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Mindfulness, concentration, contemplation and other forms of meditation practice are examined below. Spiritual practices such as zhine and zazen are also discussed. General information about the meditative versus the psychological view of the self is also presented.
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Learn about James Robbins' nationwide seminars in meditation and related subjects |
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WHAT IS MEDITATION? |
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Meditation is a logical, systematic process of focusing, calming and understanding the movement of the mind. As such, meditation does not require belief in any particular religion—nor does it preclude any such beliefs. The Buddhist, the Christian and the atheist can each practice meditation with equal success. |
In virtually all meditative paths, two distinct phases or stages of meditation practice are recognized: concentration and contemplation (as described in the subsequent sections). Some of the issues addressed by these two phases are as follows:
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calming of the unconscious or automatic movements of the mind, which reduces anxiety and stress
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increased focus and cognitive structuring
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more efficient realization of goals, projects and ambitions
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better understanding of one's personality structure and unconscious ego defenses
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increased empathy and compassion for others
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refined awareness of physical senses, emotions and thoughts
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enhanced awareness of the dream state, which ultimately leads to fully lucid dreaming
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enhanced awareness of the sleep state, which ultimately leads to sunyata, or direct, non-dual experience of the clear light
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heightened transpersonal consciousness and extrasensory perception
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deeper understanding of spiritual, metaphysical and psychological paths
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experiences of oneness, effortless perfection and other profound mystical states
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PROVISIONAL GOALS |
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It should be mentioned that each of the above are essentially provisional goals. By this, we mean that the ultimate goal of meditation is simply a realization of The Self—which is a perfectly spontaneous, uninhibited manifestation our ordinary, daily selves—the REAL YOU AND ME. At such a stage in development, formal meditation practice becomes unnecessary as simply being from moment to moment, remaining natural and present in whatever circumstances our lives may bring upon us, becomes our spontaneous meditation. |
Newcomers to most spiritual paths are encouraged to begin practice with concentration meditation. In Build A Better Buddha, the essence of concentration practice is described as follows:
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BOOK EXCERPT |
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To restore the mind to its unfragmented origin, sit quietly and meditate. First count the breaths, then tune the breath until it is imperceptible. Sense the body as like the undifferentiated absolute, and you won’t hear anything. Those who can regain their composure after a mountain crumbles before them are second best; not even being started is expertise. —ANCESTOR LU, VITALITY,ENERGY,SPIRIT1
Somewhere along the path, all of us reach a place where we realize that some of our most cherished notions about The Way Things Are, some of our most deeply imbedded beliefs concerning Who I Am, simply don’t hold water. We begin to recognize that the ways in which we have previously kept our feet on the ground are, ironically, the very roots of our most persistent struggles. Anger, arrogance, pride, fear, guilt, desire—we begin to realize that these have been our favorite placeholders, our preferred strategies for relating to the world so far. These things are beginning to fall away, however, and we very likely panic. We suddenly feel ungrounded, insecure, and helpless, our minds restless and fragmented. We need some new means of organizing ourselves, of keeping ourselves together in the wake of our crumbling ego mountains. Then again, just as many of us have yet to reach this place. Our old habits of thinking and feeling are still reassuringly intact. Even so, we are beginning to get sick of dragging these restrictive tendencies around with us everywhere we go. We are tired of all the fear and anxiety, all the regret and resentment we carry around from moment to moment, and we are ready to let these exhausting habits go—how ever painful and scary the letting go may be. We want, quite simply, to be free at any cost. Anything would be better than this, we say. Bring on the avalanche. . .
Some of you may feel you don’t fall into either of the above categories. You are not suffering from existential panic at present, nor are you ready just yet to be free at any cost—not when that cost means surrendering even your most familiar, time-honored habits of feeling and cognition. Even so, you will find that concentration is also a highly effective means toward more practical improvements. With progress in concentration, your mind becomes a precise laser beam. You can willingly aim your single-pointed awareness at any task—be it small or large, short- or long-term—thereby beginning to achieve your most ambitious goals through sheer determination and focus. Similarly, concentration practice teaches you to relax at will, sleep more soundly, and relieve persistent physical pains and emotional stress. Whatever your individual goals, needs, and wants may be, concentration helps you satisfy them by improving your vision, lets you see more clearly into the innermost nature of The Way of Things, and launch yourself more freely into the incredibly rich and continually unfolding story of Who You Are. Traditionally, concentration practice is known by many names—zhiné (pronounced "zi-náe"), dhyana, and single-pointed awareness among them. Various terminologies aside, concentration practice always comes down to one basic method: Pick an object of focus and concentrate on it. It’s that simple. In his work, A Map of Mental States, British psychologist John H. Clark describes this form of meditation as a "method by which a person concentrates more and more upon less and less."2 This is where you might ask, "Now, why would I possibly be interested in learning to concentrate more and more upon less and less?" |
Whatever your
individual case may be, this is where concentration practice comes
in. Concentration practice is a meditation technique that is
absolutely essential for progress along any
Upcoming meditation seminars in your area
It is simply not within the scope of this site to answer the above paradox—a difficult riddle best solved through the practice of concentration itself. More generally, however, concentration practice progresses in stages, gradually proceeding from a highly energetic, somewhat artificial concentration to a very relaxed, "automatic" state of focus. At whichever stage of concentration we may find ourselves, we work with a particular object of focus. Some of the most common objects of focus are:
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the breath
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a mantra such as OM, RAM or HUM
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a visual focus such as a spot on a wall or floor, etc.
