I will soon meet with about 60 people to discuss meditation practice with them. My idea will be to try to motivate them to meditate and do so on their own for a while. Of course, a good sized group will include people with many different motives and goals, some of which they may not even recognize themselves.
A friend told me yesterday that he looked forward to attending the session. He had gotten some information from his pastor but found that when he tried, he “couldn’t concentrate.” Other friends have said similar things.
The subject is an odd one. Sitting still, concentrating on your breathing or a spot on the wall isn’t complicated and doesn’t require much in the way of equipment. The subject of what to do and how to do it is often presented in two major forms, one in which the meditator simply puts aside thoughts of content when they occur, returning over and over to a watchful but blank state. The other way practices noting what thoughts arise, observing them for what they are and then letting them pass away.
Just about everyone I read on the subject agrees that the second approach, observing one’s passing thoughts and feelings, is more valuable for the practitioner than the first of gently shelving thoughts. However, the observation of thoughts is more difficult since it leaves the door open wider to getting hooked. The practice of mediation can do many things but in general, Americans tend to want the benefit of becoming more aware of what they are allowing to occupy their attention. Being more welcoming to thoughts, more interested in noting them for what they are about, offers more of a chance to get into allowing a given thought, feeling or image to take the mind off on an everyday and seductive trail of further thinking, analysis, entertaining and developing particular content. Such getting hooked unconsciously and unawares is what mediation practice aims to lessen.
No matter which way one starts, everyone agrees on the “magic moment” when the meditator realizes s/he has slipped into typical thinking and puts that line of thinking off and returns to bare awareness. It is that magic moment which trains the mind in self-awareness.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, MD is often credited with breaking through the resistance in Western medicine to recognizing meditation for the powerful and valuable tool that it is. In one of his most recent books, “Coming to Our Senses”, he likens the mind to the eye. We can agree that the eye sees and the ear hears. In like manner, the mind/brain thinks. The healthy ear will not stop hearing and the mind will not stop thinking. But practicing awareness of the mind’s tendencies and directions helps us live better.
I suspect some people feel they “aren’t doing it right” when thoughts continue to arise. The mind is arranged to keep producing thoughts, regardless. It is deciding whether to harbor and entertain them that is the valuable practice.
I plan to introduce the group to focusing on a visual target and returning to it when they notice they have allowed other things to occupy their vision and returning to a state of openness when they realize they have engaged in continuous thinking. I hope to persuade them that finding the need to return is not at all a sign of failure but is actually the valuable essence of the practice. Doing so for 10 minutes a day is a very valuable addition to one’s routine.
