By Don English

Meditation

by Don English

Yoga sees the mind as having four functions. The sensory mind (manas), the unconscious mind (chitta), the ego, or I-maker (ahamkara), and the discriminating mind (buddhi). You can picture these four functions as the four spokes of a wheel with the True Self residing at the still center of the turning wheel.

Another useful, visual metaphor is that of the war chariot. While they may not be common sights today, we have an idea of what they were like. Imagine the chariot is drawn by a team of horses. In the chariot is the driver and his warrior passenger. The chariot itself is the body, the horses are the senses (manas), the reins are the mind (the unconscious mind (chitta) as well as the ego-maker (ahamkara), the charioteer is the intellect (buddhi, the discriminating mind), and the warrior passenger is the True Self.

If the charioteer (buddhi, the intellect) is not keeping tight control of the reins (manas, the mind), the senses will go where they choose, rather than where the passenger wishes to go. The result is a disaster as far as the passenger is concerned. They may go to some interesting places, but warrior who is the passenger will most likely miss the battle he intended to fight. The warrior will not reach his or her goal, participation in and winning the battle of life.

The discriminating mind needs to be trained to take control of the horses so that the chariot, horses, charioteer, and passenger operate as a unit. Meditation is how we begin to train buddhi, our charioteer to do the intended job.

MEDITATION IS NOT

Meditation is not about sitting in a particular posture and/or breathing in certain ways. And it is not about experiencing pleasant sensations within the body and/or the mind. While these may be good experiences and may produce beneficial results, like lowering blood pressure, relieving stress, etc., they are not what we are seeking. Meditation is not spacing-out or running away from ourselves and our problems. It is learning how to get control of our minds and ourselves and getting on with the job at hand, with our lives.

MEDITATION IS

Meditation is about transforming the mind, about teaching the discriminatory function of the mind (buddhi) to be in charge, about learning to concentrate, about learning to focus on the reality of the present. Meditation is about learning to be completely honest with ourselves and with others. It is about setting our spiritual compass and laying out our course to arrive at our destination. It is about learning to control our puppy mind, so that that crazy puppy won’t make a shambles of our lives.

BEGINNING

If you do not play the piano, taking a couple of lessons will not make you a piano player. Similarly, practicing meditation a couple of times will not make you a meditator. Meditation, like any skill, and is a learned skill. It takes practice and effort.

In yoga we talk about abhyasa and vairagya. Abhyasa means practice and vairagya is the process of non-attachment, of letting go of what is not useful in our lives. How abhyasa and vairagya work is like this.

If you were an alcoholic and you were trying to get your life together, you would acknowledge that you have a serious problem, that if you don’t fix it, you’re in really big trouble. You know that you have to let go of your old ways, become non-attached to your old way of being. That’s vairagya; that’s what you have to do. Abhyasa is the practice of doing what needs to be done to become non-attached to our old life and move in the new direction. That’s an extreme example to help see the commitment needed. If you want to take control of your chariot before it wrecks, the twin practices of abhyasa and vairagya are the only way to accomplish that goal.

TIME

Find a time in your schedule that allows you withdraw from the busyness of life for a few minutes each day. It may be in the morning right after you’ve done your morning ablutions, or before going to bed at night. Maybe your schedule allows for some time alone in the middle of the day. Where ever it is in your day, if possible, try and find a time when you can regularly come to your meditation mat.

PLACE

Try and establish one place for your meditation. Your mind will like the association of a single place, especially in the beginning. This is not to say that meditation can’t be done in any other place, it’s just that the mind likes regularity, and predictability. So, in so far as possible, find a clean, uncluttered place. If it can be a place that is dedicated only to meditation, so much the better. As your meditation progresses, you can add small tokens like flowers, incense, candles, rocks from a special place, etc. to your meditation space. But try and keep the area clean, neat and not distractive.

As your practice develops you will want to branch out into some specialized meditations, but in the beginning, it is useful to get really good at your scales, to come back to the piano metaphor, and meditate on your breath. As you learn to concentrate on your breath and to keep that concentration focused, you are laying the ground work for more advanced meditation practices. Leaning to meditate on the breath is calming to the mind, and sets the stage for insights into your thoughts and feelings in later stages of practice.

LENGTH

In the beginning plan to start small. Meditating for only a few minutes is great if you are doing it regularly. To start with, see if you can’t establish a time and place in your schedule, if only as a place-holder. Than, as you are regular with your short practice, begin, as you feel comfortable, to expand your meditation time.

SITTING

Sitting is generally considered the best posture but other factors in your life may dictate otherwise. Lying on the floor on your back may be comfortable and may afford you a great degree of relaxation, but the danger is that this is also the posture of sleep, and your body will likely respond and you’ll fall asleep.

So, find a way to sit so that your head, neck, and trunk are aligned. In other words, sit with your spine in its natural curve. Don’t allow the low back to round. If you can sit on the floor cross-legged with your knees on the floor, great. But if the knees don’t make contact with the floor, place a comfortable support, blanket or pillow, under for support. This allows you to relax the leg muscles.

If you feel like you’re going to fall over backwards when sitting cross-legged on the floor, try sitting on a firm cushion or several folded blankets. Raising your pelvis and sitz bones up will change the angle of your thighs to the floor and may let you sit more comfortably. If you sit on blankets or a meditation cushion, sit toward the front so that the sitz bones are just on the edge. This gives a slight tilt to the pelvis and may help keep your low back curved correctly.

