About This Course
Learning to meditate is a gradual process. Each week, this course has tweeted new techniques and facilitated new insights. The techniques either address particular problems that may arise when you meditate, or provide progressively more advanced methods which deepen your experience. It is recommended that you start by going back to week one's techniques and begin your weekly course at that time. The earlier exercises are not mere preliminaries. They are central methods in their own right to which you will return repeatedly - no matter how advanced your practice becomes.
Posture: How To Sit Like A Human
A common misconception is that you must sit on the floor in a special, difficult position to meditate. This is not the case for the techniques of this course. (The difficulty of a posture does not necessarily make it more ‘advanced’.)
Only four things matter: you must be still, comfortable, relaxed, and alert. You must be still because movements distract you from meditation. You must be comfortable because pain distracts. You must be relaxed because bodily tension produces mental tension. You must be alert because maintaining attention is central to meditation. Any position that allows all four factors is ideal.
Generally, sitting is the best position for meditation. It is difficult to maintain sufficient alertness whilst lying down. Standing still becomes uncomfortable after a few minutes. There are valuable methods for meditating whilst walking – but the method you are learning now requires physical stillness.
You may suppose that you already know how to sit – but much of this week’s email, and the next few, will explain how to sit still, comfortably, relaxedly, and alertly. That is not so easy. You may already have discovered that—after a few minutes—you get a back ache or a powerful urge to squirm. If not yet, such discomforts will arise as your meditation sessions increase in length.
Sitting is completely natural. Your body already knows how to sit perfectly – but this innate knowledge is obscured by social conditioning. In the West it is generally believed that it is most comfortable and relaxed to slump and slouch. We all learn this habit of sitting but it rapidly leads to aches and restlessness. We learn, wrongly, that it is only possible to ‘sit up straight’ by using muscular tension. These problems are reinforced by the wretched design of Western chairs, which make it virtually impossible to sit naturally.
The spine is the key to sitting. There are two factors.
1. Putting the spine in a vertical position automatically makes you alert. Slouching backward, or slumping forward, tends to make you drowsy.
2. Allowing the spine to elongate makes sitting comfortable and relaxed. Compressing the spine with muscular tension results in back, neck, or shoulder pain.
Both factors are addressed by balancing the spine within the pelvis. When the top of the spine—at the back of your neck—is directly above the tailbone, it is vertical. When it is balanced, no muscular tension is required – the spine simply assumes a vertical position. When it is out of balance, you need to contract the muscles in your front to pull it forward – or the muscles in your back to pull it back. (See figures 1-3 on this week’s picture page.) Either contraction shortens the spine and results in tension and eventually pain.
To balance the spine within the pelvis, the pelvis must be higher than the knees. This is the critical defect of most chairs. The seat of a chair designed for human beings must slope downward from back to front. Many chairs slope upward. Even seats that appear level generally squash down in the centre when you sit on them, so that your pelvis sinks below your knees.
Sometimes I suspect that six-legged reptiles from Planet X have infiltrated the chair design industry so they will have plenty of comfortable places to sit when they take over our planet.
It is possible to sit still, comfortable, relaxed, and alert in an armchair. The key is to ensure that your spine is supported evenly along its length and is brought reasonably close to vertical. You may need one or more firm cushions behind your back. Stretch your legs straight out in front. However, it may be difficult to remain alert in an armchair.
Generally it is better to sit on an armless dining-table or office chair, with your back unsupported. A common description of an interested audience is of their being ‘on the edge of their seats’. When you are listening raptly to a concert or lecture, you automatically take up the natural sitting position—tall and vertical—and automatically find that sitting forward in the chair makes that possible. This effortless alertness is what we cultivate in meditation. A bored audience slumps and slouches.
