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Chapter 2

A view on meditation

In the first chapter, we defined and briefly explained what mindfulness is, stressing the importance of this practice and its capacity of quieting our minds. In this chapter, we will look at meditation, which is the most basic and straightforward spiritual tool that can help us develop and sustain our mindfulness. So what is meditation?

Meditation is an ancient technique that uses the focusing of our awareness on either our breath (which is called Shamatha meditation, or peaceful-abiding) or on our body sensations (which is called Vipashyana meditation, or insight meditation), as a way to calm our minds and access our conscious state of being. There is a fine difference between both, and they yield quite different results: while Shamatha meditation aims at cleaning the mind and helping us find that peaceful state of being, where only our awareness is present, Vipashyana meditation aims at gaining insights about the Truth of this world, at large, that will, in turn, open our minds and our eyes, towards a simple and direct experience of our lives. We can see that in both cases, we are giving our mind a point of focus that it can start following, so we can be anchored in the present moment, being aware of what is going on inside and around us. In this book, we are going to relate mostly to Shamatha meditation, or classical breathing meditation, as it is mostly interlinked to the concept of mindfulness and it is the best type of meditation for any beginner. In Shamatha meditation, by giving our mind a point of focus, or by directing our attention towards our breath, our mind’s usual internal chatter is disrupted, thus giving us a chance at taming or at befriending our wild minds, which is what we are looking for.

Breathing meditation is the classic form of meditation, where we are paying attention to one of our natural processes, which is our breathing. By doing so, we relax in the present moment, following gently our breath, becoming the gentle observers of our surroundings and of ourselves, and of our minds. By not grasping on any thought that comes up and by just observing them and gently letting them dissipate, in their own time, we are practicing the sacred art of meditation.

Meditation is not a thing that you do to feel good. Meditation is not a way to stop thinking. Meditation is not a way to go into blissful states of mind, although, at a rather advanced level of practice all these are real. In the beginning, meditation is just a spiritual tool that we can use to closely watch and observe what is really going on inside our minds, inside ourselves, be it that they are current thoughts, emotions, visual images, or memories from the past, resurfacing. It is the first step that we need to take if we want to know ourselves better and to befriend our real selves, and if we want to really see what is actually going on inside our minds when we are awake. The object we can focus on in meditation can be your breath, it can be an image, a statue of a deity, a mandala, a lighted incense stick, or it can be anything that you want to focus on.

When focusing your attention on one thing, the mind is focused on that particular thing as well, and the stream of continuous random thinking about various other things that you need to do today is interrupted. When we are bringing the mind to the point of focus of our breathing, we begin to be aware of our breathing. By being aware of our breathing, our minds start to gradually loosen their grip on thinking and begin to just follow the simple process of our breathing. This type of meditation brings gradually a clearer mind and also improves our ability to focus better, that we can use later on, in our day, to focus better on our tasks. A focused and aware mind is what we are always looking for in life, as by only being so, we can be sure that we can make responsible and conscious decisions, and everything that we do becomes a natural expression of our own deepest desires, that we need to manifest, in our lives.

Meditation in itself is not a particular answer to a certain problem, or even to all the problems that we might have, but instead, it provides a vehicle through which we can find for ourselves the solutions to all our particular circumstances, by seeing things in a conscious manner. By resting in a meditative state, which can be translated by simply being aware of our breath and our surroundings, including ourselves, we can gradually clean our minds of our prejudices and of our illusory mental filters, so we can wake up to the true and unwavering reality that is to be found around us, where everything is seen with simplicity, for what it is. So meditation is not a means to an end, but instead, meditation can be seen as the instruction on how to simply be a conscious observer of our lives, where we can clearly see what is really going on and be able to make the proper decisions.

In practicing meditation, in simply sitting on the meditation cushion and just being aware for a while, a certain humbleness and softness start to develop inside us. We start to witness and understand the world directly, not through our mind’s concepts and labels anymore, and that makes us let go of all our distorted views that we have built over time, regarding everything that we know in our world. Meditation is also the most-used way to quieting the inner-chatter of our minds. Focusing on our natural process of breathing for enough time, with just the simple intention of watching our breath, will make our minds follow this focal point and, as a result, the usual thoughts that were going on inside our minds will subside, as there is no real mental discourse that we can develop regarding our simple act of watching our breath. Of course, at some point, our wild minds that were so used to think a thousand things, will lose this focus and start wondering again. There is the point where we can begin to see what thoughts were going on, unconsciously, in our minds, while we were immersed in our daily routines. By showing us what is our current stream of thoughts that runs through our minds, meditation can be seen as a magnifying glass. It will not stop them, but it will show them to us, as they arise. Being just a simple observer of what is going on inside our minds, and lightly redirecting our attention back to the way in which we are breathing, is the simple and proper technique that is being taught in meditation, to bring back again our awareness, on the present moment. Giving no importance whatsoever to any thought that comes up, just noticing them and coming back to our breath, any thought will, at some point, lose its momentum and easily dissipate. It is important that you keep a light focus on your breathing, and whenever a thought occurs, just be the impartial observer of your mind, acknowledge that thought and then lightly bring your focus again on your breathing; this is the general instruction on how to meditate, that any meditation instructor will give. Bringing the focus back on our breathing does not mean forcing the breathing in a particular way, but just observing again the sensation of our abdomen rising and falling slowly, or the sensation of the air going in and out, in our lungs, or if you wish, at the end of our nostrils, in a relaxed and aware fashion.

