Meditation

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Quote.pngWe know the outer world of sensations and actions, but of our inner world of thoughts and feelings we know very little. The primary purpose of meditation is to become conscious of, and familiar with, our inner life. The ultimate purpose is to reach the source of life and consciousness.
— Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Habits

Habits form a very fundamental aspect of our perception. Habits are the result of momentum in Conceptual Space (the medium or system in which our conscious content resides). It takes energy to change the structure of habits currently in place (the state), without applying energy the same patterns will keep on rolling and gaining inertia from the energy supplied to them by conscious attention.

Make sure activity is purposeful and then do it in being. Don't partake in activity merely to overcome boredom, because that increases the habit of restlessness. Boredom can only be overcome properly by building the habit of returning to the presence moment.

One of the first obstacles one comes across when learning meditation is to overcome powerful desires to scratch itches or to resolve unclosed loops of thought. The first step to overcoming any such problems is to increase the habit of awareness because the earlier the discrepancy of action is spotted the less momentum it will have gained, and so it takes less energy to resist its attraction and return to the role of observer (the Shamata way). Another method is to focus awareness on the sensation itself and try to understand its true source (the Vapissana way).

Such associations of habit can be built up for all patterns of thought that lead to various kinds of bad habits and suffering in everyday life. They also provide a good means of doing many small meditations as discussed by Tenzin Palmo in the quote below. For example you can build up the association of feeling an itch with the action of returning to a state of observation to eventually replace the normal action of scratching the itch with a state of awareness, over time leading to increased peace.

Quote.pngPeople say they have no time for meditation. It's not true!, You can meditate walking down the corridor, waiting for the computer to change, at traffic lights, standing in a queue, going to the bathroom, combing your hair. Just be there in the present, without the mental commentary. Start by choosing one action during the day and decide to be entirely present for that one action. Drinking the tea in the morning. Shaving. Determine, for this one action I will really be there. It's all habit. At the moment we've got the habit of being unaware. We have to develop the habit of being present. Once we start to be present in the moment everything opens up. When we are mindful there is no commentary - it's a very naked experience, wakeful, vivid.
— Tenzin Palmo

Meditation as a balancing exercise

Balancing exercises such as tight-rope walking, prolonged hand stands or some yoga asanas are an excellent analogy to use for understanding how to do meditation properly and why progress can be so slow for many people.

The idea in the basic Shamata type of meditation is to maintain a continuous state of present awareness of all the senses and the mind. I used the term "basic" not because it's easy (it takes some years of regular practice to master), but because it's sole purpose is to prepare the mind for other more specific types of meditation.

The problem is that the mind continually wanders, refusing to stay in the present moment and identifying itself with specific mental objects to the exclusion of all else. One must repeatedly remind oneself of the goal and return again and again to the present moment. With a lot of practice the moments of unconscious identification become shorter and shorter, and eventually one can feel that they're continuously very close to the present moment almost as if they're wobbling around pure presence as if it were a central point of some kind.

This is where the analogy of balance fits so well. For example, using the analogy of tight-rope walking we notice the same kind of phenomenon. At first we don't achieve much time standing on the rope in our practice sessions, most of the time is spent falling off the rope - this is analogous to becoming unconsciously absorbed within thoughts or images in meditation.

After we practice a lot we'll eventually be able to spend a lot of time standing on the rope - maybe even the whole practice session, but it's not easy. A lot of concentration is required, and we can't stay still and relaxed on the rope - we're constantly wobbling. This is exactly like the feeling of wobbling around the state of pure presence in meditation, we can stay very close to pure presence - often passing through it for short periods, but it's not easy and if we stop concentrating we soon fall into a trail of thoughts.

So how does this analogy help us? Well the main thing is that some of the things which are successful for practising a physical balancing exercise are also helpful for meditation. The most important thing is to remain relaxed and happy, if you get angry and frustrated when you fall off the rope, then tension will build up in the body and your awareness will become more closed. The best approach is just to be happy that you're practising something you like, and just get straight back on the rope, no frustration, no judgement, no comment. Just as important is to remember what you're there for - if you fall off and just relax laying on the ground a lot, progress will be very slow. Just keep getting right back on while staying relaxed and focussed - you know that if you keep doing this you can't help but get good at it. For meditation it's exactly the same, you realise that you've fallen into a sequence of thoughts, just go straight back to pure awareness without any judgement or comment - and remembering what you're there for, the presence is the only place to be for progress to happen.

Getting back on the rope: Another thing we see with tight-rope walking is that you can't simply jump back on the rope any old how, or you'll fall straight back off again. You need to have a specific process for getting back on while carefully avoiding adding any horizontal momentum that may get out of control and throw you off again. The simplest one I've seen is to sit on the rope and then carefully bounce until you're bouncing high enough to get your feet under you onto the rope. Again the analogy holds up well for meditation. Once you've caught yourself thinking, simply returning to presence isn't enough because the thinking aspect of your mind has built up momentum and will throw you straight back into thoughts again. A good process for getting back into consistent presence is to go back to awareness of the breath. Breathe slowly and deliberately just aiming to stay present for this one breath. Breathe in observing intently until all the inward flow has become absolutely still, then slowly release the breath doing the same until the outward flow has become absolutely still. Breath as if your state of presence is a very timid animal that could be scared away by the slightest movement. Repeat for another breath, and so on until you feel stable enough in presence to add another sense such as sight into your awareness. Remember to try and stay aware of the entire visual field, not just a single object, as this will encourage a greater state of openness.