With your back unconstrained by the chair, you can make tiny adjustments to find the balance point. There you can release all tension and allow your spine to elongate. At this point your head may feel as though it is floating upward. Since chairs are so badly designed, some modification is usually required. The angle of the seat can be corrected by putting a telephone directory under the back legs. A concave or too-low seat can be fixed by putting a firm cushion on top. A folded blanket or a stack of folded towels can also work. If you are tall, chairs are too low, so that your knees are forced above your pelvis regardless of the seat angle. You may need a telephone directory on the seat and then cushioning on top of that. A narrow foam wedge—which you will find in stores on the web—can provide both a downward slant and some added height. If the chair is too high for you, put a telephone directory under your feet.
This Week's Meditation Technique
Use the breath-counting method just as last week. Once every minute or two, however, take a moment to check your posture. You will often find that it has deteriorated while you were counting.
Wherever unnecessary tension has crept in – relax it. If you find you have slumped forward – sit up again. If you are slouched back – come forward. If your spine is compressed downward – release your head upward.
Follow-up
In your notebook, record anything you observe about your posture.
Learning how you habitually use—and misuse—your body is a process of life-long discovery. When you re-read your notes in a few months, it will be useful to remind yourself of things you may have discovered and forgotten. During periods of stress, we tend to revert to bad habits and forget new ones. It may be striking to discover how much progress you have made by reviewing your starting point.
Obstacles & Antidotes
If you consistently find yourself slumping, or slouching, you have uncovered a habit. In meditation, you can unlearn a habit by disengaging from it whenever you notice it. In this week’s practice, you have many opportunities to recognise habits and undo them. Over days and weeks, your posture will improve.
You may also find yourself noticing your posture when you are not meditating – and release unnecessary tension then as well. Eventually your whole way of being will become more comfortable. In choosing to un-learn this physical habit – you are learning to disengage from habits in general. Later in this course, you will un-learn habits that are close to the core of your being – and that will profoundly change the way you experience the world.
On a less elevated note, slumping is also caused by a seat that is too low or that does not slope downward. If you find yourself consistently slumping, try raising or tilting your seat.
Similarly, if you find that you have to contract muscles in your lower back to pull yourself up—so that your back is bowed—your seat may be too high or too downwardly sloped. Do not be surprised if you find it tiring and awkward to sit upright. Because your body has adapted over a lifetime to slumping and slouching, some muscles are weak or tight that will need to strengthen and lengthen. You need to learn a new physical skill. Sitting upright is not an extreme sport – but like any other physical activity—horse riding or cycling, for example—it can leave you tired and aching at first. Then your body adapts and it becomes much easier.
Preview
Next week, I will continue the posture discussion by explaining how to sit comfortably on the floor – as this has some advantages over sitting in a chair.
The main topic next week, however, will be ‘thinking’. You will probably have discovered that—however sincerely you intend to meditate—you spend most of your time lost in thought. Throughout this course we will be looking in greater and greater depth at our relationship with thought and what that implies for life.
Recommended Resources
On our web site, there is a page summarizing the various meditation resources Aro offers.
Our Members programme provides an expert meditation mentor with whom you can correspond by email.
Support our charitable work—bringing the benefits of meditation to others—by becoming a Friend of Aro.
Aro Gar, P.O. Box 3066, Alameda, CA 94501, United States
Monday, June 28, 2010
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Meditation Techniques - Week 2
Count to 21
About This Course
Learning to meditate is a gradual process. Each week, this course has tweeted new techniques and facilitated new insights. The techniques either address particular problems that may arise when you meditate, or provide progressively more advanced methods which deepen your experience. It is recommended that you start by going back to Week One's techniques and begin your course at that time. The earlier exercises are not mere preliminaries. They are central methods in their own right to which you will return repeatedly - no matter how advanced your practice becomes.
To sign up for this course to be emailed to you weekly; click here Aro Meditation
A week has gone by, and this is the second tweet in the series of Aro’s Meditation course. If you found last week’s exercise perplexingly open-ended, do not be concerned. Our main topic this week is a new meditation technique that provides more structure.