As our practice progresses, we begin to choose more and more complex or abstract objects of focus, eventually preparing us for the practice of contemplation. Before we discuss this next stage of practice, we will examine an interesting Toltec (ancient Native American belief system) practice of advanced concentration called stalking:
(NOTE: In the following book excerpt, Ultimate zhine refers to an advanced stage of concentration practice, whereas forceful and natural zhine describe earlier stages.)
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BOOK EXCERPT |
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As a way of introducing ultimate zhiné, I would like to present a fascinating practice that the Toltecs (practitioners of ancient Native American shamanistic techniques) call "stalking." Much like ultimate zhiné, stalking lies somewhere in the twilight between concentration and contemplation. When you have begun to gain stability in both forceful and natural zhiné, you are likely ready to try stalking. One of the primary differences between stalking and the concentration practices we have examined so far is that stalking uses much more complex objects of focus. Let’s consider, for instance, the act of driving to work every morning. If you were to make a concentration practice out of this task, you would need to apply a much looser focus than you would when following each breath, for example. Moreover, the quality of the focus itself would be a little different, as it would be "roving" constantly from one aspect of driving to another. If you allowed your awareness to focus too intently on the feel of the steering wheel in your hands, for instance, you might find your attention to the road lacking. If you attended too much to the other vehicles on the road, you might forget to take the proper exit, etc. The relatively broad, freely roving focus you apply in such a task is very similar to the focus you are refining in the practice of stalking. One of my wife’s psychology professors used an interesting treatment for patients with anxiety disorders. The specific anxieties of these individuals manifested as intense fear of embarrassment in social situations. He had one socially anxious patient gawk at a pornographic magazine in a conspicuous public setting. He assigned another patient the task of riding the bus, standing and loudly announcing each stop to his fellow passengers. Believe it or not, treatments such as these have proven very effective in the management of specific phobias. In effect, such treatments are ways of stalking fearlessness.
It is very important, then, to start with small, reasonable ego stretches. Let’s say that you always allow an extra 30 minutes when leaving for work every morning in case of traffic. Try cutting it a little closer, maybe leaving only 15 minutes. Preoccupied with financial security? Treat yourself to an overpriced meal at a fancy restaurant, leaving a 30 percent tip regardless of the quality of service. Terrified of snakes? Try spending some time in the reptile house at the local zoo, and so forth. Stalking fearlessness is, by definition, not the same thing as being fearless. This means you are probably going to experience some discomfort as you begin to play with some of these behavioral boundaries that have probably been around quite a while. As with stalking kindness, the important thing when stalking fearlessness is simply to pay attention throughout the whole process. Notice how the tension builds for a while, making you rather uncomfortable, at times on the verge of panic. Notice how you feel when the tension breaks, like stepping off a crazy roller coaster. You may feel a little shaken, but undoubtedly satisfied—somehow a little larger, a little more flexible than before your experiment.A WORD OF CAUTION A word of caution: Stalking fearlessness doesn’t necessarily save you from the negative consequences of your actions. If you don’t leave as much time to get to work in the morning, you may very well arrive late. If you quit working out, you will probably gain weight. Stalking fearlessness isn’t some magical solution for doing away with feared outcomes. Rather, it is a way of recognizing you remain Who You Are, your personality totally intact, even when those things which you have most feared happen to you. One more word of caution: A drunk stalking drunkenness, a lazy person stalking irresponsible behavior, or even a charitable person stalking good deeds isn’t really stalking at all. Such a situation is nothing other than an excuse, a new concept used to defend an old behavior. The point isn’t to act on already established ego boundaries, but to challenge them. A truly fearless action is always an action performed without the safety net of the ego story. |
Whether or not you have specific phobias, you probably have a
certain set of rules, conscious or unconscious, that govern your
behavior regarding
As our concentration stabilizes and deepens, our minds becoming increasingly calm and steady, we naturally begin to experience states of contemplation. Contemplation isn't exactly a practice in the same way as is concentration. Rather, it is a state of spontaneous presence, an experience of natural attentiveness and awareness. As such, rather than describing what contemplation is, it is easier to say what it isn't.
