Meditation is making me crazy!

Wisdom Quarterly editors interview a new meditator

 (whiteshutterbox/flickr.com)

AngerDespairTranquilityRainbow: struggle for inner peace (David Stuart/Zazzle.ca)

  

"Though one may conquer a thousand times a thousand adversaries in battle, yet one is indeed the nobler victor for conquering oneself. Self-conquest is far better than the conquest of others.
  
"Not even a deva, mara, or brahma [angel, demon, or god] can turn into defeat the victory of a person who is self-subdued and ever restrained in conduct" (Dhammapada, Chp. 8, vv 103-105).
  

Crazy?
Yoga says unite with the breath (spiritus, prana), unite with GOD (godhead, Brahman), unite with wisdom (transcendental knowledge, jnana).

I say meditation is driving me crazy! I feel settled and calm, but when I begin to sit, my mind races and my emotions bubble up until all I want to do is stand up. Can this be normal? I'd rather have peace of mind than a sitting-practice.

  

And do you?

Well, no. That's where it all falls down. I'd like more peace of mind, but sitting cross-legged doesn't seem to be the way to it.

At first it can seem like quite a strain. Relax. Let your mind wander. But look at the wandering rather than participating or getting "caught up" in it.

Let it wander? I thought the whole point was to bring it back?

It is. But you can't very well bring it back if it hasn't wandered. And when it is brought back -- gently, smiling, with tremendous love for it -- it will settle down and become quite useful. The mind is miraculous. We expend it until, spent, it is of little use to us and often becomes quite harmful.

Sit. Watch the exhales as you utterly let go. Let go each time you exhale. Do this and see what happens.

But I thought I had to watch the entire length of the breath. Isn't that the point?

It is. But begin by watching the breath go out and with it let it take your cares, concerns, and angst. Rather than trying to control the process, let go.

It seems hard.

Friendship immediately makes an end of enemies.

Any idea may seem hard, but in practice it just is -- pardon the expression -- what it is. Which is just practice. When you approach Peaceful Mind, you will become annoyed with anyone interfering with your meditation practice. Why? Because meditation will have started becoming a fountain of very pleasurable interest and effervescent joy. It's like when you thumb through those magazines or flip through the musical selections on your phone, you don't want to be disturbed. They are sources of soothing ease. Imagine a more powerful source.

Sitting?

Meditation. Mindful (present moment) awareness of what is. Whatever is. Wherever and whenever it is -- standing, laying down, walking, running... There is always a space for awareness. "Stand in the place that you are," as Guru REM teaches.

It's like a war in there, in  my head.

  

Better to overcome yourself in that war than a thousand adversaries in a thousand wars. Befriend yourself and you will put an end to that "enemy" then and there.

"Spiritual" advice replete with thousands of verses is of no value if it has no useful meaning, no practical purpose. A single line is more valuable if hearing it one is pacified.

"Although a thousand lines one composes,

A tome of meaningless lines, one supposes,

For far better would be a single useful one
If by hearing a person is thereby calmed."

(Wisdom Quarterly translation, Dhp. 8:101)

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Overcoming difficulties: Let it R.A.I.N.

Tara Brach [adapted from her book True Refuge (Bantam, 2013)]; Wisdom Quarterly

 

Tara Brach (examiner.com)

Years ago some American Buddhist teachers began to share a new mindfulness tool that offers in-the-trenches support for working with intense and difficult emotions. 

  

Called RAIN (an acronym for the four steps of the process), it can be accessed in almost any place or situation. It directs our attention in a clear, systematic way that cuts through confusion and stress. 

The steps give us somewhere to turn in a painful moment. And as we call on them more regularly, they strengthen our capacity to come home to our deepest truth. Like the clear sky and clean air after a cooling rain, this mindfulness practice brings a new openness and calm to our daily lives. 

I have now taught RAIN to thousands of students, clients, and mental health professionals, adapting and expanding it into [True Refuge]. I’ve also made it a core practice in my own life. Here are the four steps of RAIN presented in the way I’ve found most helpful:

• R Recognize what is happening
• A Allow life to be just as it is
• I Investigate inner experience with kindness
• N Non-Identification.

RAIN directly de-conditions the habitual ways in which we resist moment-to-moment experience. It doesn’t matter whether we resist “what is” by lashing out in anger, by having a cigarette, [by sex, drugs, rock 'n roll or rap], or by getting immersed in obsessive thinking.

