Question
Hello Jay!
From time to time i do some meditation exercises. I sit on a cushion with my legs bent trying to keep an upright posture. Sometimes it takes me a half an hour and sometimes one hour. Nevertheless, I think that i'm doing something wrong cause, very often, i cannot concentrate, calm myself down and this practise doesn't bring me an awaited relief. What may be wrong? what's the best position to meditation? What's most essential? What should i concentrate on? Thank You!
Answer
Hi, Bolero.
I'm glad you asked what is most essential. To me, in the simplest form, meditation is the opportunity to let go of the usual activities of the body and mind so that the body and mind can become receptive to what is actually going on at the moment.
In other words, simply taking a comfortable position that allows for some alertness and just entering into what is here, present, right now.
If you have had a practice that you concentrate on, you might experiment with letting even that go and seeing if it is possible to just be present sometimes. You can experiment with the difference between concentrating on a practice and simply being present. You may notice that concentrating may create a sense of well being but that it also blocks out much of what is felt and experienced when you let go of concentrating.
Probably when you do sit down without concentrating on anything - just being present - you will find that the mind daydreams or that you are lost in thought much of the time and that in fact most of the time there is no awareness at all of what is happening right now. If you observe carefully, you may see that there is a brief moment in which the daydream stops and there is a realisation that daydreaming has been going on. In this brief instant there is often a judgment that comes up, such as "Oh, I shouldn't have been daydreaming. I should concentrate harder. What am I doing wrong?" etc. Can you notice that this is the beginning of a new daydream, a new chain of thought?
The body/mind does not know yet how to just stick with the present, so this is really a wonderful experiment. Sometimes you may notice that these judgmental thoughts are not necessary and the moment of presence may be extended. Other times the daydreaming just takes over again until the next time it breaks open with an instant of waking up.
This is how it is for all of us. Is there anything that can be done so that there is more sticking with the present? This is really a very important question.
It is possible to develop a mental pattern of blocking thoughts, suppressing them, pushing them down or away. I don't suggest this. This also blocks out a great deal of sensitivity. It is very helpful to have a sensitivity to the mind and the thoughts, as well as a sensitivity to the body and to the environment around us, and also a sensitivity to the deep stillness in which all of this is revealed. So what is essential, as you asked, is a deep, sensitive, vulnerable presence.
So if not blocking or suppressing thoughts, what can be done? First of all, the mind may need to "give off" much thinking. We use the mind to continually take in information and manipulate it but we rarely give the mind a chance to thoroughly process and be done with all of that input. So when you sit down to be quiet, the mind may be like a balloon that hasn't been tied up yet that you let go of. It may need to throw off a lot of thinking and daydreaming before it can become receptive. If this happens with enough force, we are simply daydreaming. When it settles down a little bit, we may be aware of some of the content of the thinking. In other words there may be something on your mind that you can actually think about more clearly once the mind has thrown off its excess, built up thinking.
When the mind has done enough processing, it may be able to be receptive to the sounds of the fan, the movement of the body as the breathing goes in and out, the birds outside, the feel of the air on the skin.
It might be helpful, even when the mind is full of activity, to also let the feel and sensation of the body and the space around you come into awareness. Amazingly, it is possible for this to happen even if you seem to be full of daydreaming. It is good to experiment with. It may seem hopeless at times, with the daydreaming totally dominating, but at any unpredictable moment the daydreaming may be finished with itself. This shift in interest from thinking about my life being the most important thing to being in touch sensitively with what is really here right now is a tremendous shift of interest. Do you notice that the simple world of presence this moment has a completely different quality than the world of thinking about my life? It feels different in the body, allowing the body to take on a simple relaxation and a flow of energy.
Now, what about calming yourself down and getting the "awaited relief"? When there is some awareness available, some simple presence, there may be an awareness of physical or mental sensation that is not pleasant, that may be painful and worrisome. These pains may be habitual pains that have been experienced over and over and have taken on a certain anxiety.
How to work with this? The very first step, and perhaps the most essential step, is to see if it is possible to distinguish between the basic, simple physical pain itself and the reactions that are occuring in the body/mind to that pain. This may not be easy to see immediately. It may take weeks, months, years to clarify this.
What do I mean by a reaction? You may be able to notice that - and I will make up an example here - there is first a brief feeling of pain in the knee and that almost immediately afterwards memory says "oh, no not this again, i better do this or that or such and such will happen" and that along with that thought there is a whole new bodily reaction, such as a tensing of the abdomen, that goes along with that thought automatically. Now there is a new pain - that of the tensed abdomen - and perhaps reactions to that, with new pains and tensions - until the poor body is exhausted and confused and collapses in desperation.
If these memory based reactions can be noticed a little, you may find that there is a different kind of intelligence that is not reaction that comes into play. There may be less of the reaction and more just keeping to simple awareness. Simple awareness carries this quality of fresh awareness, as opposed to the programmed reactions that think they already know what is going on. So fresh awareness may shed some light on the original pain, the knee pain, and may supply some suggestions to the conscious mind, such as a memory that the knee got a slight twist the other day and there is no need to worry about it, or that the pain in the knee may have some relation to how the leg is held as you walk. These revelations come from who knows where. They are fresh and new and come from the intelligence of simple presence.
So back to not calming yourself down and not getting relief, the first step then is to observe carefully what is happening when you feel this and to see if it is possible to just stick with the real sensations with a minimal amount of reaction, or at least to notice reaction more clearly if it is happening. In a way this is taking time off from the seemingly never ending concern with the state of the body an mind - just being with what is here, presenting itself, with no future to worry about.
This may seem to completely sidestep or ignore your real concerns but in fact, paradoxically, the more you can enter into a simple presence in which past and future are seen as irrelevant right now, the more this natural wisdom and intelligence of unknowing presence can do its work of healing and guiding.
I think this is enough for now. There are many things that come up in this work of simple presence, so please feel free to write back and ask me to clafify things I said or to ask some further questions, either now or as you continue this exploration.
Hope I've addressed your concerns.
Best,
Jay Cutts
