Meditation - worth the effort

Meditation

Meditation and yoga are closely connected practices. In classic yoga, meditation is one of the eight limbs of the yogic practice. My own experience progressed from formal meditation into yoga asana, only to discover that yoga asana actually helps still the mind and facilitates effective meditation.

It would be great to say that meditation is one thing and this is how you do it. The truth is that meditation is many different things, has different options, and we approach it through unique pathways that are relevant to who we are and our earlier life experience. Still, meditation is a practice with many thousands of years of human experience. There is not much which has not been studied, experienced, practised and taught.

What is really difficult about meditation? Getting started and trusting ourselves enough to sustain the practice. Any meditation is likely to be useful, but it is through sustained practice on a regular basis and over years, which allows the deep changes to take place.

You can google yourself into a coma reading about meditation. I thought I'd share some of my own experiences here - in part to encourage the reader to share his experiences (or hers if we have female readers).

I started meditation after one of those life shock experiences. I had a fairly major medical and psychic shock in my thirties. I was a fairly typical 30something guy. Working long hours. Trying to build a career. Owned my second house and was busy paying the bond. I had friends, jolled some of the time. Tried to squeeze in some holiday time over the summer. The truth was I was burning myself out. My work in particular dealt with issues of poverty, disempowerment, drugs, alcohol and family violence. That was exhausting, and then there was the travelling and just being overly committed to my work life.

My therapist and I looked at things from different angles. Eventually he said: The questions you are asking at the moment are metaphysical ones, and maybe you'd do better to explore that side of your questions. The question I guess I had was 'Why does shit happen? And why did it just happen to me?'.

I took myself off to a local meditation centre. I felt really shy and sheepish going in. How weird would these people be? Would they wear funny clothes, chant and burn incense? In fact, they all seemed quite normal and welcoming. I felt comfortable. So began my meditation.

The early days were great. I had this rushes of insight. It felt exotic and kind of cool. I recognised how tired I was, some hidden anger issues, that I was holding on too tight for my own good. It was time to start to relax the mind and my grip. See what was underneath.

I went on a retreat - something I'd always recommend to early and even advanced meditators. Dedicating yourself to meditation in a supportive environment is a very different experience from weekly or even daily short sitting.

I started with anapanasati - the mindfulness of breathing meditation. I had decided to follow Buddhist teachings as that seemed reasonable and not too strange. As it happened I eased into the Theravadin path which emphasises silent meditations, without mala beads or mantras, very little dressing it up and almost no visualisation. I am not down on those things, but just felt right to try the empty mind and breathing approach.

Years came and years went. I went off to a forest monastery several times. I meditated in Cape Town with a regular group. I began to get more confident in my home practice. Home life often shook this up, but I developed my own space in the house and outdoors for meditation. That helped.

What have I learnt? Meditation is about stilling the outer mind. It may seem odd to turn off your intellectual faculties and just be aware, but that is exactly what you have to do. There is another layer of insight available if you shut the monkey mind down. To be frank, I have a very busy mind if I am not careful and one of my breakthroughs was just to tell my mind to SHUT UP... NOW... SHUT IT... yes, good, be quiet. Sit Ubu, sit. That actually worked. I pretended I was in a library and minds were not allowed to speak. It worked.

Then there is concentration. Meditation is NOT day-dreaming. Day-dreaming is not meditation. To succeed in meditation you need to focus the mind. This can be a focus on the breath, on the body, on an object (such as a candle), on a sensation in the body, on a chant / mantra or sound. Even concentrating on silence or the ringing in the ears. Focus, calm, unstressed, unwavering focus. I compare it to trying to squeeze yourself through a key hole. You are in one room. You think that is the universe. And then you feel a fresh breath of air from the key hole. You peak through, and see a wilderness and sunshine through the hole. But the door is locked? How to get there. Through concentration and discipline you just shrink yourself and suddenly zzzzip, you can squeeze through the key hole and find a much greater space and meaning.

One set back came during a meditation retreat. I was doing a lot of walking meditation. That was cool. But I could not stop thinking about work. I was in a beautiful forest in NE Thailand, alone on a walk way built by monks for meditation. And I could not stop thinking of work. The more I tried to stop thinking, the more I had brilliant work ideas. I could save the world, raise money, change the planet. Yihaaaaa. But this was not meditation. Nor was it present and now. It was all in my head. But why? BINGO: my mind was panicking that it would be left out of the new life. My ego had so attached its own worth to my career that it was freaking out that if I just let go in meditation, a) I would be nothing, annihilated b) my mind would be out of a job.

My mind was in fact wrong on both counts. My self-worth cannot be put down to my success in my career. My inherent value has to come from a deeper truth and experience. Though I fear annihilation - that is just a mental impression. Fear is not a truth - it is a reaction. Secondly, the mind moves to another stage of maturity if it can be trained.

It would take several more years and further practice before I returned to the same monastery and entered the deepest meditations of my life. These are referred to in Buddhism as the 'jhanas' or in yoga as dyhana. This is a state that starts with great bliss and joy, and rises to a point of immense sensitivity, stillness, alertness but also without a sense of boundaries. It was like floating in outer space - but clear headed. My physical body was present but very much in the background. There was not real boundary between myself and the rest of the world. There was also - mercifully and importantly no words. I had somehow got to some other part of my consciousness without the construct of language, without desire and grasping, but also with great sharpness of perception and clarity. It is a feeling that has never left me as a memory. Amongst other things it was a reminder that all of this had been true and worth it.

For three nights in a row I journeyed back to this mental state. Each time I trusted it more. The key I could see what the trust. Focus, relax, focus, relax, focus, relax but at a key moment I had to let go of the rope - let myself break free into the other dimension and space. That is, in truth, quite frightening and we can easily pull back from it.

Most meditations are not like this - but it is a reminder that meditation is an art that comes from practice. If today your mind is like a mad car chase scene, like a ping pong match, like a scary video game - that is just today. Change happens from intention and application. Change is progressive, gradual and profound.

So, that is part of my story. I hope it speaks to you and that you will find the time to sit, walk or lay down into a mindful and clear state. It is for you, it is for all of us.