Our attempt to control the life within and around us actually cuts us off from our own heart and from this living world. RAIN begins to undo these unconscious patterns as soon as we take the first step.  

  

Recognize what is, accept that it is, investigate what's going on inside, and realize that there's no reason to identify with situations. More

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Three Minds of Meditation

Seven Dharmachari and Ven. Vivekananda (Bodhi Vihara), Wisdom Quarterly

"The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly" - the Buddha (Cadi-cliff/flickr.com).

  

Three "minds" become evident while meditating. There is the Automatic Mind, the Choice Point (conscious awareness or adverting power), and the Peaceful Mind.

Automatic Mind is the thinking that just happens. It can hardly be stopped or slowed down sometimes. It is the source of "monkey mind" (restlessness, worry, clutter, angst, and anxiety) and awkward creativity, projections into the future, and recollections/reconstructions of the past. It is usually miserable and what we call NOT-meditating.

  

And while this may be true, it leads to meditating. 

  

Peaceful Mind is a wonderful state of serenity, a non-judgmental receptivity of perception. It is one of the preliminary goals of meditation called samatha. It purifies and intensifies the mind and is best used in the service of developing insight (vipassana). It itself, however, does not lead to insight or enlightenment, but it does lead to many other good things.

 

When people experience this state of mind, they call it "meditation." And they call the previous work that got them there not-meditating. It can also be called zen (jhana, dhyana, ch'an) if it is particularly deep and "absorbing."
  

• NOTE: Peaceful Mind should not be confused with sleep or unconsciousness. It is the exact opposite. For it is fully conscious but centered on a single object. Or it can be strong but divided among just a few objects post-absorption, as in when one is engaged in insight-practice (vipassana). Stop first, then insight.
• George Quant speaks of a Fourth State of Consciousness, one beyond sleeping (dreaming), waking, and unconsciousness. It may be referred to as a super-conscious state, a thoughtless awareness, an effortless peace (usually preceded by lots of successful effort).

How can one go from restless automatic thinking to restful peace? It is possible because in between these natural states there is a Choice Point (to borrow Sarah McLean's term). This is when our active consciousness elects to catch itself daydreaming, wandering, nodding off, or engaging in discursive thinking when we are trying to meditate. We are meditating.

 

Meditation is catching ourselves and consciously (and blamelessly) returning to the object we have chosen to sit with for a predetermined span of time. Whereas wandering is not meditating, looking out for wandering and doing something about it when it happens is being actively engaged in mediation.

This behavior eventually leads to mastery, to a very strong and well controlled Peaceful Mind, or what most everyone agrees counts as "successful meditation."

We are successful much more often than we think just for noticing and applying the antidote rather than giving the mind free rein, which it has most of the day on most days.
  

"Ordinary mind" and "beginner's mind" take on new meaning in Zen. Ordinarily, we are just wandering discursively. Beginners struggle. But after considerable practice, we return and see it with different eyes. There's nothing supernatural about Peaceful Mind. It is  our birthright; it is how we were as infants and beginners; it is our ordinary (original) mind. But beginning meditators have a hard time believing that. When we come back to it as if for the first time, as C.S. Lewis noted, we can really appreciate the work we have done and how we have evolved.

So the next time you sit and watch, be glad to catch the mind wandering away. It gives rise to the Choice Point, that mind that knows-and-sees and does something about it. It is the way to Peaceful Mind.

Bring it back gently and without shaming or scolding. That noticing and doing something about it was "meditating." And it is soon blessed with Peaceful Mind, heightened consciousness, and a new normal -- being cool, calm, and collected with no apparent effort. Then if this mental state, this Peaceful Mind, is put to the task of developing liberating-insight, one may see and touch nirvana here and now.

 
Example: Farmers in the Fields

What would you grow if you could grow anything?

A farmer works her field for months. Others laugh because nothing is seen growing there, whereas their fields naturally have useful things growing on them. Finally after months of this, the other "farmers" come to laugh and criticize the one farming fruitlessly.

They ask, "What are you doing wasting your time here?"

"Wasting my time?" the farmer asks. "I have been preparing my field, weeding it, plowing it under, fertilizing it by letting it lie fallow, fixing the soil, getting it ready for seeding. How about you? How did you prepare your field?"