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BOOK EXCERPT |
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Yunton was a master of Dzogchen. He lived very simply, doing without formal religious clothing such as the traditional monk’s robes, without formal meditation practices, yet surrounded by a large group of disciples. One day a Buddhist monk visited him, indignant that Yunton, a seemingly ordinary person, would pose as a master. The monk intended to test his knowledge against this supposed master, to prove him a fool in front of his many disciples. The monk showed up in his traditional robes, full of years of formal monastic learning and doctrine, and asked Yunton, "You practitioners of Dzogchen, are you always meditating?" "What is there to meditate on?" Yunton replied. "So," the monk said, "you don’t meditate then?" Yunton replied, "When am I ever distracted?" 3
BEST MEDITATION IS NO MEDITATION In paradoxical systems such as Dzogchen and Zen, it is often said that the best meditation is no meditation. Well, does this mean that a person who has never heard any spiritual teachings or never attempted any practices whatsoever is an advanced seeker? Obviously not. Meditation or no meditation, Yunton was nonetheless recognized as a Dzogchen master. Title aside, however, what differentiates an extraordinary individual such as Yunton from a person who is disinterested in all things spiritual? Chuang Tzu said, "The one who doesn’t know is right. . . . The one who forgot is pretty close. You and I aren’t even close because we know."4 This kind of paradoxical statement tends to make the seeker question his or her very efforts. If no meditation is the best meditation, and if the one who doesn’t know is right, why bother ever trying to understand the strange and intricate workings of the Cosmic Dance? Ironically, to a certain degree, such an attitude is probably one of the most useful to adopt while following any particular spiritual path. At the same time, however, notice that Chuang Tzu didn’t say, "The one who never knew is right." Rather, he said, "The one who doesn’t know is right." The one who forgot is pretty close only because he did know something in the first place—he is simply not finished with his process of forgetting it.
In this chapter, we are going to examine the way in which mindfulness, or presence, naturally arises from the various practices we have so far described. What makes this discussion rather difficult is that presence, by definition, fully transcends any technique or effort. Alan Watts described the "method" of cultivating mindfulness as follows: Shortly after I had begun to study Indian and Chinese philosophy, I was sitting one night by the fire, trying to make out what was the right attitude of mind for meditation as practiced in Hindu and Buddhist disciplines. It seemed to me that several attitudes were possible, but as they appeared mutually exclusive and contradictory I was trying to fit them into one—all to no purpose. Finally, in sheer disgust, I decided to reject them all and to have no special attitude whatsoever. In the force of throwing them away it seemed that I threw myself away as well, for quite suddenly the weight of my own body disappeared. I felt that I owned nothing, not even a self, and that nothing owned me. The whole world became as transparent and unobstructed as my own mind; the "problem of life" simply ceased to exist, and for about eighteen hours I and everything around me felt like the wind blowing leaves across a field on an autumn day.5 According to Watts, then, two factors seem to be essential for an experience of presence: having no special attitude whatsoever, and owning nothing, not even a self. Once again, we are faced with a seemingly impossible method, a reiteration of Taoism’s "work without doing." In this context, you might think of meditation as a process of growing up rather than a specific technique, a spontaneously maturing awareness of the seeming burdens that life presents you. With this new, unflinching awareness, you gain the ability to make a truly informed and conscious choice that you will, quite simply, have none of it. As Watts suggests, you learn to solve the "problem of life" by deciding it is no longer a problem. It’s not that you become an irresponsible, undisciplined individual, but that you are no longer interested in following the mindless patterns of the ordinary person—even meditation, as it turns out. Like Yunton, your ultimate goal is simply to be natural, thereby realizing the effortless state of "no distraction." You come to realize all spiritual practice is essentially a paradoxical un-learning, a process I like to describe as "remembering how to forget" what everyone else is trying to know. |
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Once again, it is not within the scope of this site to address contemplation practice in any great detail. Suffice it to say, true contemplation requires a recognition of what Dzogchen calls the "natural mind."