This Week’s Meditation Technique
Sit comfortably, as before – but this week, open your eyes slightly. This allows a little light to enter – but does not allow you to see clearly. The light will help you remain awake and alert. Try remaining still, without fidgeting. Complete motionlessness is impossible. You can move if discomfort prompts – but try not to move unnecessarily. Turn your attention to your breath. Silently count each exhalation. Count each out-breath from 1 until you reach 21. Then count your breaths backwards until you reach 1. Repeat this process for the duration of your meditation session. Breathe normally and naturally. Do not attempt to control your breath in any way. Do not breathe any faster, slower, or deeper than usual. Simply allow breathing to happen. You may sometimes become lost in thoughts – and suddenly notice that you have stopped counting your out-breaths. Alternatively you may forget the number you have just counted. You may forget whether you are counting forwards or backwards. You may find yourself at 27, having passed 21 without noticing. Whenever you notice that you have lost track of the technique – begin again. Return to 1 and count upward again. Try this for ten minutes – or fifteen, if you are feeling ambitious. When you have finished, record your impressions.
Notebook Follow-up
(Read this only after you have tried the new technique.)
Which did you prefer, this week’s meditation technique, or last week’s technique? Your preference is worth noting because it teaches you something about yourself as a meditator.
• If you prefer the new method – is it because it gives more structure? Or is it because you learned something new about yourself by the end of it?
• What has the new method shown you about yourself and how you function?
• If you prefer the new method – is it because it seems less threatening? Or is it because it is less abstract?
• If you prefer last week’s method – is it because it seemed less contrived and artificial? Or is it because it seemed more restful and less taxing?
• What has last week’s method shown you about yourself and how you function?
Obstacles and Antidotes
Much of this course will concern problems arising for meditators – and the solutions for them. Traditionally these are called ‘obstacles’ and ‘antidotes’. When you begin this week’s technique, you might find that you rarely get past three. This is not unusual. A universal antidote for meditation obstacles is persistence. A traditional analogy is that gently flowing water is stronger than rock. Rain may seem weak compared to granite – but in time, it can wear away mountains. Meditation proceeds mainly by slow steady persistence rather than dramatic breakthroughs. Some days will be easier than others. If you persist you will find that you lose the count less often – and that your count proceeds further before you get lost. Do not see losing track as failure. It is easy to be self-critical, to feel that you ought to do better, even to punish yourself mentally – but that is entirely unhelpful. Meditation is not competitive. There are no standards of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ performance. It is the activity that is valuable, not the outcome. Gentleness is one of the best antidotes in meditation. Remember this when you are frustrated. Treat yourself with respect, kindness, and friendly curiosity. Each time you notice ‘wandering mind’ and come back to counting your breath, you experience ‘returning mind’. What happens when your mind wanders is not important. You can be happy whenever you notice it – because it provides the opportunity to experience returning.
If you find this week’s exercise difficult, try counting both in-breaths and out-breaths. This may be less difficult. (This is an example of a specific antidote—a specific solution for a specific problem.) When you feel relatively confident about counting in and out, return to counting only the exhalations.
More About Counting
Try the technique for two or three days before reading on. Reflect on how counting compares with last week’s practice.
* * *
The method of counting your breaths may seem strange, mechanical, and pointless – but it has specific practical functions. Let me describe one now. (You will be using variants of this method for the next few weeks, and other functions will become apparent later.) Counting has probably taught you something interesting about yourself: that it is quite difficult to maintain sufficient concentration to accomplish this seemingly trivial task. This opens up the question of how much concentrative ability we may have at other times in other activities. We don’t usually notice such lapses of attention and mental wandering in ordinary daily activities – but the practice of breath-counting reveals how weak concentration can be. With this technique you can develop your ability to stay with whatever you are doing and to find the presence of awareness there. This ability to focus attention carries over into all activities, including those in which sustained concentration is critical to performance.
When To Meditate
Some people find it easier to meditate in the mornings, some in the evenings. A good time is when you are alert and relaxed. Choose a time that suits you, and that you can fit into your established daily routine. A regular time helps establish meditation as a positive habit.
