woensdag 20 juni 2012

The Meditation Toolkit


“...from the point of view of our contemplative traditions... and this is to reduce them all down to a cartoon version that ignores the rather esoteric disputes between them... our habitual failure to recognize thought as thought, our habitual identification with discursive thought, is a primary source of human suffering, and when a person breaks this spell, an extraordinary kind of relief is available. Now the problem with a contemplative claim of this sort is that you can't borrow someone else's contemplative tools to test it. You have to develop your own tools.”  




There's no particular order. Pick whatever meditation technique fits you.

Killing the Buddha: Meditation that doesn't make atheists queasy
Required: 10 minutes of your time and knowing nothing about meditation.
Advised:  57 minutes of your time.
Recommended: Being an atheist. No longer believing Free Will is a real thing.

Instructions: 
If you're low on time, start at 29:30



The Splinter: Not moving until the beam is removed (A "Long" Meditation Technique)

Required: A place to sit
Advised: A quiet place to sit for a long time with some fresh air
Recommended: You should sit in meditation for twenty minutes every day—unless you’re too busy; then you should sit for an hour.


  1. Sit
  2. Notice your are sitting
  3. Notice there is sitting
  4. Notice there is in here
  5. Notice what is doing the noticing
  6. Notice noticing
  7. Sit

The Hammer: Making everything look like a nail, waiting to be meditated away (A "Short" Meditation Technique)

Required: Stress/panic/depressed/anxiety/insomniac/lost in discursive thought/bored
Advised: Having meditated once before, being able to take 1 minute for yourself without having to speak.
Recommended: Having meditated under supervision (usually a more experienced contemplative), do not start with this technique if you're new to this! It's meant for frequent use within a day!

Instructions:

