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Mindfulness Meditation
A few posts ago, I mentioned mindfulness meditation as my method of choice for watching what I do that causes me to suffer. There are many resources available out there that discuss how to do it, but it basically boils down to two things: First, it’s a time that you set aside for the express purpose of watching yourself. Second, when you notice that your attention has wandered or gotten stuck on something other than yourself, you bring it back to yourself again. That’s it! That’s all there is to it. There are things you can do (breathing, posture, etc.) to help keep your mind on those things, but they are not strictly necessary for this meditation.
Simple, huh?
Deceptively so.
Because your egocentric conditioning has been conditioned to preserve itself (for your own good, it would have you believe) it will do everything it can to prevent you from doing this, even for five minutes.
Possibly even for one minute.
If you don’t believe me, try it. Make yourself comfortable and then turn your attention to your thoughts. It is hard to pay attention to your thoughts when you are preoccupied with them, so try to stop thinking and just watch what happens. Watch what thoughts come up in response to that. If you notice that you’ve gotten caught up in one of those thoughts, or that you’re thinking about something that happened earlier or something that you need to do later, or anything other than watching yourself, just let go of whatever you find yourself distracted by and come back to watching.
Go ahead, try it now. The rest of this entry will still be here in one minute.
Interesting, huh? Did you notice whether many of your thoughts were resistant to what was happening, either skeptical (“Am I doing this right? It seems too easy… I must be doing something wrong.”) or bored (“Man, this is slow. There’s nothing happening. I can’t believe it’s only been thirty seconds…”) or downright hostile (“I can’t believe I’m doing this. This is stupid. There’s no way that this could help me end my suffering.”)
Did you notice that many of your thoughts are resistant?
Ironically, this phrase mirrors the Buddha’s Second Noble Truth that suffering is caused by attachments. Having resistance to what is really happening only happens if you have an attachment to the idea that there is some other way it should be.
“But what do I do with all this stuff that I see? What about all the things I see that I don’t like? What about the things that I need to get done?”
Let it go. During mindfulness meditation, just notice that it is there and let it go. Later, after you decide that you are done meditating for this session, then you can come back to it if you want to.
Which brings me to something that seems to be the most difficult aspect of this practice for many people, especially those who are just getting started: there is no wrong way to do this. If you think to yourself, “I’m meditating now” then you are, even if just for a moment. Every little bit helps. If you get caught up in some drama that is playing itself out in your life and open your eyes and realize that you’ve been dwelling on it for the past ten minutes instead of watching yourself, that’s okay. Just notice it, and acknowledge that this drama is happening, and then shift your focus back to yourself. (It usually works pretty well to focus on your breath as a way of bringing your attention away from whatever it was drawn to.) Remember, this is practice; you don’t have to be perfect. A nice side benefit of this is that you can do it any time, any place, for any length of time that works for you. If you meditate for an hour in complete silence without moving a muscle, great! If you meditate for five minutes and you fidget the whole time, awesome! You're still meditating! It's okay to fidget, and it's okay to stop after five minutes. Why go longer than that if it's okay to stop after five? Or one? Because you want to. Because there's some part of you that, after five minutes, says "I'd like to do this a little bit more. My conditioning is going nuts here, and I want to see what will happen if I watch it a little bit longer." On the other hand, if you don't feel like you want to go any longer, then there is certainly no requirement to.
The reason that I stress that there is no way to do it “wrong,” that there is no such thing as a “failed” meditation (that’s right, even if you find that your mind constantly drifted or jumped from topic to topic the whole time you were sitting, or that you couldn’t bear to sit for more than two or three minutes, it was still not a failure) is because so many people don’t meditate because they think they’re not good enough at it. “I can’t keep my mind still for more than a few seconds at a time, so I might as well not even bother,” is a common misconception among people.