Preview of Next Week
As you start sitting for longer periods—ten minutes rather than five, or fifteen rather than ten—you may find it increasingly difficult to remain comfortable. Discomfort can distract you from your meditation. Next week’s main topic will address the question of how to sit in a way that is comfortable and also enables you to remain alert.
Recommended Resources
As you continue with meditation, you will find that you have questions that are not yet answered in the course. You may become curious about particular topics that it never covers in depth. Each week, I shall recommend resources for further investigation. This week’s resource is the Aro meditation FAQ (answers to frequently asked questions). If you have not already read it – it is a good first place to look.
See our meditation resources page for a range of learning methods.
Aro Gar, P.O. Box 3066, Alameda, CA 94501, United States
About This Course
Learning to meditate is a gradual process. Each week, this course has tweeted new techniques and facilitated new insights. The techniques either address particular problems that may arise when you meditate, or provide progressively more advanced methods which deepen your experience. It is recommended that you start by going back to Week One's techniques and begin your course at that time. The earlier exercises are not mere preliminaries. They are central methods in their own right to which you will return repeatedly - no matter how advanced your practice becomes.
To sign up for this course to be emailed to you weekly; click here Aro Meditation
A week has gone by, and this is the second tweet in the series of Aro’s Meditation course. If you found last week’s exercise perplexingly open-ended, do not be concerned. Our main topic this week is a new meditation technique that provides more structure.
This Week’s Meditation Technique
Sit comfortably, as before – but this week, open your eyes slightly. This allows a little light to enter – but does not allow you to see clearly. The light will help you remain awake and alert. Try remaining still, without fidgeting. Complete motionlessness is impossible. You can move if discomfort prompts – but try not to move unnecessarily. Turn your attention to your breath. Silently count each exhalation. Count each out-breath from 1 until you reach 21. Then count your breaths backwards until you reach 1. Repeat this process for the duration of your meditation session. Breathe normally and naturally. Do not attempt to control your breath in any way. Do not breathe any faster, slower, or deeper than usual. Simply allow breathing to happen. You may sometimes become lost in thoughts – and suddenly notice that you have stopped counting your out-breaths. Alternatively you may forget the number you have just counted. You may forget whether you are counting forwards or backwards. You may find yourself at 27, having passed 21 without noticing. Whenever you notice that you have lost track of the technique – begin again. Return to 1 and count upward again. Try this for ten minutes – or fifteen, if you are feeling ambitious. When you have finished, record your impressions.
Notebook Follow-up
(Read this only after you have tried the new technique.)
Which did you prefer, this week’s meditation technique, or last week’s technique? Your preference is worth noting because it teaches you something about yourself as a meditator.
• If you prefer the new method – is it because it gives more structure? Or is it because you learned something new about yourself by the end of it?
• What has the new method shown you about yourself and how you function?
• If you prefer the new method – is it because it seems less threatening? Or is it because it is less abstract?
• If you prefer last week’s method – is it because it seemed less contrived and artificial? Or is it because it seemed more restful and less taxing?
• What has last week’s method shown you about yourself and how you function?
Obstacles and Antidotes
Much of this course will concern problems arising for meditators – and the solutions for them. Traditionally these are called ‘obstacles’ and ‘antidotes’. When you begin this week’s technique, you might find that you rarely get past three. This is not unusual. A universal antidote for meditation obstacles is persistence. A traditional analogy is that gently flowing water is stronger than rock. Rain may seem weak compared to granite – but in time, it can wear away mountains. Meditation proceeds mainly by slow steady persistence rather than dramatic breakthroughs. Some days will be easier than others. If you persist you will find that you lose the count less often – and that your count proceeds further before you get lost. Do not see losing track as failure. It is easy to be self-critical, to feel that you ought to do better, even to punish yourself mentally – but that is entirely unhelpful. Meditation is not competitive. There are no standards of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ performance. It is the activity that is valuable, not the outcome. Gentleness is one of the best antidotes in meditation. Remember this when you are frustrated. Treat yourself with respect, kindness, and friendly curiosity. Each time you notice ‘wandering mind’ and come back to counting your breath, you experience ‘returning mind’. What happens when your mind wanders is not important. You can be happy whenever you notice it – because it provides the opportunity to experience returning.
