
constricts the abdomen and rib cage/chest so the lungs cannot expand fully; the
body does not get enough oxygen, and the cells in the body are half dead. In
meditation this results in a constant fight with pain and drowsiness. Establishing
a good foundation will help the mind go into deeper meditation more easily. I
have seen many people whose meditation stagnates because they did not build up
a good foundation. That is why I stress so much about how yoga helps, how
important the posture and breathing is. Don’t worry about getting into deep
Samadhi (deep concentration) too quickly.
One misconception about meditation
is that you have to block out all your thoughts. It is true that thoughts
distract from meditation, but you can’t block them out. You need to learn to
observe and be aware of them, to not get lost in them, and keep coming back to
remember, “breathing-in/sitting, breathing-out/sitting.” Thoughts will still be
coming and going but so long as you are linked by mindfulness to the
sitting/breathing body you will become totally lost. You can maintain some
sense of centeredness. What we are trying to develop is being grounded or being
centered in the body, which is the same as being in the present moment. This
helps us see clearly what is happening. The body is like a tethering post. In
the game of tetherball, when you hit the ball, the ball will go around the
post. If the chain is broken the ball will fly away and perhaps be stolen by
thieves or squashed by a passing car. In the same way, if the attention gets
lost in the past and future, loses mindfulness, it can be stolen by outer
distractions or inner thoughts; then defilements and suffering arise. The post
is the breathing body and the ball is the mind. The rope is mindful attention
that connects the mind to the body. When you hit the ball on a rope, it goes
around but does not get lost. In meditation the breathing body is the center of
the awareness even though sounds and thoughts still arise and pass away in the
mind. The calm awareness of breathing remains in the middle, so you don’t get
exhausted. People get lost in their thoughts because they are not grounded in
the present moment of “Now,” or they go to sleep because too many scattered
thoughts have drained their energy.
The basic practice is using the
breathing body, in whatever posture, as the focus of present moment attention.
The secondary objects are the external loud sounds, bodily discomfort, itching
sensations, and scattered thoughts that will distract you. You have to mentally
note these potential distractions, to “know” that you are hearing, feeling
and/or thinking, and getting distracted by something. This “knowing” will help
you to let go and come back to the center, to sitting and breathing. If you
have a pain or an itch, you do the same thing by a mental recognition that
“discomfort is pulling at the mind.” This will allow you to let go of it, get
objective distance to the discomfort, and relax around and through it.
The meditation
will go deeper. This is the basic practice. Now let’s do it. Afternoon Dhamma
Talk
I would like to
talk about two aspects of our mind and life. From the Dhamma point of view,
life the way we know it is created by the mind, each person’s mind.
One of the most
profound statements of the Buddha was: “The world, the arising of the world,
the ceasing of the world, and the path leading to the ceasing of the world, is
right within this five or six foot long body with its sense organs, feelings,
and consciousness.” For the Buddha, the word “world” is synonymous with
suffering. So suffering arises and ceases right here in this body and mind. The
mind is the most important thing to understand, but the mind operates so
quickly that it is difficult to catch hold of or see. For this reason the
Buddha taught us to approach it through the breath/body. We use the
breathing/body as the gateway or threshold to directly perceive our thoughts or
intentions. In this way, we can make progress to purify our bodily actions,
speech, and thoughts that are the source of our kammic actions bringing
suffering.
The two aspects
of our mind are the active and passive, or the aspects of doing and being. We
are called human beings, but I think a more accurate name would be “human
doings.” This is because we always are doing something. I don’t think many
people have experienced “pure being,” when the mind is at pure, absolute rest.
When the mind is resting in the present moment, this is “being,” because the
mind is not doing anything at that time. It does not go to the past or future,
but quietly rests in the “Now.” It is like a car with a perfectly tuned engine
that is quietly idling in neutral gear, or a cat sitting in your lap gently
purring. In the same way, the mind rests in present moment, knowing, or “awareness.”
It is not going anywhere or doing anything. When we are touched by something,
the mind usually gets excited. It is like driving a car when you start to shift
through the different gears, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th
and then into overdrive. The minds of most people are normally in the state of
doing. Even while sleeping we are dreaming, which is another doing. Most people
have never experienced pure being, which is like a “wellspring.” It is the life
force which infuses the body and mind with energy. This is the universal life
energy of “awareness: which we usually are cut off from and have no idea of,
because we are caught up in doing and becoming. We don’t know how to rest in
the present moment. When you have a day off or a holiday, and you say that you are
going to rest, you might go to sleep, play golf or work in the garden. These
things may be all right, but they are not resting. The hardest thing for most
people to do is to sit down, not move the body, close their eyes and not go to
sleep. Not many people can do it for more than a few minutes before they become
bored, agitated or anxious, unless of course they are meditating. Ordinarily,
the mind becomes restless and is not accustomed to non-activity and silence.
