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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—however 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?" |
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:
- the breath
- a mantra
such as
- 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. |
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 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 |
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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.GURDJIEFF6 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. |
- In Thomas
Cleary, trans., The Taoist Classics: The Collected Translations,
vol. III (
- John H.
Clark, A Map of Mental States, quoted in Georg Feuerstein, Ph.D., The
Yoga Tradition: Its History, Literature, Philosophy and Practice (Prescott,
Arizona: Hohm Press, 1998), p. 334.
- 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., The Couch
and the Tree: Dialogues in Psychoanalysis and Buddhism (New York:
North Point Press, 1998), p. 183.
- 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., Transformations of
Consciousness: Conventional and Contemplative Perspectives on Human
Development (Boston: Shambhala, 1984), p. 23.
- 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.