It will eventually get easy! One more important thing that we all know about balancing exercises is that it doesn't stay hard forever! For example, we know that if we keep practising tight-rope walking for years, we'll get so good at it that we'll feel as comfortable on the rope as we do on the ground. We'll be able to stand on one foot, read a book and even sleep balanced on the rope. In this level of skill there's no wobbling, we're able to remain perfectly still on the rope for as long as we like, and it doesn't take any effort to do it.

When we achieve this level of skill in meditation, we've achieved Shamata, also known as "pure witnessing". We can stay purely in the present moment and it doesn't take any concentration or effort to do it. All other more specific forms of meditation such as inquiry into the nature of mind (Vipissana), creative visualisation exercises or opening energy channels and chakras will all be immeasurably better if they're practised on top of a stable foundation of Shamata.

Duality, verbalisation & randomness

This pure present state of Shamata is called "non-dual" because there is no distinction between subject and object, or indeed between anything. This is the natural state of the mind, it's only when we focus in on some specific thought or impression that these divisions are created. All concepts of self and other such as one's position with respect to other things, or even the idea of ourselves and what we perceive as being different, are mental abstractions that are not present in the natural state of pure presence.

One important thing to note about this process of conceptualisation is that it's not about verbalisation. Verbalisation, or mental commentary, about the self and the perceived objects is another level of abstraction that, if it occurs at all, comes after the act of focus has already yielded the sense of subject and object.

For example, today in meditation I was in the present moment, and the wind kept blowing plastic cups off the table behind me onto the floor every minute or two. Every time this happened an involuntary mental impression of the cups on the floor would immediately arise in my mind. Although I was unable to avoid this impression arising, I noticed that I could choose whether to focus on the impression to the exclusion of everything else, or to stay in the present allowing the new impression to co-exist with the other sensory perceptions.

In the case of focussing in on the mental impression of the plastic cups, I noticed that I had a clear sense of myself in the room surrounded by other objects including the table and the cups on the floor. This all occurred without any mental commentary about the situation, it was all part of the deeper focussed view of the impression.

This example of the plastic cups also highlights another interesting and helpful aspect of Vipissana (inquiry into the nature of mind), which is that the random events can offer a lot of insight into this nature because they produce a spontaneous and unforced response in the mind. If one is in a state of presence when these events occur, and can maintain this state throughout the incident, the nature of these responses can be clearly observed. Some examples of these random incidents are sounds produced by surrounding activity, bugs flying through the field of vision, spontaneous sensations in the body and even spontaneous internal visions and emotions.

The Witness State

The so-called witness state is an important milestone in meditation practice. One important thing I've found with regards to developing the witness state is that the idea of "watching thoughts" can be misinterpreted to mean a kind of "inspection" or "mentally noting" each thought that crops up, but this is not what it means. Rather it refers to watching all the conscious content at the same time. To watch a particular thought is to direct ones awareness away from the centre. By focusing awareness on all conscious content, the witness state will soon manifest - for small moments at first and then eventually unbroken for the entire meditation session.

Once in the witness state, the mind becomes very still after some time. Even though the mind is much calmer it still has a lot of content in it, but there's a sense of dream-like detachment from it. One can clearly see that there is no difference between internal and external content - all of it is conscious content.

A good exercise that helps bring about the witness state is to meditate watching the ocean or a river, in a way where you're looking at all the ocean but never focussing on any specific wave, and keeping the eyes still and focussed on the entire scene in general. This same method of "focussed non-focus" is the same process used to observe thoughts without moving away from one's centre, but it is much easier to learn and practice when looking at a wide scene of natural motion. When the witness state emerges while looking at a dynamic natural scene an amazing new way of perceiving nature forms. Similarly amazing results emerge when perceiving other natural phenomena too such as listening to bird song or even watching swarms of insects.

Quote.pngWhen the mind is quiet, we come to know ourselves as the pure witness. We withdraw from the experience and its experiencer and stand apart in pure awareness, which is between and beyond the two. The personality, based on self-identification, on imagining oneself to be something: 'I am this, I am that', continues, but only as a part of the objective world. Its identification with the witness snaps.
— I am that (6)

Quote.pngThe witness is not a person. The person comes into being when there is a basis for it, an organism, a body. In it the absolute is reflected as awareness. Pure awareness becomes self-awareness. When there is a self, self-awareness is the witness. When there is no self to witness, there is no witnessing either.
— I am that (50)

Quote.pngIt is only when the observer (vyakta) accepts the person (vyakti) as a projection or manifestation of himself, and, so to say, takes the self into the Self, the duality of 'I' and 'this' goes and in the identity of the outer and the inner the Supreme Reality manifests itself. This union of the seer and the seen happens when the seer becomes conscious of himself as the seer, he is not merely interested in the seen, which he is anyhow, but also interested in being interested, giving attention to attention, aware of being aware. Affectionate awareness is the crucial factor that brings Reality into focus.
— I am that (62)

General tips

  • At the beginning of the meditation session, mentally review your motivations and methods for doing the practice
  • Use a posture for meditation that you don't use for anything else.
  • Keep the spine straight and still, stillness in the spine allows the rest of the body to stay still more easily after a few minutes.
  • Stay in a state of poise - it's as if your state of presence is a very timid animal that will run away if it notices any movement.
  • Keeping the eyes still helps to keep the mind calm and the attention from wandering.
  • The best way to keep the eyes still is to focus on an object in front of you, but try and stay aware of everything in your field of vision, not just the object.
  • If the eyes are closed, try and see through the third eye instead which helps prevent eye movement (it's easier than it sounds).

Other articles about meditation

See also

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