How to meditate

[bram]

Just in case there are some out there who are interested in learning to meditate, but haven’t yet found a foothold, I thought I would write this brief guide, in the hope that it can help someone somewhere along the way.

The method I will describe is one of the principle meditation methods taught by the Buddha 2,500 years ago, and is called ‘mindfulness of breathing’. It is important to note that this method is not ‘Buddhist’ or sectarian at all; those of you involved with faith based religions such as Christianity and Islam can follow this method without interfering in any way with your religious beliefs and should find that it actually helps you to follow your faith with clearer understanding.

First, the basics. You need to decide how long to meditate for, and 20 minutes is usually fine for absolute beginners. You should also try to set aside a definite time each day to practice, and tell yourself that you will practice each day for one month, just to give it a fair trial.

Find a place where you will not be disturbed, and if possible, set a timer when you begin, to avoid the temptation of clock-watching. Twenty minutes can seem like an eternity.

If you can sit cross-legged, then this is good; the half-lotus position is best, with your left leg flat on the floor, and your right foot placed on the calf of your left leg. There is nothing magical about the position, the aim is just to find a position where you will be free from discomfort for as long as possible. Sit on a cushion large enough for your legs and feet to rest on it, but not too soft, and place a second cushion under your butt. This should elevate your butt 2-3 inches above your legs. I find that an old pillow, folded in half, is ideal for this.

If you have health problems that prevent you from sitting on the floor, then sit upright on a chair, with your feet in front of you and slightly apart. Make sure the front of the chair does not trap any nerves or blood vessels behind the knees.

Place your hands face up on your lap, with your left hand underneath. And the fingers of your right hand on top. Touch the tips of your thumbs together.

Straighten your back- imagine that someone has connected a piece of string to the top of your head, and is pulling on it; once you have allowed the string to pull you upright, then release the string slowly, so that you settle back into a relaxed state with all the bones of your spine resting correctly on top of each other. Bend your head forward very slightly.

Now that you are almost ready, quickly scan your body for any points of discomfort; make the necessary adjustments, and you are ready to begin. Your body is your friend and you should make sure it is comfortable. Now set the timer for 20 minutes and we are off. Once you begin, try not to move unless it is absolutely necessary.

Close your eyes lightly and focus your attention on your breathing. Breathe naturally, in through the nose, and out through the nose. Do not try to alter your breathing. If your breathing is intense and stressful, just notice this and continue to breathe. After a while, it should calm down a little. Notice if your breathing is long, or short. Sometimes we all breathe long, and sometime we breathe short.

Focus your awareness on the point that the breath enters and exits the body- at the tip of the nostrils, or you may feel the breath on the upper lip. Just be aware of the breath, going in, or coming back out at this point. Don’t try to change it or force it to make it more noticeable.

At this point, you have probably noticed that when you sit quietly like this, you become aware of the constant chattering of your thoughts. This is the non-stop conversation that we hold with ourselves throughout our lives; many people are unaware of this for their entire lives without ever stopping to examine the process. These thoughts are okay, we are not trying to stop our thoughts, but now we have the opportunity to examine them. One of the key skills for a meditator, and this can take some time to develop, is to be aware of our thoughts without becoming involved in them. What we will learn to do is to watch our thoughts, but not get carried away on the stream of thoughts, one leading to another, and on and on.

However, this takes time, be patient with yourself; we are learning to undo a mental process that has been with us all of our lives, so we cannot expect to succeed instantly. When you realize that you have been drawn into your thoughts, whether after 15 seconds, or 15 minutes, just gently bring your awareness back to your breathing. In and out, in and out. Other thoughts will come and go; there is nothing that we need to be thinking about right now. Be gentle with yourself, and be patient.

Meditation is not a time-based activity, things take as long as they take.

You will also notice that apart from the chatter of your thoughts, you become aware of sensations through your other five senses; even with your eyes closed, you will see things behind your closed lids, you will hear the sounds of the world outside, feel your body sitting there in its unfamiliar posture, and smells and tastes may drift into and out of your awareness. If any of these become so prominent that they distract you from your breathing, then do not resist, go with the sound of the car alarm outside. Focus your attention on the sound for a short while, then bring your awareness back to your breath.

Come back to your breath. Long breaths in and long breaths out, or short breath in and short breath out. In order to fix our awareness on the breath, it is a good idea to start counting the breath. Breathe in, breathe out and then note to yourself ‘one’; then repeat , in, out, two. Continue to ten, and when you reach ten, begin counting back from nine through to zero. After this begin again. If you get lost and forget where you are, just begin again. There is no target to achieve, don’t rush, the object is to count, not to get to any number. After about five rounds of this you may find that your mind is now following your breathing; at this stage, try to stop counting, and just follow the breathing in and out. If you instantly get lost in your thoughts, come back to the counting, and do a few more rounds, then try again; if you can now follow the breath without needing to count, then you can move on to the next step, which is to develop your awareness of the whole breath body.