"No, it just grew that way naturally. We're very good farmers because we didn't have to do anything but sit and watch it grow."

"How will y'all control it, master it, guide it to your ends? That is, how will you get it to grow what you want? How will you increase your yields with useful plants you favor and minimize plants and pests you do not want?"

"We have no idea about that," the others confessed.

"Yet you call yourselves 'farmers'?"

In just the same way, a person who struggles in meditation is actually meditating -- if s/he learns to recognized the departing mind and keeps bringing it back (without criticizing it for having departed).

Then when she or he sits down to gain Peaceful Mind, it is accessible. And when insight is desired, or when a persistent problem (e.g., one of the Five Hindrances) arises, an antidote (e.g., one of the Five Factors of Absorption) is applied to regain Peaceful Mind. This, then, is indeed a "farmer."
  
The others are just watching plants grow. And when a problem arises, they are put off their farming to go in search of a solution. They have little access to anything beyond Peaceful Mind to imperturbable peace founded on wisdom. For there is a wisdom that has gone beyond, gone beyond beyond.

When that is reached one will exclaim, "Oh, what an awakening!"

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Meditate to Tibetan singing bowls (audio)

Brian William Green (video); Amber Dorrian, Wisdom Quarterly 

   

Breathe in, breathe out to the sound of the sea.

Sit down, lay back, listen, and relax. Tibetan singing bowls transport us to the brink of serenity meditation, which means letting go and following the gong. It may lead to sleep (seeyouinsleep.com), a sign of needing more rest, or to rarefied fields of perception. Hold attention in one place, and watch the strengthened mind widen the field of consciousness relying on nothing more than its own natural capacity. It's easy. But it cannot be made to happen. Watch and marvel when it happens on its own. All we can do is prepare the ideal conditions for it. Five such conditions are the Factors of Absorption (jhan'anga). Happiness is just such a factor. And so we at Wisdom Quarterly frequently say:
  

"There is no way to happiness; happiness is the way!"

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Alternative to meditation (video)

Jeff Foster, Lifewithoutacentre.com

The easy alternative may seem harder than standard "meditation" if we are unable to let go.

  

Beginner's mind (De lioncourt/flickr.com)

(LWC) There is an alternative perspective on approaching "meditation." It is somewhat paradoxical intellectually but makes perfect sense in practice when it is/seems effortless. 

  

It is akin to the jhanic Theravada approach or Zen's "just sitting" (zazen), known by other names in various Buddhist lineages and referred to as "presence" and the "power of now" by Eckhart Tolle.

  

It leads to concentration/collectedness (samadhi) not insight (satori). It results in serenity (samatha) not enlightenment (kensho). It may lead to an experience of non-duality (advaita) but not liberation as the historical Buddha described it in what only later came to be called vipassana (insight meditation).

• Let yourself be meditated (Quantum Meditation)

Jeff Foster regards meditation not as a "doing," a process, a state ,or a goal to reach, but as an effortless noticing and welcoming of present-time experience. Ultimately, meditation is not something one does but something we already are -- the vast open space of consciousness, which is already intimate with all forms.

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66-Day Meditation Challenge Climax (video)

Aura Vasquez (Against the Stream), Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly

Aura (studioajh.com)

HOLLYWOOD, California - Meditating warriors, the 66-Day Meditation Challenge is reaching its climax.
 
Come sit with us, Monday through Friday 7:00 am, Saturday 5:00 pm, Sun 11:00 am and 6:00 pm. How has the challenge impacted your life? (Leave a private comment).

"Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without."
  

"When we calm mind and senses, we become conscious of an [illusory] inner self."

"Mindfulness is the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn't more complicated than that. It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it." - Sylvia Boorstein 
  
"Self-discipline, although difficult, and not always easy while combating negative emotions, should be a defensive measure. At least we will be able to prevent the advent of negative conduct dominated by negative emotion. That is sila, moral ethics. Once we develop this by familiarizing ourselves with it, along with mindfulness and conscientiousness, eventually that pattern and way of life will become a part of our own life." - The 14th Dalai Lama (Live in a Better Way: Reflections on Truth, Love and Happiness)

Wiki Weekly Food for Thought

• The Five Hindrances of the Heart/Mind
• The Seven Factors of Enlightenment 
• The Noble Eightfold Path
• The Four Noble Truths

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Creative Advantage

Half-day with Caitriona Reed, June 9, Santa Monica

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