What happens when you no longer fight the various thoughts that arise during meditation? What happens when, instead of being harsh at yourself for not doing it “right,” that instead you embrace the Chalice of Mind and allow yourself the moment to simply be as yourself, not as something distant or perfect or other?
It can be argued that we are biologically oriented to look for failure. It is a means of protection and continuance, and it is no less experienced during meditation.
If you start from the basis that a “pure-mind thing,” an absolute clean slate of mind that seems the goal of meditation is only possible if you are in a coma you realize that thoughts are not necessarily the enemy. Not only that, as we've already explored, we are in constant spiraline motion, but the brain and body strive to make it seem that there is a constant and that though the stars change, it is we who are moving, but the rest of the universe. Along with the effort to create the illusion of stability we are also always managing the past and the future, attempting to place into constructive context and predictive imaging the life that we've lived and the life that are yet to.
In meditation one night, one of the thoughts that arose that was placed on my post-it revolving board was "what's wrong with a thought?"
That is...thoughts that arise, be they past or future, be they charged emotions or plain visuals. These, of their own are not necessarily “bad.” Yet, in every instance in asking clients and students "how is your meditation going?" invariably, the response will be that they "can't stop thinking," and thus abandoned the practice for fear that they were doing it wrong.
But...I offer "what if the absence of thoughts isn't necessarily the goal?"
They look at my quizzically "well, what's the goal then?" They say, expecting me to offer another Asian based Buddhic perfect mind thing that happens only when you are in a cave in Nepal after years of practice. But, that is not what I offer, what I offer is that meditation, Dhyana, is a practice that helps you to be, and to be is to include all of it, your thoughts, your emotions, your past, your future and even the inherent dizziness that is constant, yet normalized by your body and mind.
If there's a secondary goal of quiet, and there often is with this style of meditation, then, that's fine, I offer...but having that as an all-encompassing, perfect thing that should be experienced as soon as we close our eyes often sets us up for failure.
Instead, I offer them to do this:
Imagine yourself sitting in the center, with a large moving carousel going around you, rather like a ticket holder that a waitress and cook would use. And instead of pushing and pulling, trying to negotiate and frankly obliterate your thoughts, you compassionately place them, like a post-it note, onto the wheel ticket holder.
Without going into the story, into the narrative, without going into consideration, planning or any back and forth, simply stating point of fact that the thought is as it is, that therefore, you are as you are, and as such, as you place the thought as a post-it note on the wheel, it gives it context.
And then, return to the central axis, to simply being.
The goal then, seem innocuous to just be. But as DT Suzuki the great Zen teacher admonished meditation is teach us to sit when we are sitting and to walk when we are walking.
Who of us can say that they truly do this, for even a very short time?
Invariably, some of the tickets may resurface, some charged emotions may vie for more attention, more she said/he said and rehearsals may arise as well, good! Seriously, good…you do not push them away, no part of you do you shame, blame or try to obliterate. Each and every is respected and placed on the wheel, given a place of honor if you will, and then…return to center.
Continuing on the consideration of meditation, not as a practice that should confer an immediate quiet, perfect thing...I would like to explore a different way of approaching it.
In order to do this, I need to share an experience I had where I went crazy.
I had wanted to do a meditation retreat for some time, had put it off due to scheduling and general busyness until I finally signed on for a 10 day quiet experience. I did not bring my car as I wanted no option to take flight; doing that set me up for success and for one of the most significant challenges in my life.
The ideal of the meditation, as you can guess, was the theme that we are exploring, to find one's self in the quiet without thought, emotion or random songs arising in one's mind. During the process, I did everything the teacher said, committed to the practice and deeper and deeper in, not only did I NOT find the quiet that they were intimating was possible, but in fact, I found the opposite: sheer frustration and deep shame.
I was obviously wrong, I was doing it wrong, I would be judged, chastised and all of the childhood experiences of trauma and bullying vied violently for my attention.
Now, for most, they would simply 'sit with it', striving to not-think, work with the rage that would arise and the echoes of voices telling them that there was something defective with them, and believe me...I tried!
Until...
About half way through, I cracked.
This was truly, the 'dark night of the soul' and I worried for my health both during this time, and frankly as I would be leaving for the 'real world' in some days. But, part of me knew that there might be something here, inside the delirium, something of use both emotionally and spiritually.
I retreated to a small clearing to find a large rock that became my best friend during this travail and laying on it had an epiphany: it doesn't have to be like this.
What I realized is that meditation, like so many things, is subjective and is yet a practice, thus we presume based on what is given us that 'this is the way.'
For me, I am a bit of a contrarian, and seldom do what I am told, so the idea that maybe I could morph the practice, even while being safe in the retreat center was at once daunting to me and exciting.
I decided with the next session to sit and rather than go into shame that I was thinking/not-thinking/thinking about not-thinking that I would instead welcome the thoughts, all of them, every single twisted variant of whatever the hell popped up.
As I began to welcome the thoughts, I went into an altered state where I could see as though on a kind of carousel with me in the middle and the various thoughts rotating in real time.
These then, turned into psychic post-it notes, if you will.
That is, I would have the thought "how long have I been meditating?" and that would then get placed up on the carousel, and then the next thought would arise and that would get placed up and so on.
What happened was nothing short of amazing.
The thoughts were no longer the enemy, they were no longer the neurosis that I was trying, and failing to extricate in the fantasy of perfect-pure-mind-thing, rather they were as friends, each a quality (and quantity) of energy, of Qi in my experience.
As I continued to set the thoughts as post-it notes, I found, ironically that they did not tend to repeat, and I will say that as I've continued to practice this, and offer it to some patients, that this is generally the case. It is not a 'cure' to the vagaries of life, and meditation will often show us how discombobulated we actually are when we are not distracting ourselves, yet, I will say that for me, the practice became interesting, became not something that I dreaded doing even though I knew it was good for me, but rather something that I looked forward to. I found something that I relished and had a sense of creativity with a sense of becoming present inside of stillness.
In the years of working as an Acupuncturist, I have recommended the practice of meditation to many clients. Invariably I hear one pervading reason as response: "I tried to meditate, and I couldn't do it..." I then as for clarity, as the sentence is rather loaded, bespeaks of a presupposition of what meditation is, and what the results, the outcome of such a behavior should be.
We tend to think of meditation as the end, the result, at the beginning.
What that means is that when we actually sit, we are terribly surprised to find that we do not enter into a very quiet, clear space and are instead besieged by thoughts, thoughts concerning those thoughts and the push and pull of wanting to do it 'right' and also wanting to not think.
I will be blunt: trying to not-think is a form of neurosis.
The very definition of meditation in western tradition is 'what one focus's upon,' that is, the idea of the pure mind, absolute quiet, total perfect peace isn't necessarily the aim of the practice. It is simply a manner of focus, and then a return when that focus is disrupted
Thus the idea meditation session shouldn't be a perfect, untenable, clear experience. It is rather an opportunity to develop a quality of focus on what you want to consider.
When we drop the presupposition that we should already be 'good' at meditation (similar to learning a language or a musical instrument), we are free then to engage in the practice and have it offer us meaning and development.