In order to bring and keep flexibility in the legs, pelvis and hips, plan to do some yoga asanas, or postures, that will stretch your body. Five or ten minutes of asanas will help you sit more comfortably, particularly if you learn to do it regularly – daily. Any stretching that works the legs, hips, back, shoulders and arms will be useful in bringing comfort to your meditation practice. As your body stretches out, you will find that it is easier to sit for longer periods of time.

Sitting in a chair is also an option. If sitting on the floor is not something that your body can do, use a chair, preferably not an easy chair. A dining room, or kitchen chair actually works great. Sit toward the front of the chair and, if possible, do not use the back of the chair.

Whether you sit on the floor or in a chair, sit with your head, neck and trunk aligned with your spine’s natural curves. Pull your shoulder blades back toward the spine and draw them down toward the low back. This opens up your chest and allows for better breathing. Now rest the backs of your hands on your thighs or knees and join the thumb and index figure together.

Everything described so far about sitting can be considered as the beginning of your mindfulness practice. Maintaining the posture is a basic mindfulness practice, and as you notice your posture beginning to crumble, bring it back into alignment and continue your meditation. We should strive for comfort and ease in the pose (sthira sukham asanam, Yoga Sutra 2.46). If it’s not, make adjustments until you find what works for your body.

In this regard one of the things we’re trying to do is to bring relaxation to the nervous system. This means that we are trying to reduce the nerve firings. One small movement of a finger sends a cascade of nerve impulses through the body. If you must move, by all means do so rather than cause harm to your body, but some sensations are more benign and can be ignored. One of the early lessons of meditation is learning that sensations, like thoughts, come and go of their own accord. If more nervous energy is generated by trying to ignore something than by attending to it, then deal with it.

RELAXED BUT ALERT

Your posture should be one of comfort and ease (sthira sukham asanam), but it should also be alert. Begin the process of turning from the outside world to your inner world. Try and relax mentally, leaving problems, to-do lists, thoughts of the day, plans for later aside. This may be easier said than done. If there are things that need attending before you can fully relax mentally, take care of them before coming to the mat. As a person new to meditation, you might keep a pad and pencil handy so that if really important things do come to mind, you can quickly make a note to refer to after meditation. Over time, you should let this crutch go, however.

Focusing your awareness on your breath accomplishes a couple of things. First, it gives the mind something to focus on and creates a sense of stability. Observing the gentle flow of the breath can be relaxing in and of itself. You should breathe diaphragmatically. That means that you use the diaphragm, large muscle attached to the edges of the rib cage, to draw air in through the nostrils and to push it out again through the nostrils. When you breath diaphragmatically, the diaphragm moves down on the inhale sucking air in through the nostrils. As the diaphragm moves down on the inhale, it pushes the abdominal organs, located directly under it, down causing the belly to push forward. You can feel a tightening around the belt on the inhale. With the exhale the diaphragm moves back up into place pushing the air out of the lungs, bringing the belly and abdominal organs back into place. Think how babies breath. As they sit in their cribs, their little bellies move in and out. This is how ours should behave too.

If you find that you are not breathing this way, begin relearning and cultivating diaphragmatic breathing. It is very important to be able to breath correctly in meditation.

EXPECTATIONS

One of the things that humans seem to be programed for is to repeat what is pleasurable and to avoid the painful. This sets us up to seek, and then to expect ,to collect pleasurable experiences. While it may be natural, it is also not always realistic and in meditation, it may hinder your progress. Try and let go of expectations. Just follow your breath.

THE BREATH

As you breath diaphragmatically, begin by just noticing your breath. Notice the inhale, the exhale, the movement of your belly, the sensation of the breath moving in and out through your nostrils. Be aware of the circular nature of the breath. It’s like a circle, like a wheel, or on a moving chart it might look like a wave. Notice the smoothness or lack of smoothness to your breath. Notice whether or not your breath is quiet or not.

For your first few meditation sessions you might just observe your breath. In time you may be ready to begin refining your breath. In no particular order you can begin to work on quieting the breath, on smoothing out jerkiness in the breath, eliminating pauses in the breath. Work toward bringing your breath into a quiet, and smooth state.

You may also find it helpful to count your breaths as a way of focusing your mind. Count one exhale and one inhale as a complete cycle saying silently, “exhale-inhale-one, exhale-inhale-two, exhale-inhale-three.” Count to ten and then start over. If you lose count, start over at one.

Later you can add visualization and a simple mantra. When you do, imagine a white light moving up the spine on the inhale and down on the exhale. To add a mantra silently say “so” on the inhale and “ham” (pronounced “hum”) on the exhale. In Sanskrit so-ham means “that-I am.”

Mantras are words that are used to focus the attention but that do not have a lot of associated meanings and interpretations to them. Focusing on an abstraction like “love” can take you down so many mental streets and alleys that instead of allowing the mind to become calm and quiet, it very likely will go running off in multiple directions simultaneously.

As you begin to feel comfortable with following the breath, you can move to two-to-one breathing. In this breath you lengthen the exhale so that it is twice as long, or at least longer, than the inhale. Two-to-one breath is a very relaxing breath pattern.

DEDICATION

When we sit to meditate, it is useful to set a mental stage. The reason we are meditating may be to achieve enlightenment, but to set that as our intention or dedication is rather abstract and, therefore,probably not concrete enough at this stage of our practice. To borrow a dedication from Kathleen McDonald’s How to Meditate, I like this; “I meditate to decrease the negative energy in my mind – the anger, the self-centeredness, my attachments, and my pride – and to increase my positive qualities such as love, compassion, patience, and wisdom. In this way, I will have more beneficial, positive energy to bring into my interactions with others, and to send out into the world. “

Enjoy your meditation.