Also, you may find that you use your meditation as a time for beating yourself up. You may notice yourself having certain thoughts that you believe you should not have. “Wow, I didn’t realize that I was so upset about the situation at work. I shouldn’t be so upset about it,” and then blowing them out of proportion, “I’m a horrible person for getting so bent out of shape about it.” You might even criticize yourself for not meditating harder, “There’s another thought! I’m such an undisciplined person; if I had more discipline, I’d be able to control my thoughts better. I’ve got to focus more. Rrrrrrgh!” and by the time you get up, you’re more tense and stressed than you were when you sat down. Or you might notice that you’re noticing your thinking like this, “Oh man, now I’m all upset with myself because I noticed that I get pissed off at people for little things. That’s such a horrible thing to think about myself! It’s so unreasonable! I need to be more gentle with myself.” In other words, you notice that you got upset with yourself for something, and you get upset about it. And so on and so forth.
The whole point of mindfulness meditation is to become more at peace with whatever is happening. This can happen at many levels. It means that you can accept something that you would have previously found unacceptable. If you find that you are unwilling to accept that something is happening, then you can still accept that you cannot accept that thing right now. Or you can accept that you cannot accept that you cannot accept that thing. You can go to as high a level as you want before accepting something. Or you can not accept it at any level and just hate yourself instead—but if you are truly that kind of person, then I doubt that you have bothered to read this far.
The point of this is that it is much easier to accept something outside of you if you can first accept yourself. Most people misinterpret that statement to mean that doing meditation, or some similar practice, will help them to develop themselves to the point where they meet their self-imposed standards. Accepting yourself and changing yourself to meet your standards are two very different things. Self-acceptance happens right here, right now, with you exactly the way you are. It says, “I am just fine the way I am!” regardless of what that way is. Not after you’ve lost that ten pounds. Not after you’ve built up those biceps. Not after you’ve gotten that facelift. Not after you’ve put on your makeup. Not after you’ve taken it off. Not after you’ve done that one last thing that the little voice in your head tells you you have to do before you’ll be acceptable. Now. Before any of that. You are perfectly fine the way you are. The only reason you don’t agree is because you still believe, on some level, that there is something that you have to be or do or have in order to prevent this life from being a waste, to keep from being a failure.
But don’t worry about that right now; it’s something that you’ll find that you get to as you practice. In the meantime, instead of beating yourself up for having a bad thought, or for having a thought at all, congratulate yourself for noticing that you were having that thought and come back to focusing on watching. You became aware of yourself, at least a little bit, at least briefly. The more you do, the better you’ll get at it. The rest will come on its own. The hard part is letting go of that thought or especially of that judgment, even temporarily, just while you are meditating.
And it is very hard.
So go easy on yourself ^_^
Simple, huh?
Deceptively so.
Because your egocentric conditioning has been conditioned to preserve itself (for your own good, it would have you believe) it will do everything it can to prevent you from doing this, even for five minutes.
Possibly even for one minute.
If you don’t believe me, try it. Make yourself comfortable and then turn your attention to your thoughts. It is hard to pay attention to your thoughts when you are preoccupied with them, so try to stop thinking and just watch what happens. Watch what thoughts come up in response to that. If you notice that you’ve gotten caught up in one of those thoughts, or that you’re thinking about something that happened earlier or something that you need to do later, or anything other than watching yourself, just let go of whatever you find yourself distracted by and come back to watching.
Go ahead, try it now. The rest of this entry will still be here in one minute.
Interesting, huh? Did you notice whether many of your thoughts were resistant to what was happening, either skeptical (“Am I doing this right? It seems too easy… I must be doing something wrong.”) or bored (“Man, this is slow. There’s nothing happening. I can’t believe it’s only been thirty seconds…”) or downright hostile (“I can’t believe I’m doing this. This is stupid. There’s no way that this could help me end my suffering.”)
Did you notice that many of your thoughts are resistant?
Ironically, this phrase mirrors the Buddha’s Second Noble Truth that suffering is caused by attachments. Having resistance to what is really happening only happens if you have an attachment to the idea that there is some other way it should be.
“But what do I do with all this stuff that I see? What about all the things I see that I don’t like? What about the things that I need to get done?”
Let it go. During mindfulness meditation, just notice that it is there and let it go. Later, after you decide that you are done meditating for this session, then you can come back to it if you want to.