This is the whole process of meditating, explained in the most simple way. You can do it for 5 minutes or you can do it for 30 minutes, or even more. It is up to you. Don’t overdo it and also don’t overwork yourself. It is better to have a quality short session of 5 minutes in the beginning, than to strive to sit for 30 minutes with tens of shallow thoughts emerging in your mind. Use your common sense, your intuition, and establish a regular practice, where you attend to your mind’s cleaning every day, for a particular time frame especially dedicated to this. If possible, choose a quiet place in your home, where you can sit on a cushion, but you can also meditate in a chair if you wish, as long as you keep your posture straight and not very uptight. Make sure that you also keep a natural way in which you breathe. Do not force anything and let go of any resistance you might feel that you have towards the present moment. Remember, you are here to just sit and do nothing, while being constantly aware of the present moment, in a relaxed fashion.

The key to meditation is to be relaxed but alert enough so you will not have a sluggish posture, or lose your momentary awareness. You will find that keeping this balance between your posture and your awareness, will be a fuel for your meditation practice, as your continuous striving for a natural upright posture will dynamically reassert gently your awareness on the present moment. Everything should be in balance, focusing lightly on your breath and also on your present experience of the sitting meditation.

The meditative practice is a way to get in touch with your deeper self and with the stillness of the present moment, in which we all dwell, moment by moment. Mindfulness, on the other hand, is the state of mind in which we can enjoy being dynamic in the present moment, rejoicing in this beautiful world, in its simplicity and wonder, while being in the moment, and while keeping a clear mind. The clear state of the mind that meditation is presenting us, while we practice it, is what we are looking for in mindfulness. So, meditation shows us the deeper aspect of ourselves when we are still and not needing to think or do anything, just following the relaxed process of our breathing, while mindfulness keeps this clear aspect of our mind in our doing, in our everyday tasks, in our interaction with our friends, where we are out in the city, at work, or immersed in nature. As mindfulness provides a clear mind with which you can tackle the world, by being rooted in the Now, and thinking only when necessary, meditation does the same thing, with the sole difference that in meditation, we are not required to think at all. In fact, in meditation, we are encouraged to stop thinking altogether, if possible, and just be an observer of our sitting experience, maximizing the possibility of experiencing the mind of no-thought, of pure awareness.

In the beginning, meditation will be a hard thing to do, where you will have to deal mostly with the surface thinking, or the thoughts that are merely on the surface of your mind, which are the “loudest”, or which you can hear clearly, the moment that they arise. As you advance and practice more, meditation will help uncover the thought processes from even deeper layers of your mind. Those are basically thoughts that you have repressed and pushed deeper into your psyche, or even long-held beliefs. It is up to you how you deal with these thoughts now, in the light of your awareness, when you find them resurfacing from these deeper layers of your mind. The general advice is to just observe them, or even contemplate them lightly for a while, if you feel the need to process their meaning more, so you can be able to understand them and let them go gently, making them dissolve in the light of the present moment. The more you practice, the more you advance in your meditation practice, the deeper your experience will become, as you gradually learn to relax in even deeper layers of your mind, that you have now managed to clean. A pristine and clear mind will always bring much joy, wisdom, insights, and understanding while dwelling in the present moment.

Mindfulness brings meditation and meditation brings mindfulness. These two practices complement each other beautifully, by using our focused awareness on either the present moment or on our natural process of breathing. When one is mindful, when one is aware of the present moment, there is a natural observation of your doing, of yourself, and of everything around you, including witnessing your breath. So mindfulness gives rise in a natural way to meditation. And when we are meditating, we are slowly going inwards deeper inside ourselves, toward a cleaner and mindful state, where we are being aware of the present moment, by default.