If you find this week’s exercise difficult, try counting both in-breaths and out-breaths. This may be less difficult. (This is an example of a specific antidote—a specific solution for a specific problem.) When you feel relatively confident about counting in and out, return to counting only the exhalations.
More About Counting
Try the technique for two or three days before reading on. Reflect on how counting compares with last week’s practice.
* * *
The method of counting your breaths may seem strange, mechanical, and pointless – but it has specific practical functions. Let me describe one now. (You will be using variants of this method for the next few weeks, and other functions will become apparent later.) Counting has probably taught you something interesting about yourself: that it is quite difficult to maintain sufficient concentration to accomplish this seemingly trivial task. This opens up the question of how much concentrative ability we may have at other times in other activities. We don’t usually notice such lapses of attention and mental wandering in ordinary daily activities – but the practice of breath-counting reveals how weak concentration can be. With this technique you can develop your ability to stay with whatever you are doing and to find the presence of awareness there. This ability to focus attention carries over into all activities, including those in which sustained concentration is critical to performance.
When To Meditate
Some people find it easier to meditate in the mornings, some in the evenings. A good time is when you are alert and relaxed. Choose a time that suits you, and that you can fit into your established daily routine. A regular time helps establish meditation as a positive habit.
Preview of Next Week
As you start sitting for longer periods—ten minutes rather than five, or fifteen rather than ten—you may find it increasingly difficult to remain comfortable. Discomfort can distract you from your meditation. Next week’s main topic will address the question of how to sit in a way that is comfortable and also enables you to remain alert.
Recommended Resources
As you continue with meditation, you will find that you have questions that are not yet answered in the course. You may become curious about particular topics that it never covers in depth. Each week, I shall recommend resources for further investigation. This week’s resource is the Aro meditation FAQ (answers to frequently asked questions). If you have not already read it – it is a good first place to look.
See our meditation resources page for a range of learning methods.
Aro Gar, P.O. Box 3066, Alameda, CA 94501, United States
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Meditation Techniques - Week 1
Introduction
Learning to meditate is a gradual process. Each week, this course will tweet new techniques and facilitates new insights. The techniques either address particular problems that may arise when you meditate, or provide progressively more advanced methods which deepen your experience. One advantage of this weekly meditation course is that it paces you. If you learn meditation from a book, you may be tempted to read it all in a week. You might rush through the early exercises in order to experiment with later ones. That is rather like leaping onto a 1000cc motorcycle and hoping to roar off into the sunset – before having learned to ride a bicycle without training wheels. You need substantial experience with each exercise to obtain the benefit it provides – and to prepare you for the next exercise. The earlier exercises are not mere preliminaries. They are central methods in their own right to which you will return repeatedly – no matter how advanced your practice becomes. To make the best use of this course, do not set this article aside, with the intention that you will get around to investigating the whole course later. Try to engage in each week’s exercises within the week that you receive the tweet.
To sign up for this course to be emailed to you weekly; click here Aro Meditation
A Meditation Notebook
It is useful to keep a meditation notebook in which to record your goals, experiences, and reflections. If you use a computer frequently, you might keep your records in a text file. Or, you may prefer to write in a paper notebook.
Either way, right now is the time to start. Create the file, or locate a pad of paper. Start with today’s date – and for your first entry, record your motivations for starting to meditate. Alternatively, if you have already been meditating for a while, write what has motivated you to start this course. If you re-read this entry in a few weeks or months, you may discover something surprising. You may find that your motivations for continuing to meditate have shifted from your reasons for starting. As your meditation practice develops, you are likely to find that it has rewards you cannot expect at this present moment in time.
