Meditation misconceptions revisited

Whether you’ve practiced meditation countless times or this is your very first time, it cannot hurt to review some of the biggest meditation misconceptions:

1. To meditate, you have to stop thinking.

This is the big one. Somehow, people have the idea that to meditate, you must “clear the mind of thought.” What does that even mean? Please think about that, ironic as that request might be. Who would you be without any thoughts whatsoever? Some might say you’d be an idiot. Some might say you’d be Buddha. Personally, I have no idea.

What I do know is this: when asked what our biggest fear was, Tibetan meditation master Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche purportedly uttered a single word: “Space.” It is terribly frightening to find yourself without reference point which is how you might feel if your mind suddenly became devoid of thought. Or maybe it would feel great. (No matter what, though, it would be unlikely to stabilize this state. A background in meditation practice would certainly help.) So in the meantime, stay with the technique which is to allow thought without censure while keeping your attention on your breath and, when it strays, coming back.

But say you were aiming for the mind of no-thought. How would you accomplish that? The dharma actually has a major roadmap (time-tested, trustworthy, used to good effect by countless individuals over thousands of years) for getting there. In my very preliminary studies, at no point have I found the instruction to just try really, really hard not to think anything and, when you do, get all frustrated, say “I just can’t meditate!!!!” and give up.

A perfectly clear mind is, I have heard, a sudden flash that one builds up to gradually. Another dharma mystery. The preliminary (and ultimate) instruction is to relax. Allow the mind to be at play, don’t try to manipulate anything, notice everything, come back to breath. This practice creates a more flexible mental environment. Maybe this is as “far” as we’ll ever get: a more relaxed and accommodating way of relating with our own minds–which has profound implications and is pretty great. Or maybe we’ll attain absolute enlightenment. One never knows.

In all cases, attempting the mysterious “clearing the mind of thought” through an act of will is contraindicated. So if you think meditation means not thinking, stop thinking that.

You can have so much more faith than this. Your mind is supremely capacious. Your heart is deeply loving. Our world is inherently good and it is always, always soliciting your trust. Your meditaton practice doesn’t create these things, it helps you remember them. Working hard is not the way. Relaxing is.

Others may think that meditation isn’t about clearing the mind of thought, but it is about thinking only positive or affirming thoughts. People. I have tried this. Even just the other day, I was listening to a young Western spiritual teacher who was offering her followers the very sensible advice to choose between love and fear, that every thought was either a manifestaton of one or the other. I happen to think this is true. However, when I began examining my thoughts in this way, classifying each as either fear-based (ick) or love-based (phew), I grew quite sad. What a mess up in there. What judgment I passed on myself. When I had a love-based thought (open, tender, creative), I felt good about myself. When I had a fear-based thought (hopeless, anxious, mean), I didn’t know what to do. Was I supposed to cut it out? Ignore it? Turn it upside down? Whatever I attempted felt like a bunch of pretending and I became more and more worried that my thoughts were somehow going to poison me unless I could think only good ones. I turned on myself and it was so claustrophobic.

Now, I believe that it is of utmost importance to work with our thoughts. Meditation practice is a way of doing just this, one by one, over and over–but there is one big factor that determines whether our inner work will lead to less suffering or more. As dharma practitioners, our intention is to let go of our agenda and thereby discover our highest wisdom and most loving heart so that we can be of benefit to all beings (which includes, but is not limited to, ourselves). In other approaches, there seems to be an intention to propogate our agenda and manipulate our minds in order to capture what we think will make us happy.  A good litmus test is this: Is my intention in working with my thoughts to create peace and joy for myself and others? Or is it to get some thing (product, accomplishment, relationship) that I need in order to be safe?

There is nothing wrong with going after what you think will make you happy and I’m sure you are all full of the best intentions. I hope each and all of you will find just what you seek and I hope the same for myself. However, there has never been one single indication that happiness is attainable through finally getting what you want. True happiness always seems to have some connection to kindness, creativity, love, service, or any of the forms by which we acknowledge our interdependence.

So, all this goes to say: meditation is not about ceasing thought, certainly not at the outset. It is not about thinking only loving thoughts, certainly not at the outset. Perhaps the destination is just this: a mind that is utterly empty of discursiveness while recognizing itself as that unending luminosity which is no different than love. Yes, let’s go with that. All the great dharma teachers tell us it is so. But the path is not self-criticism, nor is it willfulness or some form of pretending. It is a gradual path that is built literally breath by breath, each inhalation an act of faith, each exhale a gesture of relaxation, until, suddenly, we are liberated.

2. Meditation is a form of self-improvement.

Sure, it will improve your life. But it goes so much further. (See above.) In fact, meditation is a precious opportunity to untether yourself from the self-improvement treadmill that so many of us (OK: me) ride so hard. Your practice is a time to stop trying to be a better anything and instead to release all agendas and relax with yourself just as you are. You don’t need to become anyone other than who you already are and if you enlist your medtation practice in the service of transformation, it will fail. You already are exactly who you want to be. Meditation is a way of clearing up any confusion about this, but it works on you in mysteriously non-linear ways. Giving up trying to control outcomes is an excellent first step in connecting with its magic. PS You don’t really even have to give up–just label such efforts as “thinking” and come back to your breath.

3. Meditation makes you into a peaceful person.

I was tempted to write, “ha ha ha ha” but I didn’t want to be too flip. It often happens with my meditation students, as also happened with me, that at some point they say, “The more I practice, the more raw I become. I’m not becoming more quote-unquote peaceful, I’m actually becoming more vulnerable. What the hell is going on here?” Now we get to a little secret about meditation practice. It does not make you more peaceful, if by peaceful we mean unflappable or unperturbed or some other kind of state where everything is always OK. Rather than creating an inner environment that is akin to a still pond (which can only remain so if the wind never blows or a leaf never drops or the temperature never shifts), your practice drops you into the deepest part of the deepest sea, a place that sometimes sparkles peacefully and at others roils as if blown by the winds of hell. It reveals you to be the wave form that is capable of all such manifestations and that has no option but to eventually be reabsorbed into stillness. This is you. THIS is you. This you is so much bigger than having to choose between each little thought as either for or against you. Would the ocean discriminate against a wave? How? The wave and the ocean are inseparable. Knowing this, you can relax. Hey, maybe meditation does make you more peaceful after all.

categorized in: meditation, open heart project