How to get the most out of meditation

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We are continuing our series of talks from the book, Awakening the Buddha Within, by Lama Surya Das.  Let’s dive into the chapter on Wise Mindfulness, one of the steps on the Eightfold Path.  Mindfulness and meditation are the primary practices of the Buddhist teachings.  It gives us a clear road map for transforming our lives.  This morning, we'll focus on meditation.

The list of three’s: 

Why meditate?  What is meditation?  How does one meditate?

What are the three stages of meditation?

What are the top three questions about meditation?

To begin, ask yourself why would you want to meditate in the first place?  Why do you care about meditating?  It’s important to be very clear about why you are interested in meditation.   Often, people are vague about their motivation, then consequently fail to make significant changes in their behavior.   We can think about this problem in terms of our present self and our future self (given that Buddhists think that “self” as just a combination of conditioned phenomena).   In the present moment, our present self may dream about losing ten pounds, or quitting smoking or some other improvement.  Our future self is what we will become in the future.  However, we are creating our future self in this very moment.  Our responses in this moment are what lay the foundation for our future self.

And yet, in this moment, we are being bombarded by our thoughts and emotions that are often looking for an immediate payoff.  The doughnut that shows up in this moment may seem too yummy to resist.  However, if we are motivated to grow into the future self of our dreams, we must find the motivation to resist an unskillful response in the present moment. 

So, why meditate?  When the going gets tough, you will need to be clear on why you want to sit down and be still.  Meditation can be a powerful transformer, but it doesn’t work to just read about it or hear about it.  It requires actual practice.  Therefore, it is helpful to be very clear and precise about your motivation and intention. 

Second, what is meditation?  Meditation in all its various forms has one objective, to train the mind.  The mind is the most powerful tool that we have.  We are constantly thinking and processing the world around us.  Think about a stranger you saw recently.  Now recognize some judgment you may have had about them.  What opinion did you form about them, just based on their appearance?  It seems so real, these opinions and perspectives that we have, yet they are built on our conditioned habits of relating everything we see, feel, experience with something we previously saw, felt or experienced.  Mostly, they are just stories.  Sometimes, these pre-conceived ideas are helpful, but oftentimes, they cause us to not “see” what is really happening in the moment. 

Meditation helps us recognize these stories for what they are--just stories.  We have the power to transform our lives by identifying our stories, seeing things and ourselves more clearly, then responding differently in the future.  

One of the most common questions people have about meditation is:  How do I stop my thoughts?  The good news is that we are NOT trying to stop our thoughts.  Thank goodness!  Anyone who has tried to meditate even once knows the frustration of trying to stop thinking.  The more we try to stop, the more it seems we think.  Our mind is like a little puppy running around with too much energy, running from one thought to another, sometime with very little connection.  We spend most of our time either rehashing the past or fantasizing about the future, either can be pleasant or painful, but both the past and the future take us away from being fully present in this moment.  Meditation is training the mind to see ourselves and the world more clearly.  So, we begin by making friends with our mind, with our thoughts and emotions, not pushing them away, not cling to them, not ignoring them.  Let them rise and fall of their own natural process.   

So, we know why we meditate, and what is meditation.  How do we do it? Lama Surya Das breaks down the meditation process into three stages:  

First, arriving and centering.  We leave behind the busyness of life and come to a place of stillness.  We can give ourselves cues that it is time to settle down.  Playing soft music, sitting in a certain position, reducing external distractions—these are all physical cues that encourage our mind to calm down.   This is why it’s helpful to have a place in your house or apartment that is just for meditation, even if it’s just a corner of a room.  It helps to put together a chair or cushion, an altar or whatever helps you get centered.  Taking a few slow, deep breaths is also a good signal to our body that it is time to relax. 

Stage two is Intensifying and Focusing:  We use the breath as a tool for bringing our awareness to a single point.  We also use chanting to give our brain something to focus on to help still the mind.  Chanting naturally brings you into the present moment. This focusing process is called Shamatha in Sanskrit, calm abiding.  We’re paying attention.  Another great tool for intensifying and focusing is visualization.  We imagine in great detail having qualities like a Buddha.  The loving-kindness practice, the point of peace, forgiveness practice, offering practice—these are all visualization tools to focus the mind on a greater level of being.     

Stage three is Releasing and Allowing:  The main point of the meditation is to release even the object of meditation and just be.  We open ourselves to whatever is happening within us and around us.  Just sitting--not doing, not fabricating, not distracted.    

Leave it as it is and rest your weary mind.

                  -LONGCHENPA Tibetan Buddhist Teacher 

No place to go, nothing to do, resting in the natural perfection of just living.  We make things a whole lot harder than they need to be. In Dzogchen, a particular Buddhist tradition, it’s call the Natural Great Perfection.  Seeing the innate perfection in things left just as they are.  Jack Kornfield, a Buddhist teacher, says that 50% of meditation is simply self-acceptance.  Carl Rogers, a noted psychologist, says we must first accept ourselves, before we can truly change.

A second question I get quite often is:  How am I supposed to find time to meditate?  I don’t have time!”  I completely understand.  Our days seem filled with so much busyness and activity, and our minds have been trained to stay busy.  Here are some baby steps to creating a more mindful life:  First, find the missing moments. We all have them.  We’re standing in line at the grocery store.  We’re waiting for a red light.  We’ve arrived early for a doctor’s appointment.  Imagine that instead of being irritated when you had to wait, you thought, Yippee!  I now have time to meditate!  It might be as simple as taking three deep breaths, or just focus on your breathing for a few moments.  Over time, these moments become minutes, and minutes become a daily meditation practice. 

The third most often asked question I get is that people think they’re not doing it right.  Many people think that everyone else is getting it right EXCEPT for them.  I have certainly had this experience as well.  Early in my meditation practice, I read a book by Herbert Benson, entitled The Relaxation Response. And in it, he studied people before during and after a meditation exercise.  He took cortisol levels and blood pressure and interviewed them about their experience.  What he found was that often the subject didn’t think they did the meditation correctly, but even if they just tried, that was enough to lower their stress levels. Just trying to meditate had a positive impact on their physical condition.   This simple research gives me great hope when I sit down to meditate and feel like it isn’t going well.  There is no litmus test for a single meditation session—merely that you showed up, sat down and tried. 

Meditation works on the body and the brain in subtle ways.  Over time, it works its magic and enables us to live a peaceful and joyful meditative life.