The mind becomes restless, wants to do something, and creates activity. This
usually makes the self or “ego” feel more alive. When the mind is active, it
will be moving between the past and the future, just like a pendulum of the
clock that is constantly moving back and forth in order to create time. When
the mind rests in the present moment, time starts to disappear because time as
we experience it is created by the mind, not by the rotation of the Earth.
So, how do we
experience “being” or “awareness?” From the moment you wake up in the morning
until the time you go to sleep at night, the body and mind are always doing
something. Even though the body may not be moving much, the mind will usually
be active. Thinking is often harder work than using the body. The brain needs
large quantities of oxygen and the breathing will have to be quicker to supply
the oxygen. With all this activity, we tend to lose our centeredness and
mindfulness and make mistakes. We get dragged into the past and pushed into the
future; we get caught up in anger, craving, worry and delusion.
The mind is
always one step ahead of or behind the body. You can see this during walking
meditation. We have to learn how to move more slowly and mindfully, to
downshift the body and the mind so that they may be more integrated and abide
more calmly. From time to time we need to stop what we are doing completely,
come to the present moment of breathing/body, to reconnect and dip into silent
awareness or “being.” It is the state of the unconditioned mind, the passive
mind, the mind resting unto itself where there is no subject or object. This is
the original or pure nature of consciousness. When we get caught up in
unmindful subject/object activity we will get caught up in greed, hatred and
delusion. We become cut off from the source of life. Our energy is drained at
the end of the day and we became exhausted. This happens because we do not
mindfully stop and pause during the day in order to get reconnected to the
energy source.
One of the great
practical benefits of practicing mindfulness meditation comes from learning to
slow down, pause and stop from time to time. Train yourself to come back to the
present moment, feel the breathing/body, get regrounded, if only for a few
moments or for one minute, from time to time during the day. I like to teach
minute meditations or “M&Ms”. This is where you pause, freeze, stop what
you are doing and feel your feet pressing the floor, take a slow deep breath
and relax. Let go of what’s going on in the mind and come back to the physical
reality of the present moment or “Now.” You remain like this for one minute and
then mindfully continue what you were doing. You try to do this at least once
an hour throughout the day. This practice will be of a great benefit especially
if one cannot manage to get in longer meditations. This will a tremendous help.
Our body and mind
are always moving. If the body stops but the mind keeps on moving, you can see
the gap that is created, you can more easily see the thoughts. When we do slow
movements like walking meditation you will be able see the thoughts more
clearly and you don’t get lost in the thoughts so easily. Moving slowly also
helps us to be aware of the bodily sensations. Awareness is always there, it is
not something you create. When you are lost in the active state of mind, you
lose touch with that underlying awareness or “being.” Mindfulness practice is
learning how to get back in touch, reconnect with that ever-present reality
which lies just below the surface of the active “I” consciousness. It is really
not that difficult to do.
Insight
Meditation Exercise
The following
meditation exercise is given for those who may not already be practicing a form
of meditation, who do not have the guidance of a teacher, or who may just want
to see what this is all about. For it’s only through actually tuning one’s
awareness to the present moment of experience that insight and direct knowledge
gradually unfold.
For beginners its
helpful to find a place to sit where it is fairly quiet and comfortable. Sit
with the back and head straight but relaxed, not rigid. Place the hands
comfortably in the lap and gently close the eyes.
You can begin by
doing a few rounds of deep, slow breathing, feeling the movements of the
expansion and contraction of the abdomen/chest area. Then discontinue the
controlled breathing and let it come to its natural rhythm.
Let go of
desiring to experience or identify with anything in the world. Cast out all
habitual thinking about events concerning the past, present, or future. Abandon
all anger and ill will over which you may have been brooding, which might still
be festering inside.
Now develop and
feel a genuine loving-friendliness and compassion for all living beings,
wishing them happiness and freedom form sorrow. Wish that people could live in
harmony without contention and desire to dominate, that people could abide
happily and peacefully in the “blissful wisdom/knowledge” of our true nature.
These are
preparatory reflections which are helpful so that the mind feels what it is
about to do and to quiet the “monkey-mind” to some extent by setting it free
from the day’s activities and the pent-up emotions which may be boiling inside.