This means that you try to maintain your awareness through the entire breathing process, the in-breath, followed by the brief pause as the breath changes direction into an out-breath, and the longer pause at the end of the out-breath before the next breath cycle begins. Do not follow the breath into the body, or out of the body, just be aware of the breath at the point it touches the body on its journey in and out. We are like the gatekeeper, people come in and go out, our concern is minding the gate, not where they go after they enter or leave the premises.

This should cover the first twenty minutes session; gradually bring yourself back to waking consciousness, and open your eyes. Try not to stretch or make sudden movements, but enjoy the feeling of returning to normal wakefulness. Above all, don’t beat up on yourself; there is no target except to sit. If your mind was exploding with thoughts for the entire twenty minutes, then that is very good. You are learning to be aware of your thoughts, and you have observed the way they function, and that they come and go on their own. This is a stage that you need to go through, it is part of meditation, and sooner or later, like everything in our lives, this will change.

The Buddha said we should sit like the hen sits on her egg. She doesn’t know why she sits, she just sits. And one day, while she is away looking for food, the chick hatches on its own.

If anybody is interested, I will post some more on the next topics in mindfulness of breathing, which are:

Calming the breath and subtle breathing;
Dealing with pain and discomfort when sitting;
Dealing with expectations;
The five hindrances to meditation, and how to deal with them.

Please let me know if you are interested, so I can get the words ready for posting.

I hope this brief guide has been of use to someone somewhere; may all beings be truly happy and healthy, may they be wise and compassionate in their actions, may they suffer no harm or bring harm to others, and may they find freedom from suffering.

Love,

bram.

[Whiskey_Mystic]

Good work, Bram. This is a good introduction.

[donk]

I just started recently and you described well just about what I've been doing, from picking up bits and pieces here and there, I'm interested in hearing more

[whenyournex2me]

same here, great guide. I am just starting out and have the distractions you described. thoughts and such. Im working on it. But I am also interested. ty for the advice! <3

[waves]

Thanks, just what I needed after making myself a little patch of new sod as the place to try to do this regularly and successfully for the first time. Everytime I've tried before, I suddenly forget how to breathe normally, it's kind of comical. I'd be interested in all the additional topics you listed, but my main intention for doing this is to get clearer and clearer about/and in the automatic habit of recognizing and neutralizing any 'their mind' intrusions, to get in the habit of continuing the process all waking hours.

[lookbeyond]

Please continue bram, love lookbeyond

[Nanoo Nanoo]

Could it be that the left foot to the ground may ground you while the right foot to the calf creates a macro cosmic orbit ? I have seen many natives stand like this . . . i have always had a natural tendantcy to automatically sit like this .. hmm

N

[bram]

Thanks for the positive responses guys! As nobody has told me to shut up, I will continue.

I would just like to say that I am by no means an expert in this, I am just sharing what I have found out so far. I’m lucky in that I packed in work a couple of years ago, and I live in a place where I am surrounded by Dharma. I think it’s great that so many of us are starting out on this journey and I do believe that the power of meditation can and does move mountains.

The first piece involved learning to focus on the breathing, dealing with distractions from the six senses (counting thoughts as the sixth), settling the awareness on the breath at the tip of the nostrils through counting the breaths, and then expanding the awareness to include the whole of the breath cycle, the in breath, the pause and change of direction, the out breath and the pause between breath cycles. This sounds easy when it’s described this way, and some people can pick this up effortlessly, however for most of us the steps described above can take years of effort. Don’t be discouraged if it doesn't happen all at once!

Calming the breath/ subtle breathing

The next step in mindfulness of breathing is to calm the breath. This is really something that will happen by itself, we just need to observe it and be aware of it. When we start meditating, our breath may be rough, or labored, or inconsistent. This is due to the level of stress we are carrying in our minds and bodies. As we focus our awareness on the breath, and during the stage where we are counting our breaths, our breathing will become smoother, probably deeper, and more regular. Our coarse breath is now becoming more subtle.

As we continue to expand our awareness of the whole of the breath cycle, including the pauses between breaths, our breath will become even more subtle until our awareness of the breathing begins to merge with the breathing itself. At this stage we may find that we can no longer discern the breath at the nostrils because the breathing has become too subtle to notice; in this case, don’t change the way you breathe, or try to force the breath, just leave your attention at the point you last noticed the breath, at the tip of the nostrils, and wait for it to return, which it will do.