  1. Have something to worry about.
    This usually doesn't take much and the mere suggestion might have already triggered some negative associative pathways in your mind. If you're a generally optimistic person and  think you'll manage just fine but want to be prepared in the future, you can go ahead and trigger something right now. Just think of something you don't like and focus your attention on it for a while. You'll soon realize that you're lost in negativity. Or you won't realize it, and will be all the more lost. You can do it without having something to worry about. Just being bored and feeling fine also suffices, but the effect will be less dramatic.
  2. Every breath is a moment for meditation.
    That's not just the first step. You can meditate all the way through that first step and stop abruptly after, and that's fine. That's more than nothing. It only has to last a moment. If it lasts several moments, all the better.
  3. Be grateful every moment you're not busy doing something better.
    Every moment is a moment you could be grateful for the things you do have, rather than the things you worry you might not have. Being grateful for being able to meditate a moment is enough, you don't need to take an entire 20 minute session just because you had a moment you couldn't think straight anymore. Being able to breathe in a relaxed manner is enough to be grateful for (as anybody who ever had a panic attack will tell you), being able to breathe is enough for anybody who thinks human life is intrinsically worthwhile and being grateful is good for your mental (and physical) well-being.
  4. Don't think you are anything.
    In fact, think of the previous as merely showing gratitude. You're merely a confluence of both bad and good things, but neither define you. The Ego is a construct and quite pliable. A basic Buddhist insight is that of interdependence and by esoteric extension nondualism (eg. Dzogchen), Though  quasi-equivalents can be found in Spinoza's monism. If you're not familiar with Eastern or Western philosophy, suffice to say that if you're your thoughts, you're a different you all the time.
  5. There's a list of questions, that don't even need answers and after a while, not even the attempt to answer them.
    It goes a little something like this (though lists may vary):
    What am I thinking? Am I thinking something negative? What do I want to think? Do I feel better? Are there ways, reasons or possibilities for me to feel better? What are those?
  6. If you notice your heart is racing, you're going into sympathetic overdrive. If not, skip this step.
    If you think you are having heart palpitations, then consider why you don't want that to happen. We're not individuals. We're divided among diverse thoughts and organ failures that we can't be said to 'be', merely have. And more than being, we realize having is fleeting.
    1. If you were suicidal suicidal (not required), congratulations! You've just killed the Self! You've killed thought and just like dreams (and psychotropic substances that simulate dreamlike states) you've just caught up with part of it. Paid a down payment in advance, escaped and took part of your pension early. Also, you're going to die one day, no need to hasten the process or make sure you have a uncomfortable time in the meantime.
    2. If you're unable to see the positive side of everything, spend time with people trained in dialectics. Philosophers and lawyers tend to be good at this, but avoid morosophs and if you know any ethicists, you really should have asked their views on meditation and follow their advice instead of reading all of this. Another path is Zen Masters, though they answer nothing at all and by letting all things be (as they already were), you're left with yourself and can't escape yourself (and therefor have to and by guidance are able) to remake yourself.
    3. If you're prone to panic attacks, it's good to have somebody around who can handle this. I assume if you're reading this far, the little voice inside your head never gave you good advice in those situations. Here's what you do:
      1. Will me panicking improve the situation?
        It usually doesn't and fearing the fear makes things worse and fearing the fear will make things worse also does. So unless you see through infinite regression, move on in thought. But at least now you've got yourself a full-blown panic attack (worrying about worrying instead of productive, 'neutral' or no thoughts) and the next step won't seem too much.
      2. Take your medication.
      3. If that's not an option, have somebody nearby saying or doing the following:
        1. "Sit back down." (assuming you tried to get up at some point)
        2. "Tell me what's happening"
        3. "I'm gonna feel your pulse, okay?"
        4. "Sssh" (assuming you were about to try and and he or she is still trying to take your pulse")
        5. "I'm going to ask some questions."
        6. "Where are you right now?"
        7. "Are you having trouble breathing?'
        8. "Can you hear me?
        9. If he or she's familiar with the second stage of the A-anxiety table or the army field manual FM-2251 "New Infantry Adaptation to a Threatening Situation", have them send me an e-mail, because I couldn't find it. Also, The Newsroom is great show isn't it?
        10. "Start breathing from your abdomen"
        11. "Imagine you're in a safe place or something you like. YouTube kittens"
        12. "You're here, you're part of this group. Everybody likes you."
        13. "Everything is fine, you can check yourself later"
        14. "We're not in imminent danger, seriously, take a chill pill"
    4. If you feel you are about to lose self-control (or rather, the illusion of control if any of you have seen the movie "Instinct"), simply count to 10.
      Whenever disturbed in thought (like for example, reliving the violent scene in Instinct where this deep truth is revealed), start from 1 again. If all goes well, your heart will return to its normal rate by 10.
    5. If counting proves too difficult, merely chant a mantra.
      It could be "One" (because I assume you got that far when counting), "Ohm", "We are all one" or "Om manipadmé hum". There are other mantras and you can simply wish loving kindness on all sentient beings including yourself. Knowing you can wish it for others, already makes it so much easier to be kind to yourself. It also allows you to lose focus of the powerful 'Self' illusion (including the negative manifestations, which most of us seem to be able to differentiate from the 'self'. E.g. "I am good, I have bad days". Or to shake off thought "I think, therefor I exist. I don't feel particularly good, I must be bad. I feel bad now. I think bad things. I am my thoughts. I am bad". You can pick your own mantra, just make sure it is (or at least feels if it's another language) positive. You're going to be saying it a lot.
  7. Take another breath.
  8. Do you feel a little better yet?
    If not, try again. The odds of stepping out of vicious cycle that fast were slim. If you do, rest assured that it worked (all you were doing was changing your attitude anyway, directing yourself towards the positive, regardless of where you just came from) and move on. Congratulations, you've just avoided a cascade effect. Rejoice! You've just managed to make yourself happy! 


Mindfulness Meditation
Required: 5 minutes of your time.
Advised: 15 minutes of your time
Recommended: 25-30 minutes in the first sitting and 20 in the next if that seems too strenuous.

Instructions:
  1. Sit in a comfortable position. Try to sit in the same place each day. Avoid positions that you might fall asleep in.
    a. The back is long and supports itself.
    b. Shoulders are relaxed downward, the neck is long, and the chin is pointing neither up nor down.
    c. The face is relaxed.
  2. Begin to breathe (preferably through the nostrils). Feel the belly rise, the ribs expand, and the slight movement in the collarbones and shoulders as the breath moves upward. Feel the exhalation.
  3. Focus on one aspect of the breath.
    a. The movement of air in and out of the nostrils.
    b. Or the lifting and falling of the belly.
  4. Watch that one aspect of the breath.
    a. When the mind wanders, gently bring it back to the breath and the aspect you have chosen to watch.
    b. Do this as many times as you need to.
    c. There is no such thing as a good or bad meditation. (Good and bad are judgments, events in the mind – just note them and go back to the breathing.)
  5. Start with 5–10 minutes and then increase the time until you can sit for 30 minutes.
Zen Meditation
Required: Somebody who knows something about (mindfulness) meditation
Advised: Somebody familiar with Zen Buddhism
Recommended: A Zen Master. Somebody who knows some koans and who you'll listen to.