You can take a
few deeper, slower breaths if you like but then let your breathing come back to
its natural course. Now bring the awareness to feel the sitting posture, how
the body is placed. Spend a few minutes just letting the awareness move through
the body starting where the buttocks are touching the floor, just feeling the
hardness or softness of that contact. Then, let the awareness move through the
legs, feeling the way they are bent, where they touch the floor, and the touch
of the clothes on the skin, etc. Slowly let the awareness come all the way up
through the body, just feeling all of it, letting the different sensations come
and go. When you arrive up in the face area, feel where the lips are touching
together, feel the wetness or the dryness, the softness; feel the tongue
resting in the mouth; feel the air going in and out of the nostrils; feel the
eyelids resting on the eyeballs, feel the eyes in the sockets and the muscles
around them. Really experience these sensations. Feel the hair on the head,
where it may touch the ears or back of the neck or shoulders.
Now, from the
point on the top of the head, let the awareness drift down through the body.
Become aware of the general outline of the entire sitting posture in an
attitude of “over-seeing awareness,” as if the awareness were resting slightly
behind the body.
Now, become aware
of the area in the abdomen/stomach or in the chest. Feel the movement of
in-breathing and out-breathing in the place the movement is felt the most
clearly. This is important (to locate) as this rising/falling will be the
training device for initially cultivating an attentive and precise mindful
awareness. Just feel the movement of the in-breathing from beginning to end. Be
aware of a pause, if any, and then feel the movement of the out-breathing from
beginning to end. Know it by feeling it. Sometimes it is helpful in the
beginning to make a mental note of “rising” while the breath is coming in, and
a mental note of “falling” while the breath is going out. However, if you can
keep the awareness close to the movement without the noting, then don’t bother
with it. Just be aware of the arising, brief duration, and ceasing of the
in-breath, and the arising, brief duration, and ceasing of the out-breath, and
keep the outline of the sitting posture in the background.
If the mind
wanders away or thinking intrudes, just notice it with bare attention as soon
as possible. You can make a note of “thinking, thinking” if this helps the mind
stay more alert, and then simply bring awareness back to the rising/falling
breathing and sitting posture. Don’t get uptight if the mind wanders a lot or
thinking turns into thunder, this will happen. Just do your best to keep a
detached distance and non-personal identification to the thought, letting it
arise with awareness, but also letting it go as best you can. Keep the
awareness close to (focused on) the rising/falling movements and the posture in
the background, not grasping at anything, not pushing away anything. Keep the
whole body soft, eyes relaxed, back erect, head balanced, shoulders loose; a
state of “restful alertness” with no holding anywhere.
Different
sensations will be felt arising and passing away in the body; they come and go
like water bubbles. Some may persist if they take your attention, then try and
feel them changing even while they seem to be lasting. If they cause discomfort
or pain, be aware how this affects your mind, and create a gentle, allowing
space for this to happen in; don’t fight it, don’t tense up. Say to yourself,
“Relax, relax,” keep the awareness detached and bring it back to the
rising/falling breathing and sitting posture.
Sounds may be
heard from outside. Note them with bare attention, “hearing, hearing;” it’s
only sound, no object in the sound. Just let the sound and the hearing blow in
and out of the mind as through an open window; no grasping, no pushing away.
Gently return to the rising/falling breathing and sitting posture.
Sense the stimuli
and the awareness of them arising and vanishing through the senses/mind. Try
and discern the pair-wise or simultaneous arising of the material stimulus with
the conscious-ness of it and its vanishing. Develop the first insight knowledge
of rise and fall.
Become like an
empty house with nobody at home to answer the call knocking at the sense-doors;
only sensitive, detached registering of each visiting stimulus as it arrives,
finding no one at home. Uninvited it comes, uninvited it goes.
Let the mind lose
the identification and reaction to the sensory impingements, knowing that in
reality there is no “I” to which these experiences belong. Open up and allow
the feeling of “I” and separation to fade out of the awareness, the whole
process simply occurring by itself. Come back periodically to center on the
rising/falling/sitting.
Be aware of the
mind’s comings and goings; thoughts, ideas, planning. Scheming, daydreaming,
restlessness, worrying, boredom, tiredness, sleepiness, doubts, etc. Note these
with bare attention, knowing that they are merely transient, empty, conditioned
habit activities of mind; do not get involved with them. If they are not
quickly and precisely noted for what they are, you will get lost in them. Come
back to the rising/falling/sitting for balance.