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This is a state of being innate to each of us, the realization of which is one of the primary goals of the entire path of mindfulness. After we realize this unique and effortless state, we learn to integrate it with various thoughts, feelings, behaviors and situations. We learn to maintain a state of presence or contemplation when engaging a variety of acts, ranging from the so-called positive to the so-called negative. In so doing, we learn to participate in our daily lives fully, without rejecting, judging or otherwise fearfully grasping at a single aspect of our internal or external experience. |
One of the most unique aspects of the meditative path is the way in which it tends to redirect our subjective experience of the self. Prior to the experiential turning inward that meditation facilitates, most of us perceive the self from a rather automatic, primarily psychological perspective. We perceive ourselves, that is to say, as a kind of fixed personality interacting with its more fluid, surrounding environment. It is as if we are the camera man filming the various scenes of our daily lives, only we are also emotionally involved in these scenes. Contrary to many misconceptions regarding the meditative journey, the point of meditation practice is neither to further engage or disengage from these scenes so much as it is to allow us to simply put down the camera. We learn to free ourselves of this fixed subjective center, that is to say, so that we can merge with our environment in a less defensive, less contrived and restrictive sort of way. Such is the No-Self of the various meditative disciplines—not a negating of the ordinary experience of self, but an enhancement of it, a larger and more dynamic experience of the totality of our daily lives. The seemingly conflicting experiences of the psychological self and the meditative No-Self are discussed in Build A Better Buddha as follows:
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BOOK EXCERPT |
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You do not realize your own situation. You are in prison. All you can wish for, if you are . . . sensible . . . is to escape. But how to escape? —G. I.GURDJIEFF 6
Whether you practice formal concentration or contemplation as described previously, or simply try to be more present in your daily life from moment to moment, you begin to gain an increasing awareness of certain personality patterns that tend to play out over and over throughout your everyday routine. These patterns may take the form of certain repetitive behaviors or habits, such as eating when you are anxious, sleeping when you are unhappy, driving recklessly when you are angry and so on. These patterns may also manifest as habitual thoughts and feelings such as, "I am bored today, I need to lose weight, no one appreciates me," etc. Moreover, you begin to appreciate that even certain objective facts about yourself, such as "I am tall, I am a dentist," and so forth, tend to be much more complex than you previously recognized. As you learn to attend to subtler and subtler workings of your mind, you increasingly appreciate just how complex, compelling, and pervasive this phenomenon we call "personality" or "self-identity" really is. In short, you begin to notice that every moment of your life is woven together from a virtually infinite array of interconnecting patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. SENSE OF "I-NESS": EAST VS. WEST
For the psychologist, then, our experience of self is a kind of cozy apartment, or securely boundaried living area. To improve our experience of self, we need to improve this apartment, redecorate it, strengthen its walls and foundation. Jack Engler states, from the perspective of psychotherapy, that "The deepest psychopathological problem . . . is the lack of a sense of self. The most severe clinical syndromes . . . are precisely failures, arrests or regressions in establishing a cohesive, integrated self or self concept. In varying degrees of severity, all represent disorders of the self, the inability to feel real or cohesive ‘in being’ at all."8 Consequently, the psychologist works to repair these "failures" of identity, using various therapeutic techniques and strategies to help the patient cultivate a more cohesive, integrated feeling of individual being. By contrast, the Buddhists believe the most fundamental problem of being is "The presence of a self and the feeling of selfhood. According to Buddhist diagnosis, the deepest source of suffering is the attempt to preserve a self, an attempt which is viewed as both futile and self-defeating. The severest form of psychopathology is precisely attavadupadana, the clinging to personal existence."9 From the Budhhist perspective, the self is an illusion, a trick of smoke and mirrors. To cling to it, thinking it to be real and enduring—especially seeking to further solidify it—is like the thirsty man in the desert, desperately crawling toward a mirage of water. Jeffrey B. Rubin summarizes this viewpoint in Psychotherapy and Buddhism: "We imagine there is a unified, independent self because without special perceptual training, such as meditation, we view subjectivity grossly. Like non-physicists attempting to examine the particles of a table without the benefit of an electron microscope, we do not see the fluidity, discontinuity and insubstantiality of subjectivity underneath the apparent solidity, continuity, and substantiality."10 As far as the Buddhist is concerned, then, the self is less a cozy apartment than it is a confining jail cell. Rather than redecorate, the Buddhists say, we need to break out. |
REFERENCES In Thomas Cleary, trans., The Taoist Classics:
The Collected Translations, vol. III (Boston: Shambhala, 2000), p.
114. John H. Clark, A Map of Mental States, quoted
in Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D., Chogyal Namkhai Norbu, Dzogchen: The
Self-Perfected State (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1989), p. 60. Sam Hamill, trans. and J.P. Seaton, ed., The
Essential Chuang Tzu (Boston: Shambhala, 1998), p. 123. Alan Watts, This Is It: And other Essays on Zen
and Spiritual Experience (New York: Vintage, 1973), p. 29. P. D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous:
Fragments of an Unknown Teaching (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1974), p.
30. Masao Abe, "The Self in Jung and Zen," in Anthony
Molino, ed., Jack Engler, "Therapeutic Aims in Psychotherapy and
Meditation: Developmental Stages in the Representation of the Self," in
Ken Wilber, Jack Engler, and Daniel Brown, eds., Engler, "Therapeutic Aims in Psychotherapy and
Meditation," p. 24. Jeffrey B. Rubin, Psychotherapy and Buddhism:
Toward an Integration (New York: Plenum Press, 1996), p. 60.
The Yoga Tradition: Its History,
Literature, Philosophy and Practice
(Prescott, Arizona: Hohm Press,
1998), p. 334.