These steps above are the first stages in the development of concentration through mindfulness of breathing.

Dealing with expectations

Not too long ago, I made something of a breakthrough in my meditation. I read an article by a Malaysian Buddhist nun who teaches in Canada, the USA and in Malaysia, and she made the comment that westerners tend to make much slower progress in developing concentration than Asians, because, she said, westerners are more goal oriented. When I thought about this, I had an insight into where I was struggling with my meditation, and I was able to make instant progress.

We, in the west, are geared to expecting results from our actions. You work hard to earn a degree, or to get a promotion, and we can carry the same approach into meditation. We expect our efforts to be rewarded, and thus we bring our expectations with us. If I meditate hard, will I get enlightened more quickly? If I get enlightened in ten years by meditating for three hours a day, does that mean I can do it in five years if I sit for six hours a day? Although this seems like a joke, this is how we are trained to think.

We meditate, and when we fail to gain the results we anticipated, we experience frustration. We feel that we have failed. We become stressed. Our body becomes stressed, and we experience pain and discomfort. Then we focus on the pain. Our meditation becomes torture, and the minutes pass like hours. I had been meditating for hours each day, forcing myself to do it without enjoyment because I was expecting that the rewards would come. In fact the rewards did come, but only when I was able to see that I had to let go of my expectations.

The word the Buddhists use is equanimity. If we can meditate with equanimity (def: the quality of being calm and even-tempered; composure) then we can release the frustrations of not achieving our expectations. I was able to introduce this feeling into my meditation and I was amazed to feel, instantly, the pain in my knees and my feet and my butt, just dissipate as if by magic. I felt my mental resistance dissolve and was able to let my awareness sink deeply into my breath for the first time. For the first time in ages, my meditation became enjoyable again.

Now I understood why the Buddha said we should sit like the hen; without reason or expectation; just sit and see what happens. My expectations were preventing me from realizing the benefits of my meditation.

Asian meditators do not seem to have this burden of expectation that we have; they do not expect instant reward for what they do, maybe they are not as self-centred as we individualistic westerners, or perhaps they have a different view on time. I was reminded of my first trip to the Philippines, when I noticed that every public building has a clock on the wall, but none of the clocks are working because the batteries ran flat years ago and nobody bothered to replace them, due to the fact that nobody really cares what time it is. When you’re hungry, it’s time to eat; when you’re tired, it’s time to sleep. Compare this approach with the daily ‘to-do’ lists that we are encouraged to prepare for ourselves at work.

Once again, I hope the information shared above is some help to somebody somewhere; I am happy to continue issuing this stuff, but would also love to hear other people’s experiences with learning to practice meditation, and any particular questions or problems anyone is experiencing in meditation.

May all beings be happy and healthy, may they be wise and compassionate in their actions, may they find peace and may no harm come to them. May they find the patience and endurance to deal with disappointment and failure. May loving kindness fill their hearts, and may they attain enlightenment.

Love, bram

[Anchor]

This is great!

[Davy]

You've helped me with breath, thank you bram.

[Orph]

I can't do the number counting thing for my breathing because I almost instantly forget what number I'm on. :sarcastic: So I just simply go " in - out - in - out - ....".

[bram]

my main intention for doing this is to get clearer and clearer about/and in the automatic habit of recognizing and neutralizing any 'their mind' intrusions, to get in the habit of continuing the process all waking hours.

Hi Waves,

What you are talking about here is developing mindfulness, which requires a different type of meditation called insight meditation or mindfulness meditation. I would like to post about this a bit later, but the main thing is that, as I understand it, we have to develop our concentration meditation to a reasonable level first in order to move into insight meditation.

After this we can start to work on insight meditation with a view to developing mindfulness throughout our waking lives. We also need to learn techniques for meditating with the eyes open to help with this, and walking meditation which is something I love to do.

Love, bram

[bram]

I can't do the number counting thing for my breathing because I almost instantly forget what number I'm on. :sarcastic: So I just simply go " in - out - in - out - ....".

Hi Orph,

I don't think its advisable to skip the counting, unless you're pretty sure you can centre your awareness on the breath without it. Why not try counting on the in breath and on the out breath like this: in (1), out (1), in (2), out (2) and so on.

But then at some stage you will have to switch back to counting after the breath, because the focus of attention should be on the breath, not the numbers.

