MEDITATION TIP OF THE WEEK

MEDITATION TIP OF THE WEEK IS A WEEKLY SERIES OF VERY SHORT, EASY TO REMEMBER, AND BASIC TIPS ON MEDITATION. PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK, IS IT HELPFUL?

For many of us who have learned, tried, failed and/or succeeded in meditation, there have been (or still are?) times when our meditation practice goes something like this:

Sit. Think. Try to meditate. Work at meditating. Sit some more. Think some more. Work harder. Think some more. Work even harder. Get fed up. Stop meditating….sound familiar?

When this happens, meditation can simply become another time when our thoughts and emotions take hold of us. What I’ve learned in my experience, and from what I’ve learned from those who have mastered meditation, is that the only difference between a stable meditator and someone who’s struggling with it is in the difference on how one deals with thoughts, sensations and emotions that arise.

What makes meditation “work” isn’t about whether thoughts arise as we’re practicing, it’s about whether we let our mind go astray when they arise. If we can view our thoughts, sensations and emotions like clouds arising and passing in the sky, and not “work” at trying to rid our mind of them, then we can find some ease in our meditation practice.

What “works” in meditation isn’t really about work, it’s about letting go of the work…but that’s not so easy. That’s because we’re so used to getting results from our efforts that we persist in trying to “do meditation” or “get meditation done.” And…that’s not what meditation is about.

For me, this was one of the hardest things to get over when I first began meditating. It’s not like we can just do nothing and learn how to meditate, right? We do, after all, have to take the time to practice mediation. And, we have to have a method or some means to learn how to meditate.

When we meditate, we use the method that we’re familiar with, and practice allowing our mind to be free from too much effort in trying to meditate. This freedom from effort is what prevents us from working too hard on our meditation. When we find that we’re working too hard at our meditation practice, we “drop” our method and remain in the present, aware of even the difficulties that we’re having, without making too much of them.

What I’ve found helpful is that when I meditate, even when it’s not “working,” there’s a great benefit to just sticking with it. AND, if I can stop trying to meditate when I’m meditating, and just “be,” then my meditation seems to “happen” more.

So, meditation is not about doing as much as it is about simply being…undistracted…relaxed in an open state of mind.

What I’ve been taught and what’s worked for me is that meditation is simply a state of being, allowing whatever arises to arise, without grasping after or pushing away anything that we experience. You could almost say that meditation is a state of grace, where we are so open that we allow everything to remain, exactly as it is, without the need to manipulate or change anything.

I’m not saying that meditation is about following after everything that happens, indulging our mind in our fantasies, daydreams and distractions. There’s a difference between allowing phenomena to arise, like clouds passing by in the sky, without following after them (that’s how we meditate) and allowing them to arise and then following them with our mind (that’s how we don’t meditate).

Mostly I find that when meditation “isn’t working” for me, it’s because once I become distracted, I start worrying too much about whether my meditation is working or not. When that happens to us, and we experience our meditation as “not working,” we make up even more thoughts about how our meditation isn’t working, and then our meditation doesn’t work even more, so we make up more thoughts about our thoughts about how our meditation isn’t working, and then…blah, blah, blah.

Instead, what if we just practice meditating, and regardless of how it works (or not), remain as undistracted as we can, coming back to our practice when we notice that we’ve become distracted, and enjoying the time that we’ve spent changing how we relate to and interact with our mind?