Keep only the
unstained awareness of the sequential moments of sense experience
“arising/vanishing,” “arising/vanishing,” “arising/vanishing,” grounded on this
body with its sense organs as the base for the whole experience.
When this
contemplation becomes strong, then tune the awareness to viewing only the
dissolution of the formations and experience the moments of seeing, hearing,
smelling, tasting, touching, and thinking as “vanishing,” “vanishing,”
“vanishing” into the void of mind. See them as crumbling away at incredible
speed
Do not allow the
body to slump or the mind to fall into a reverie, but maintain an erect and
relaxed posture and an alert, but composed, detached on-looking awareness.
Develop the
insight knowledge of appearance as terror (nothing to hold onto or claim as
“me” or “mine”), and appearance as danger (if we identify with and cling to
these formations, sorrow arises).
See how the
clinging mind tries to catch hold of and stop these empty, disintegrating
sensory vibrations and thought, and how it builds up our whole world of
subject-object experience out of them. Realize that all theses formations and
our whole, objectified world, even the individual “I” consciousness is merely a
projection of the deluded mind, it has no concrete separate reality beyond the
mind, it is merely a grand illusion, Mara’s net. Chuckle at it; don’t let it
really scare you.
Then reflect on
the knowledge of the state of peace: non-arising, non-attachment is safety,
Nibanna. Cultivate the knowledge of dispassion, desire for deliverance,
reflection and equanimity.
At this point
along the way great peace and bliss may arise, colored spots, brilliant lights,
or ideas that you’ve made progress. These are merely signs that a certain
degree of concentration and insight has developed. Actually, they are called
“the corruptions of insight” because if you are attracted and try and hold onto
them, then this will result as in attachment to anything else—disappointment;
they will not last long anyway. You must observe these signs with detachment,
knowing what they are, and let them take their natural course. You don’t have
to try and make them go away either. They will fade away on their own while you
resume your normal contemplation of rising/falling/sitting.
Although the goal
in meditation practice is to help the mind transcend beyond the thinking and
conceptualizing process, this is accomplished by “talking itself out of
itself,” so to speak.
One method to
help get the feeling of no-self or emptiness is to view all the
sense-experiences as happening in the sky or in space, as not having a body
involved at all. View all of the moments of hearing, seeing, touching,
thinking, smelling, and tasting like shooting stars vanishing into the void of
space.
Try and get the
feeling of being in the “eye of a cyclone” where it is perfectly calm and
placid while the outside is whirling about in utter chaos. Remain undisturbed
and unaffected by any sensory assailment. Do not even hold on to the idea of
being in the “eye of a cyclone,” let that also fade into the great ‘big sky
awareness.’
Let the mind
expand and merge into the ocean of awareness; the state before “I”
consciousness and attachment gave birth to the reflex habit patterns of the
mind. Let this state of sublime bliss and peace grow and permeate the whole
experience.
These
contemplations should be practiced over and over again, at least once or twice
a day, preferably in the morning and evening. In this way, over time, you will
be able to develop this awareness and bring it in to the activities of your
daily life. This is done by maintaining awareness of whatever you are doing,
whether you are sitting, standing, walking, lying down, eating, washing, going
to the toilet, talking, or thinking. Whatever the body and mind is doing in the
present moment, a sit happens, you should simply be aware of it, knowing it all
to be not-self. Also, whenever possible during the day, come back and feel the
rising/falling of the breathing for a few moments or longer. This will help
bring the other reflections to mind. All of this will help to strengthen the
periods of sitting meditation. This, in turn, will enable you to keep this
awareness in your daily activities. These two types of practice mutually help
to strengthen each other.
You might think
this is a difficult thing to do. In the beginning it may be so and it may even
seem a bit strange. But effort is grounded on faith in knowing it can be done,
knowing why you are doing it, and by anticipating the advantages or benefits it
will bring. Step by step, the initial resistance and strangeness is overcome.
Then the whole practice of present moment awareness will gradually unfold and
flow freely and effortlessly. In this way, one can break through self-delusion
and one’s actions and thoughts will manifest from a selfless base grounded in
“Wisdom” and “Compassion.” What is more, many of the body’s aches and pains and
other things that used to bother you will be less intense and you will
experience a sense of ease and calm pervading your whole being/life. You will
experience the peace and happiness of the spiritual realm of the mind which
none of the passing trials and tribulations of the phenomenal world can greatly
disrupt, and a whole new attitude towards life will develop.
These are the
benefits and advantages of practicing meditation to transcend the
identification with and clinging to the five aggregates and break through
“Self-Delusion.”
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