In his book, Transforming the Mind, his Holiness, the Dalai Lama, remarks that if consciousness itself were “bad” or polluted and therefore incapable of transformation — “If this were true, I would personally rather be a hedonist. I wouldn’t make any effort to follow a spiritual path but would seek solace in alcohol, or maybe some other substances, and forget about the whole idea of spiritual training. Also, I would not bother to engage in … probing philosophical questions.”
Do I Have Time to Meditate?
Think of meditation as an active kind of rest and an antidote for the noise of the day. We have time to sleep, and must. Most other actions we take are active, in the sense that there is a seeking (or an avoidance) or communion – whether it is following a story on TV, having sex, enjoying a meal, working, or being out in nature. Find time, if only 10 minutes, in your day. Start simple; for example, watch the breath or contemplate Loving Kindness, and be curious about Existence. Most importantly, enjoy it and do not react to disappointment when distractions occur. They will, and they are part of the fabric of any meditation. If you continue in your practice it will blossom over time.
Scientific Perspective
Excellent summaries of meditation’s effects on the brain are provided by multiple researchers, for example, The Buddha’s Brain and Altered Traits. For an overview see this link on how meditation changes your brain. Simply stated, positive behavioral changes and changes/expansion of consciousness (for lack of a better description) brought on by meditation, correlate with mapped and documented changes in the brain. This seems to reinforce the Dalai Lama’s life and convictions. Based on the cause and effect principle, it would be impossible to have altered behavior or consciousness without some sort of change, mark or sign in the brain. And in this case, the effort of the meditation has caused changes in the brain, rather than the brain spontaneously causing changes in behavior. This begs the question as to the very nature of who is doing this effort and the very nature of the mind or Mind, and what the Dalai Lama describes as the “luminous nature of the mind.”
Why Meditate?
In the previous blog I talked about various kinds of meditation, spanning different religious traditions, and also some secular approaches. So why meditate? We all basically are here of no choice of our own and in one way or another we seek happiness and health. Meditation can relieve suffering. Meditation can increase your wellbeing; i.e., make you aware of your fundamental nature — happiness. Meditation can improve brain function. Meditation may relieve stress in a stressed out world – when you can just acknowledge phenomena as happening and not identifying with them. Meditation may allow you to be a more loving and compassionate person. Meditation is a vehicle for transformation. Keep in mind that if meditation freaks you out or brings out hidden wounds, then it is time to pause and seek counseling, whether through a spiritual advisor or a clinician. Meditation may not be for everyone, or at least may not be the right thing at a certain time or life-situation. As for those with a strong theistic tradition, meditation can offer communion with God (by creating the space of stillness to “listen”) and “pairs” well with prayer.
Meditation is Only Half of It
What if you are the world’s “best” meditator but the world still beats you up? I recently listened to a story about two Buddhist practitioners — a Zen student and her teacher. The two were sitting in vigil, as the student’s partner was near death from a terminal illness. The student turned to her teacher and said, “This is a lot like sitting” (meditation). He turned to her and stated, “Sitting is practice. This is the real thing.” Life is hard, no doubt. In many ways sitting or meditating is a luxury. Of course, while sitting in this “stillness” many things come up that you have to deal with and you simply practice with the technique, whether it is concentrating on an object or breath, contemplating a phenomenon, or observing a thought or emotional or physical feeling (including pain). It is all practice to develop a center and focus of tranquility. Out in the real world our framework of quietly sitting is at least physically not available and our surrounding environment often seems to “scream at us.” In order to have a game plan, it is important to have an accurate understanding regarding the essential nature of the world and how we interact with it.
The search for happiness can be a tiresome thing. All too often it becomes a cycle of striving for things that create pleasure or good feelings and running away from that which gives us pain or dissatisfaction. Looking a little deeper at this suffering or dissatisfaction it may be divided into “suffering of suffering,” namely things like sickness, old age, death and not getting what you want; “suffering of change” – just when you have it good, it changes, and “suffering of pervasive conditioning,” or simply suffering because we are not in tune with true reality. A fundamental axiom of all eastern philosophies is that we live in illusion as to the real nature of existence. Certainly from a western quantum physics perspective, the world is a lot more/different than we conventionally view/characterize it. And the funny thing is that the vibrant and mysterious energy of the world in which we live in, is “seen” through a very mysterious and non physical thing which is the Mind (and I might add simply more than the brain.).
Buddhist teachings are an approach that allows examination of the framework between the intersection of mind and phenomenon. The western definition of phenomenon limits the term to an object or aspect of the world known through the senses. Buddhism includes within the phenomenon category all mental characteristics (thought, feeling, etc) and essentially the activity of consciousness itself. The four dharma seals (characteristics of the “world”) taught in Buddhism and are 1) All phenomenon are impermanent, 2) All phenomenon are empty or are devoid of a separate existence (causes and conditions create additional causes and conditions and this is perpetual), 3) There is no permanent self – we can never find the “I” and we are a constantly changing impermanent being, and 4) Nirvana is the ultimate truth or reality, an unconditioned state beyond description and human conception, which when realized stops the karmic effects of grasping and aversion. Simply by carefully examining the physical world it seems fairly easy to see that nothing can exist by itself and is always dependent on pre-existing conditions and we ourselves are constantly changing and are an open system with our environment. Understanding the essence of the bookends of reality is one piece. Then, understanding how we interact with the world and how that process shapes us is the other piece.
How We Interact with the World
Without getting into metaphysics or scientific explanation, phenomena happen, or as it has been said, “reality constantly flows.” Our initial experience of phenomenon is through our senses. These phenomenons will induce negative, neutral or positive feelings. The feeling leads to either grasping or aversion. The grasping or aversion perpetuate mental activity including thinking and mental fabrications (telling yourself “stories”) and finally actions (verbal, physical, set opinions, prejudices, etc.) as we spin a story saying that we want this, that we don’t want this to ever change, or we don’t want that and we will do anything to avoid it. – It’s called clinging or attachment. This process is repeated over and over in our lives and becomes the persona we are; i.e. habitual tendencies/behaviors are created– both on a personal level and collectively on a societal level. The reactive behavior that may come from the described process can span anything from, for example, unhealthy eating to hatred and violent acts. Going back to emptiness, these causes create new conditions which result in personal karma which can manifest sooner or later (e.g. you go to jail or later e.g. you suffer a heart attack).
Now, from a pure survival and biologic point of view, this process of grasping and aversion makes some evolutionary sense; however, considering the mess that this world is in and the possibility of total annihilation or serious population reduction of our species, maybe evolution does not care so much about us, personally or as a “special” species. Evolution appears to be neutral in that regard and it is up to humans to improve themselves for health, happiness and survival. Maybe meditation can be embedded as a process in evolution itself. And no matter how your day goes, keep waking up to the miracle of existence and keep investigating who (am I) and what (is this).
Little Known Mystic 