At the beginning of our meditation practice, we have to pay more attention to our wild mind. When the mind focuses on one thing for a longer period of time, every thought is immediately connected to that thing. So it is important to watch your mind when it gets “bored” while you are meditating and when it is trying to expand or create a story about anything that it can focus on, other than your breath. The mind will also try to create a story even about the way you are breathing, about your current state of mind, about the weather, about the people that you meditate with, or about the annoying feeling that comes in the beginning when you notice that you have lost your focus on your breath. Thoughts like “my mind is much calmer now”, “I can now hear the silence”, “my breathing is kind of shallow” or “damn, I lost focus again on my breath” are normal, at the beginning of our practice. When this happens, just bring your attention back to your breathing, slowly, and continue your practice. A very common mistake that all beginners do is to be focused on the breathing so much, that we don’t allow any kind of spaciousness to our present experience of meditation. The attention on your breath should be light, relaxed, and maybe only 30% directed to it, the rest being directed to watching the still present moment unfolding, with no need to grasp on anything in this experience. In other words, you should be aware of your breath as the main focal point, but at the same time, you should not lose the awareness directed on yourself and on your surroundings.

One of the things that meditation is revealing to us, is that by being focused on our breathing, wherever we put our attention, our awareness, there we are. Our hardened sense of self gets slowly dissolved in the practice of meditation, and we begin to see that in fact, all that we are is basically our consciousness or our conscious point of presence. If we can be our breath, if we can be our body, if we can be a Buddha statue or even a colorful patch on the carpet, our sense of “self” starts to lose its grip and momentum, and we come to the realization that nothing is that solid as we thought it was before, not even ourselves. The identification with our solid body as to who we really are begins to subside as we practice more, and this is where we can start to glimpse the beginning of our spiritual life. But all these things can only be experienced and understood by practicing meditation consistently and advancing step by step on our spiritual paths, every day.

By meditating long enough, we will also start to see and understand life differently, from a different point of view, with a greater perspective. We start to understand that things that once seemed fixed and permanent, unveil to us now their impermanent nature. We do not grasp on things so much anymore, we are not attached to things and people so much, and we develop a sort of spaciousness around us, where we start to feel the freedom of being awake. We start to understand that we are not what our minds thought we were, we are not only this body or this mind but much more than that. We can rest our minds and start enjoying life with no further need to think excessively, having this new perspective on life. We are now regular people, that allow themselves to be care-free, more peaceful, and more tolerant with everything and everyone else, as well. A certain type of easiness develops in our consciousness and we start regarding everything else with this kind of attitude.

When you will begin to understand the need for a meditation practice in your life, you will want to use it more, throughout your day, whenever time allows it. In time, you will find that you can strengthen the foundation of your spiritual practice, almost wherever you are. Meditation can be done, and I encourage you to do so, in a park, in a cafeteria while you are taking your lunch, sitting in the subway while going to work, or even sitting on the bus. Take any opportunity to be mindful or to meditate, to rest your mind in the pure awareness of the present moment, in just observing or just perceiving the world with a non-judgmental attitude, be it that you sit for 10 minutes on a park bench or you walk on your way to work. Even 10 minutes of meditation will refresh your mind, your whole being, and recharge your day, by helping you have a calmer, more peaceful approach to everything that you do.

As simple as it may seem, meditation is no ordinary thing. The more you practice it, the more results you get. Sometimes it will be harder to meditate, sometimes it will be easier. It all depends on your current state of mind, on your current surroundings, and on the level of your progress. If it feels harder to meditate, it means that you have reached a certain level in your mind that needs proper cleaning. Reassert your intention to be relaxed, aware, and focused lightly on your breath and continue. The only way to advance in meditation is by accepting the challenge of further cleaning your mind. By practicing the right way, your health will improve, your mind will get clearer, your decisions will be taken with greater wisdom, your memory will improve, your stress level will lower, you will be more relaxed and joyful about your day, and most of all, you will discard gradually, all your preconceptions and misconceptions about life. It will transform your outer life, by revealing who you are deep inside yourself. You will constantly continue to clear your mind by seeing, observing, and accepting how you presently are and how you presently think, until there are no more things to be cleared, arriving in the place where you can naturally rest in the mind of no-though and enjoying that pristine and calm state of your mind, which is the crowning of Shamata meditation, which translates as “calm abiding”. With time, a deeper intelligence will also arise out of your dedicated practice, and your unfolding spiritual practice will lead you, eventually, to your own awakening, if you are serious about pursuing a spiritual path.

So meditation is a tool for the spiritual practitioner and for the regular person alike, as it sustains both a spiritual life and a simple daily practice, by helping us discover, befriend and clear our minds, making us more conscious and more peaceful, every day. In the next chapter, we will look at a concept that we will work with throughout this book, which is called the Ego-mind.