Simplicity
Meditation is deceptively simple. In a sense, the complete instructions are: ‘Be here—now!’ That may seem nonsensical. You could reply: “I am here, now. How could I be otherwise?” The rest of this course is devoted to explaining how you may not be fully here, now – and ways of coming back to here and now. There is much to say about meditation – enough to fill many books. Meditation can seem complex – but that is only because the concepts we use to understand our minds are complex. During this course, you will learn how to strip away those concepts and to look at your mind directly. You will learn to experience the simplicity, clarity, and power of your own un-conceptualised mind. Each week, you will learn more about what it means to ‘be here—now’. This week’s meditation technique is a first experiential explanation of that phrase.
This Week's Meditation Technique
Sit somewhere quiet. Total silence is not necessary – but music, television noise, or people talking will be distracting. Some types of meditation can be undertaken whilst listening to music – but not this method. Sit comfortably. Sitting in a chair is fine. If you are used to sitting on a cushion on the floor—and can do so easily—that is another possibility. Sit reasonably upright, but do not strain to achieve any particular posture. Wear loose, comfortable clothes. Loosen your belt if it is tight. Close your eyes almost all the way, so that a little light enters but you cannot see anything clearly. When thoughts come – let them come. When thoughts go – let them go. If you find yourself involved in a stream of thoughts, let go of your involvement with them. Keep letting go of involvement. Remain uninvolved. Just let go. Whatever happens – let it be as it is. If you feel good – do not hold on to those positive thoughts. If you feel bad – do not reject those negative thoughts. Especially important: if you feel nothing in particular – do not drift into numbness and lack of presence. Remain alert. Try this for five minutes. If you feel ambitious, try ten minutes. See how it goes. When you have finished, write as much as you can remember about what your experience was like.
Follow-up
If you have not yet engaged in the exercise – please stop reading now. Come back here when you have tried the exercise. Reading what follows will colour your experience, and you will miss the opportunity to arrive at it with the freshness that is necessary.
* * *
You have made a good start. Whatever happened, whatever you felt, was your experience. You started to be here now. These are some of the things that you may have thought after the exercise:
• That was easier than I expected
• That was a complete and utter waste of time
• I enjoyed that
• I felt stupid
• I felt relaxed
• I did not really understand what I was supposed to be doing
• It was quite pleasant
• I did not see the point of it – it seemed a useless thing to be doing
• I fell asleep
• I felt quite agitated
• What am I supposed to make of this?
Whatever you thought or felt, it was useful. It provides you with valuable insights into how you see the world. For example:
• If the exercise was more or less difficult than you thought, you can ask yourself ‘What exactly did I expect – and on what did I base my expectations?’
• If you thought it was a waste of time, you can ask yourself: ‘What are my criteria for whether time is wasted?’ If just being seems a waste of time – that idea devalues the most fundamental aspect of what you are. You might consider seriously whether you want to accept that idea.
• If you enjoyed the exercise, what was it that you enjoyed? How do you define or recognise the sensation of enjoyment? (One thing you will discover—in time—is that meditation radically broadens what you are capable of enjoying. It changes your understanding of what enjoyment is – so this is important to investigate – here and now.)
• If you felt self-conscious, you could ask yourself: ‘What does that say about me? What image do I have of myself that jars with simply sitting and being?’
• If you did not understand what you were supposed to be doing, then you probably expected to be engaged in an exercise that accorded with certain guidelines. Those guidelines might be your personal criteria with respect to the exercise ‘making sense’. You could question those guidelines, and ask yourself where they came from and when you accepted them as authoritative.