Instructions:
  1. The problem with the Hammer (as you may have noticed) is that it gets complicated, REAL fast. The main thing is my little intro to everything here, including the Hammer: Practice forgiveness towards yourself. You're going to fail anyway, at some point. You're not perfect and you're not supposed to be, you're striving towards perfection and if you can be perfect, you already are.
  2. The great thing about the Hammer is that you can do it anyway. The sad thing about Za Zen, is that you have to find a place to sit, preferably quiet and if possible with other people around.
  3. Have somebody familiar with Zen Meditation guide you through this. If such person is not available, have another person use the Mindfulness Meditation Technique described above, using a soothing voice to guide you through. I'll be calling this person the Zen Master, though if you've actually found one, chances are you're expected to call him Sensei. Only one person is the Sensei, others could be Sempai and take the role of Zen Master when the Sensei is not their. But there's only one at a time guiding everything.
  4. Remain silent during the entire meditation. The Zen Master (who will use this time to meditate him or herself) will be the only one talking (and it should be a little surprise because you're not actively expecting it, not disturbing because you are already 'aware', which is to say 'mindful').
  5. Do not set a time-limit. Just have tea after (,go home) and go to sleep. It could easily be hours if done right.
  6. If a time-limit is needed, 2 hours is good one. Break down (though the pupils don't have to be informed of this, as the ritual will become second nature soon enough and Japanese tradition prides itself in not saying certain things but only doing them*) of the 2 hours would be as following: Recitation of The Heart Sūtra, a half hour of guided meditation, another recitation, another half hour of meditation (usually no guidance as, if anything, the mantra ought to be spinning through your mind), a walking meditation and another recitation, repeat, Shiguseiganmon is recited. Tea. Slowly beginning to talk, though not enthusiastically and preferably not about the meditation. As the it quickly devolves into talking about how much it hurts to sit in that position for an extended period, not moving a muscle (and if you weren't using meditation to handle pain, you'll have gotten a chance by the end)
  7. Or you could do it the way they did it 800 years ago by reading some Dōgen. But I wouldn't call that Zen meditation, more like DIY Meditation.

YouTube Meditation
Required: Working Flash player
Advised: A quiet space and place with only this in the background.
Recommended: Watching and listening first (as instruction can be found at the end) without trying to meditate and making your own list out of the playlist (unless you like everything, including duration, order and every clip in it which is not recommended)

Instructions, Background music, Sutras are all in the playlist.

Meditative techniques while thinking

Meditation can be filled with thought. Mathematical thought, abstract thought, even discursive thought in an explicit verbal sense, but one has to be acutely aware. You can ponder and reflect on things, contemplate them, in a broader sense. One that doesn't require you don't think of anything, or only one single thing (the breath, or repeating a mantra, but this often becomes not thinking of anything), but involves a whole state of awareness needed for creativity, problem solving and is often referred to as 'day-dreaming'. Though people who day-dream unintentionally can hardly be called bodhisattvas just because they're doing it automatically. These things are best reserved for rather impersonal things. Not because those are more serious; but because, like intensely verbal thought, it  quickly becomes a construct within a social psychology. Becoming self-aware instead of aware of the situation. Often this will translate in to not even paying full attention to what people are trying to tell you. Sam Harris isn't the only one to point this out ("instead of listening, you'll be waiting to speak"), xkcd also has a nice illustration of this:


I suggest contemplating the cosmos. If there's ever a subject to think about deeply, it's everything. The universe. If you want to know how it got here, just look at this video:


Ponder that.

Or if the prosaic doesn't cause wonder, perhaps poetry does. I'm not a big poetry fan, but at least people know it's not real when they enjoy it. So it's like a placebo, it works and I'll take it if it does. But there's no point in me going after it, actively. It only works because you don't know what it is or what it's doing. So reading poetry as poetry would, to me, defeat the purpose. I hardly ever think, dream or write what is considered 'poetic'. Or what I consider exceedingly shoddy grammar. Whatever art or beauty can be found in poetry, I find I prose twice over. And if you can't appreciate the prosaic, I suspect you're already on Prozac.

I guess my point is, if you're going to read poetry for poetry, at least have some style and know why you're doing it:

Poetry should... should strike the reader as a wording of his own highest thoughts, and appear almost a remembrance. ~John Keats

Disclaimer: This post was done in English on an otherwise dutch (Belgian) site. The reason is simply that the Sam Harris talk sparked it. Whereas normally conversations with dutch-speaking people I've had in Belgium perform this function. I've kept it like this to maintain congruity and accessibility. Manuals on the Mind seem to be in short supply and high demand. I'm just glad to have written one on Meditation. I would be remiss in not pointing to Eastern Traditions as enumerated by Shinzen Young in Five Classic Meditations (guided meditation for beginners) and Western Philosophy such as the Stoicism of Marcus Aurelius in The Meditations.