Love, bram

[bram]

For anybody who has just started meditating, I just wanted to say a few words of encouragement- don’t be disappointed if it isn’t going the way you expected. It’s not so easy to focus the attention on the breath, especially living the way we live in the modern world, where we are conditioned to expect immediate results to everything we do.

Even if you sit and can’t catch hold of your breath because your thoughts are racing for the whole time of your sitting, don’t worry. This stage is part of the process, and this is the first stage of meditation. You are becoming aware, gradually, of your thinking process, and the crazy dialogue that we maintain with ourselves every second of our waking lives. Stick with it, every day for a month, and even though you think you are getting nowhere fast, you will find that your life is starting to improve in ways you didn’t expect.

Remember, we have lived with this internal dialogue all our lives, or since time immemorial. To bring this racing mind under control is a big, big change to our lives. They say that in the East, if you want to tame a young elephant, you tie the elephant to a firmly fixed post with a strong rope. For days, the elephant will pull in every direction, frantically trying to get free; then after a few days, the elephant will accept its situation, and will become docile, after which it can be put to work.

This is exactly what we are trying to do with our minds. The mind is the young elephant striving for freedom, the post is the breath, and the rope is mindfulness. When the mind pulls away, we use mindfulness to gently bring it back and anchor it to the breathing. After a long struggle, just like the elephant, the mind will become docile, and can be harnessed to work for us instead of pulling us every which way.

Every time you sit and meditate, things are changing, albeit below the surface. In fact, everything is constantly going through the process of change, but sometimes the change is not noticeable on a mundane level. At these times, deep changes are often taking place at a more subtle level of our existence.

If you find you can’t ‘grab hold’ of your breath because of racing thoughts, here’s another step to introduce which should help; when you are about to start your breathing, say to yourself ‘I am about to breathe in’ and then ‘I am about to breathe out’ each time. Then try to maintain a clear awareness of each breath. This should help you to focus the awareness on the breath so that you can then start the counting exercise to fix the attention.

Dealing with pain and discomfort

You should be able to sit for 20-30 minutes without experiencing much discomfort, however if you try to sit for longer, you will find you begin to experience discomfort in the legs, feet and buttocks. You will also probably experience itching all over the place!

People will say that pain and discomfort is an inevitable consequence of sitting without moving, however pain can be reduced by changing the state of mind- as we discussed earlier, by introducing equanimity into our meditative state. Despite this however, we need to learn how to deal with pain, discomfort and itching without giving in and changing our position. If we move, then we are breaking our meditation, and we have to start all over again.

In fact, we can learn a lot from pain and discomfort. When we experience discomfort- say our right leg is pressing down on our left foot, squashing it against the cushion- examine the feeling. You will discover that there are two components to our pain. The physical sensation, which is a strong pressure, and the desire to move. If we separate the two we find something odd. The physical sensation is not ‘mine’ but belongs to the body. It is the strong desire to change positions, or scratch, which is causing us most suffering. If we can put aside this desire, which is nothing but thoughts, then the pain has already reduced drastically.

Our mind tells us we simply must move, the pain is unbearable. However, if we don’t move, and we put aside the desire, we find that the pain will quickly subside and even go away. The pain, like everything else, is not permanent, but is changing constantly. Our suffering is mostly caused by our aversion to pain- whenever we experience pain, we want to make it go away. If we accept it, however, it becomes bearable (I am not talking about extreme pain here, only the pain and discomfort caused by meditating in a fixed position).

Also we learn that the pain is in our body, and that our body is not ‘me’, but is a vehicle which we inhabit throughout our lives. This body causes us almost constant discomfort, which we disguise by changing position constantly (remember how we are told ‘don’t fidget children!’ in kindergarten?). This is part of the general unsatisfactoriness of our normal lives. Through meditation we can control this bodily discomfort in the same way we are learning to control our wayward minds. On the other hand, if we think of the pain as ‘mine’ it will instantly get worse!

So, we can learn valuable lessons in dealing with pain and discomfort; that pain consists of physical sensation and aversion; that pain arises by itself and goes away by itself, and is constantly changing; that pain exists in our body, and therefore it is external to us.

When we reach deeper states of concentration, the breath itself will overcome and remove bodily pain, but to get to that level we will need to sit for longer periods. To do this, we will need to confront and overcome our sitting pain and discomfort ‘by ourselves’.

May all living beings (including you and me) find true happiness and remain healthy; may they be wise and compassionate in their actions, may they find lasting peace, and may no harm come to them. May all beings find the patience and endurance to deal with disappointment and failure, may they be released from karma and may they find enlightenment. May loving kindness fill the hearts of all living beings, near and far.

Love, bram.