Meditate Daily
This week’s exercise is the simplest meditation technique. It is also—in some ways—the most difficult, because of its lack of structure. It is not problematic if you find it frustrating: you will be in good company. Many millions of people have found this practice difficult at first. See if you can maintain it for a week. In each of the following weeks’ emails, you will learn additional techniques which address the various difficulties that arise. For meditation to be effective, you have to meditate every day – or at least, most days. Learning to meditate is in many ways similar to learning a musical instrument, or becoming physically fit through an exercise programme. You would not succeed with either if your commitment were no more than three hours every Sunday afternoon (and nothing during the week). If you exercise, practice guitar, or engage in meditation a little every day – you will see gradual improvement. Try this week’s exercise for five or ten minutes a day. Only meditate longer if you are confident you can maintain longer sessions for the entire week.
The Tibetan meditation tradition is full of colourful stories of meditation masters of the past and their pithy summaries of the essence of the meditative path. One was given by the great yogi Milarépa to his beloved student Gampopa. When they parted for the last time, Milarépa told Gampopa that he had taught him everything there was to learn about meditation—except one final secret that was too precious to just give away. There was a tearful goodbye before Gampopa set off. When he had gone a little way down a hill—over a stream—and had started up the hill on the other side, he heard his teacher’s voice again. Milarépa yelled that last, most profound teaching to Gampopa across the valley:
The important thing is to actually do it.
So – actually do it. Good luck – and see you in a week.
See our meditation resources page for a range of learning methods
Aro Gar, P.O. Box 3066, Alameda, CA 94501, United States
Learning to meditate is a gradual process. Each week, this course will tweet new techniques and facilitates new insights. The techniques either address particular problems that may arise when you meditate, or provide progressively more advanced methods which deepen your experience. One advantage of this weekly meditation course is that it paces you. If you learn meditation from a book, you may be tempted to read it all in a week. You might rush through the early exercises in order to experiment with later ones. That is rather like leaping onto a 1000cc motorcycle and hoping to roar off into the sunset – before having learned to ride a bicycle without training wheels. You need substantial experience with each exercise to obtain the benefit it provides – and to prepare you for the next exercise. The earlier exercises are not mere preliminaries. They are central methods in their own right to which you will return repeatedly – no matter how advanced your practice becomes. To make the best use of this course, do not set this article aside, with the intention that you will get around to investigating the whole course later. Try to engage in each week’s exercises within the week that you receive the tweet.
To sign up for this course to be emailed to you weekly; click here Aro Meditation
A Meditation Notebook
It is useful to keep a meditation notebook in which to record your goals, experiences, and reflections. If you use a computer frequently, you might keep your records in a text file. Or, you may prefer to write in a paper notebook.
Either way, right now is the time to start. Create the file, or locate a pad of paper. Start with today’s date – and for your first entry, record your motivations for starting to meditate. Alternatively, if you have already been meditating for a while, write what has motivated you to start this course. If you re-read this entry in a few weeks or months, you may discover something surprising. You may find that your motivations for continuing to meditate have shifted from your reasons for starting. As your meditation practice develops, you are likely to find that it has rewards you cannot expect at this present moment in time.
Simplicity
Meditation is deceptively simple. In a sense, the complete instructions are: ‘Be here—now!’ That may seem nonsensical. You could reply: “I am here, now. How could I be otherwise?” The rest of this course is devoted to explaining how you may not be fully here, now – and ways of coming back to here and now. There is much to say about meditation – enough to fill many books. Meditation can seem complex – but that is only because the concepts we use to understand our minds are complex. During this course, you will learn how to strip away those concepts and to look at your mind directly. You will learn to experience the simplicity, clarity, and power of your own un-conceptualised mind. Each week, you will learn more about what it means to ‘be here—now’. This week’s meditation technique is a first experiential explanation of that phrase.
