By Sigurd Arild
According to Zen legend, the Zen master Kobun Chino (who was also the teacher of Steve Jobs) was once leading a meditation session.
Kobun was late, and everyone else in the room was already sitting in the cross-legged position when he entered the meditation hall. Nevertheless, Kobun walked in, looked around at everyone else as they were sitting there still and in silence. Kobun then chuckled and said: “What a stupid thing to do.” Then he rang the meditation bell that signaled the start of the meditation period.
Probably the single biggest mistake that people make when they look into meditation, mindfulness, Buddhism, Advaita, and the like, is that they do not actually meditate. They like the philosophy, but they do not meditate. All of the teachings listed above have the common denominator that the insights that are touted as philosophies rely, in the final instance, on supra-mundane, intuitive knowledge. That is to say, this kind of “knowledge” cannot be read in a book or arrived at through speculation. It is not like ordinary mental activity at all. We can’t describe it to you. You have to meditate to see for yourself.
The Zen teacher Brad Warner, who has lived in both the United States and Japan, recounts how in the United States, people tend to appreciate the philosophy and mindset of these traditions, but they tend to excuse themselves from meditation, saying that only Asians can do it. Then when he moved to Japan, he found that Japanese people who appreciate the philosophy and mindset of Zen also excuse themselves from meditation – in Japan the excuse is simply that only priests can do it.
Resistance to meditation is natural. If you just try and sit down for 20 minutes after reading this article, you will probably fail before the 20 minutes are up. If you gather some friends and agree to do it together, you will probably keep each other in place for those 20 minutes, but then agree that “nothing really happened,” and you’ll never try it again. Let’s just face it: Your odds of attaining a regular meditation practice after reading this article are pretty slim.
Nevertheless, the people who meditate often attest that it is among the best things they’ve ever done, which is a weird thing to say as meditation is actually just sitting still. So what it’s all about?
How to Meditate
Though meditation is the subject of endless debates on posture and how to do it, it’s really all quite simple. Find a room that is somewhat quiet and well-lit. Find a blanket or ordinary couch cushion that you roll up or fold to give it some bulk and stick it under your behind, so as to lift your backside a bit off the ground. Cross your legs in front of you to counteract the forward tilt from sitting on the cushion (no, you don’t need to do the full lotus position – most people who meditate never learn it). If you want, you can buy a professional meditation cushion, which is a lot better than using ordinary cushions, but you should probably wait and see if meditation is to your taste.
Find a posture that strikes a balance between keeping your spine straight and requiring relatively little energy to maintain. Then sit still and breathe normally – not fast, not slow, not deep, nor shallow – just breathe normally. You don’t need mantras, visualizations, or to make a conscious effort to stop your thoughts. If you notice that you’ve slipped into a daydream, bring yourself back to the here and now. Don’t worry about whether you’re doing it right – just keep sitting.
“Is it happening now?”
A big impediment that knocks people off course when they are learning to meditate is that they expect themselves to notice the effects of meditation as they are doing it. They sit there, waiting for some mystical state of consciousness to occur. But in fact, the beneficial effects of meditation are rarely noticed while in meditation. They tend to come splashing in in the days afterwards. So don’t let yourself be discouraged if all you notice is breathing, boredom, and ordinary consciousness – that probably means that you’re doing it right.
“I thought this was supposed to be blissful!”
If you’ve seen the stock photos depicting people who meditate, they all seem pretty happy about it, as if they’ve just locked into a state where it’s totally blissful to meditate. Such states may happen, but they’re far from the norm. Even Buddhist masters, who’ve been meditating since they were children, sometimes hate meditation and experience mental resistance towards sitting their asses down and meditating. In a way, meditation is like a workout where sometimes it’s bliss and sometimes it’s a chore. In fact, as a friend of ours who’s both an athlete and a meditator remarked, meditation is even worse than a workout, because in a workout he tends to tap into a state of bliss 50% of the time whereas in meditation, the practice just felt like a chore 90% of the time. But as he also said, he wouldn’t want to give up meditation for the world.
“My legs are sleeping!”
While there are dangers to meditation, your legs falling asleep isn’t one of them. Although your legs may go numb and even start to hurt a little, numerous studies have shown that there are no lasting adverse effects from having your legs go numb during meditation. Of course, if you’re in major pain, be pragmatic and rearrange yourself. But don’t panic because your legs are sleeping a little.
“What are the dangers of meditation then?”
Meditation opens up the mind to aspects of reality that are not normally accessible to the conscious mind. People who have a lot of unacknowledged negative mental baggage and/or a family history of psychosis sometimes report negative moods and/or brief psychotic episodes. If you experience such symptoms, back off or lay off meditation entirely.
Most likely, though, meditation will just be boring.
Why Meditate?
When people look into meditation they often encounter someone more experienced; someone who meditates a lot and who enigmatically instructs them that “there’s really no reason to do meditation and there’s nothing to be gained from meditation.” Strictly speaking, this is true, but it’s bound to be unhelpful to the neophyte. The reason people say things like that is because they are speaking from the point of view of the Absolute (or more frequently, because they’ve heard someone else do it and they want to be seen as smart-ass, enigmatic “Zen masters” as well).
From the point of view of the Absolute, it is true that there is nothing to be gained from meditation, but all of us have to start from the point of view of the ordinary, empirical truth that we all know. From the point of view of ordinary truth, there’s a whole host of reasons to take up meditation, including:
- Improved quality of sleep and energy throughout the day
- Improved ability to focus and concentrate
- Strengthened immune system
- Improved ability to cope with stress
- Lowered neuroticism and more stable moods
As the meditation teacher Steve Hagen has explained, the notion of gaining something from meditation is like the booster rockets that help a space shuttle get into orbit: Once the shuttle is in orbit, it can sustain itself without the need for booster rockets. But if it didn’t rely on booster rockets in the first place, it’d never break free of the Earth’s atmosphere. Far from everyone who undertakes and reaps the benefits of meditation ever “realize the absolute.” So don’t worry about it and don’t let yourself be knocked off course by people who want to impress you with enigmatic statements and Zen master posturing – the best thing you can do is just to do it.
Acknowledgements
This article is indebted to the meditation teachers Brad Warner and Steve Hagen and their discussions of how to meditate. If you are interested in reading more about meditation, consider getting their books ‘Hardcore Zen’ and ‘Meditation Now or Never.’
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Instruction images of people meditating in this article commissioned for this publication from artist Georgios Magkakis.
This article provides educational information on meditation. The information is provided “as-is” and should not be construed to constitute professional services or warranties of any kind.