Which brings me to something that seems to be the most difficult aspect of this practice for many people, especially those who are just getting started: there is no wrong way to do this. If you think to yourself, “I’m meditating now” then you are, even if just for a moment. Every little bit helps. If you get caught up in some drama that is playing itself out in your life and open your eyes and realize that you’ve been dwelling on it for the past ten minutes instead of watching yourself, that’s okay. Just notice it, and acknowledge that this drama is happening, and then shift your focus back to yourself. (It usually works pretty well to focus on your breath as a way of bringing your attention away from whatever it was drawn to.) Remember, this is practice; you don’t have to be perfect. A nice side benefit of this is that you can do it any time, any place, for any length of time that works for you. If you meditate for an hour in complete silence without moving a muscle, great! If you meditate for five minutes and you fidget the whole time, awesome! You're still meditating! It's okay to fidget, and it's okay to stop after five minutes. Why go longer than that if it's okay to stop after five? Or one? Because you want to. Because there's some part of you that, after five minutes, says "I'd like to do this a little bit more. My conditioning is going nuts here, and I want to see what will happen if I watch it a little bit longer." On the other hand, if you don't feel like you want to go any longer, then there is certainly no requirement to.
The reason that I stress that there is no way to do it “wrong,” that there is no such thing as a “failed” meditation (that’s right, even if you find that your mind constantly drifted or jumped from topic to topic the whole time you were sitting, or that you couldn’t bear to sit for more than two or three minutes, it was still not a failure) is because so many people don’t meditate because they think they’re not good enough at it. “I can’t keep my mind still for more than a few seconds at a time, so I might as well not even bother,” is a common misconception among people.
Also, you may find that you use your meditation as a time for beating yourself up. You may notice yourself having certain thoughts that you believe you should not have. “Wow, I didn’t realize that I was so upset about the situation at work. I shouldn’t be so upset about it,” and then blowing them out of proportion, “I’m a horrible person for getting so bent out of shape about it.” You might even criticize yourself for not meditating harder, “There’s another thought! I’m such an undisciplined person; if I had more discipline, I’d be able to control my thoughts better. I’ve got to focus more. Rrrrrrgh!” and by the time you get up, you’re more tense and stressed than you were when you sat down. Or you might notice that you’re noticing your thinking like this, “Oh man, now I’m all upset with myself because I noticed that I get pissed off at people for little things. That’s such a horrible thing to think about myself! It’s so unreasonable! I need to be more gentle with myself.” In other words, you notice that you got upset with yourself for something, and you get upset about it. And so on and so forth.
The whole point of mindfulness meditation is to become more at peace with whatever is happening. This can happen at many levels. It means that you can accept something that you would have previously found unacceptable. If you find that you are unwilling to accept that something is happening, then you can still accept that you cannot accept that thing right now. Or you can accept that you cannot accept that you cannot accept that thing. You can go to as high a level as you want before accepting something. Or you can not accept it at any level and just hate yourself instead—but if you are truly that kind of person, then I doubt that you have bothered to read this far.
The point of this is that it is much easier to accept something outside of you if you can first accept yourself. Most people misinterpret that statement to mean that doing meditation, or some similar practice, will help them to develop themselves to the point where they meet their self-imposed standards. Accepting yourself and changing yourself to meet your standards are two very different things. Self-acceptance happens right here, right now, with you exactly the way you are. It says, “I am just fine the way I am!” regardless of what that way is. Not after you’ve lost that ten pounds. Not after you’ve built up those biceps. Not after you’ve gotten that facelift. Not after you’ve put on your makeup. Not after you’ve taken it off. Not after you’ve done that one last thing that the little voice in your head tells you you have to do before you’ll be acceptable. Now. Before any of that. You are perfectly fine the way you are. The only reason you don’t agree is because you still believe, on some level, that there is something that you have to be or do or have in order to prevent this life from being a waste, to keep from being a failure.
But don’t worry about that right now; it’s something that you’ll find that you get to as you practice. In the meantime, instead of beating yourself up for having a bad thought, or for having a thought at all, congratulate yourself for noticing that you were having that thought and come back to focusing on watching. You became aware of yourself, at least a little bit, at least briefly. The more you do, the better you’ll get at it. The rest will come on its own. The hard part is letting go of that thought or especially of that judgment, even temporarily, just while you are meditating.
And it is very hard.
So go easy on yourself ^_^