This Week's Meditation Technique
Sit somewhere quiet. Total silence is not necessary – but music, television noise, or people talking will be distracting. Some types of meditation can be undertaken whilst listening to music – but not this method. Sit comfortably. Sitting in a chair is fine. If you are used to sitting on a cushion on the floor—and can do so easily—that is another possibility. Sit reasonably upright, but do not strain to achieve any particular posture. Wear loose, comfortable clothes. Loosen your belt if it is tight. Close your eyes almost all the way, so that a little light enters but you cannot see anything clearly. When thoughts come – let them come. When thoughts go – let them go. If you find yourself involved in a stream of thoughts, let go of your involvement with them. Keep letting go of involvement. Remain uninvolved. Just let go. Whatever happens – let it be as it is. If you feel good – do not hold on to those positive thoughts. If you feel bad – do not reject those negative thoughts. Especially important: if you feel nothing in particular – do not drift into numbness and lack of presence. Remain alert. Try this for five minutes. If you feel ambitious, try ten minutes. See how it goes. When you have finished, write as much as you can remember about what your experience was like.
Follow-up
If you have not yet engaged in the exercise – please stop reading now. Come back here when you have tried the exercise. Reading what follows will colour your experience, and you will miss the opportunity to arrive at it with the freshness that is necessary.
* * *
You have made a good start. Whatever happened, whatever you felt, was your experience. You started to be here now. These are some of the things that you may have thought after the exercise:
• That was easier than I expected
• That was a complete and utter waste of time
• I enjoyed that
• I felt stupid
• I felt relaxed
• I did not really understand what I was supposed to be doing
• It was quite pleasant
• I did not see the point of it – it seemed a useless thing to be doing
• I fell asleep
• I felt quite agitated
• What am I supposed to make of this?
Whatever you thought or felt, it was useful. It provides you with valuable insights into how you see the world. For example:
• If the exercise was more or less difficult than you thought, you can ask yourself ‘What exactly did I expect – and on what did I base my expectations?’
• If you thought it was a waste of time, you can ask yourself: ‘What are my criteria for whether time is wasted?’ If just being seems a waste of time – that idea devalues the most fundamental aspect of what you are. You might consider seriously whether you want to accept that idea.
• If you enjoyed the exercise, what was it that you enjoyed? How do you define or recognise the sensation of enjoyment? (One thing you will discover—in time—is that meditation radically broadens what you are capable of enjoying. It changes your understanding of what enjoyment is – so this is important to investigate – here and now.)
• If you felt self-conscious, you could ask yourself: ‘What does that say about me? What image do I have of myself that jars with simply sitting and being?’
• If you did not understand what you were supposed to be doing, then you probably expected to be engaged in an exercise that accorded with certain guidelines. Those guidelines might be your personal criteria with respect to the exercise ‘making sense’. You could question those guidelines, and ask yourself where they came from and when you accepted them as authoritative.
Meditate Daily
This week’s exercise is the simplest meditation technique. It is also—in some ways—the most difficult, because of its lack of structure. It is not problematic if you find it frustrating: you will be in good company. Many millions of people have found this practice difficult at first. See if you can maintain it for a week. In each of the following weeks’ emails, you will learn additional techniques which address the various difficulties that arise. For meditation to be effective, you have to meditate every day – or at least, most days. Learning to meditate is in many ways similar to learning a musical instrument, or becoming physically fit through an exercise programme. You would not succeed with either if your commitment were no more than three hours every Sunday afternoon (and nothing during the week). If you exercise, practice guitar, or engage in meditation a little every day – you will see gradual improvement. Try this week’s exercise for five or ten minutes a day. Only meditate longer if you are confident you can maintain longer sessions for the entire week.
The Tibetan meditation tradition is full of colourful stories of meditation masters of the past and their pithy summaries of the essence of the meditative path. One was given by the great yogi Milarépa to his beloved student Gampopa. When they parted for the last time, Milarépa told Gampopa that he had taught him everything there was to learn about meditation—except one final secret that was too precious to just give away. There was a tearful goodbye before Gampopa set off. When he had gone a little way down a hill—over a stream—and had started up the hill on the other side, he heard his teacher’s voice again. Milarépa yelled that last, most profound teaching to Gampopa across the valley:
The important thing is to actually do it.
So – actually do it. Good luck – and see you in a week.
See our meditation resources page for a range of learning methods
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