Meditation is a way of being,
rather than a technique or a collection of techniques
Meditation:
It's Not What You Think
by Jon
Kabat-Zinn
It
might be good to clarify a few common misunderstandings about meditation
right off the bat. First, meditation is best thought of as a way of
being, rather than a technique or a collection of techniques.
I'll say it again.
Meditation is a way of being, not a technique.
This doesn't mean that there aren't methods and techniques associated
with meditation practice. There are. In fact, there are hundreds of
them, and we will be making good use of some of them. But without
understanding that all techniques are orienting vehicles pointing at
ways of being, ways of being in relationship to the present moment and
to one's own mind and one's own experience, we can easily get lost in
techniques and in our misguided but entirely understandable attempts to
use them to get somewhere else and experience some special result or
state that we think is the goal of it all. As we shall see, such an
orientation can seriously impede our understanding of the full richness
of meditation practice and what it offers us. So it is helpful to just
keep in mind that above all, meditation is a way of being, or, you could
say, a way of seeing, a way of knowing, even a way of loving.
Second, meditation is not relaxation spelled differently. Perhaps I
should say that again as well: Meditation is not relaxation spelled
differently.
That doesn't mean that meditation is not frequently accompanied by
profound states of relaxation and by deep feelings of well-being. Of
course it is, or can be, sometimes. But mindfulness meditation is the
embrace of any and all mind states in awareness, without preferring one
to another. From the point of view of mindfulness practice, pain or
anguish, or for that matter boredom or impatience or frustration or
anxiety or tension in the body are all equally valid objects of our
attention if we find them arising in the present moment, each a rich
opportunity for insight and learning, and potentially, for liberation,
rather than signs that our meditation practice is not
"succeeding" because we are not feeling relaxed or
experiencing bliss in some moment.
We might say that meditation is really a way of being appropriate to
the circumstances one finds oneself in, in any and every moment. If we
are caught up in the preoccupations of our own mind, in that moment we
cannot be present in an appropriate way or perhaps at all. We will bring
an agenda of some kind to whatever we say or do or think, even if we
don't know it.
This doesn't mean that there won't be various things going on in our
minds, many of them chaotic, turbulent, painful, and confusing, if we
start training to become more mindful. It is only natural that there
will be. That is the nature of the mind and of our lives at times. But
we do not have to be caught by those things, or so caught up in them
that they color our capacity to perceive the full extent of what is
going on and what is called for (or color our capacity to perceive that
we have no idea what is really going on or what might be called for). It
is the non-clinging, and therefore the clear perceiving, and the
willingness to act appropriately within whatever circumstances are
arising that constitute this way of being that we are calling
meditation.
It is not uncommon for people who know little of meditation except
what they have gleaned from the media to harbor the notion that
meditation is basically a willful inward manipulation, akin to throwing
a switch in your brain, that results in your mind going completely
blank. No more thought, no more worry. You are catapulted into the
"meditative" state, which is always one of deep relaxation,
peace, calm, and insight, often associated with concepts of
"nirvana" in the public's mind.
This notion is a serious, if totally understandable, misperception.
Meditation practice can be fraught with thought and worry and desire,
and every other mental state and affliction known to frequent human
beings. It is not the content of your experience that is important. What
is important is our ability to be aware of that content, and even more,
of the factors that drive its unfolding and the ways in which those
factors either liberate us or imprison us moment by moment and year in,
year out.
While there is no question that meditation can lead to deep
relaxation, peace, calm, insight, wisdom, and compassion, and that the
term "nirvana" actually refers to an important and verifiable
dimension of human experience and is not merely the name of an
aftershave lotion or a fancy yacht, it is never what one thinks, and
what one thinks is never the whole story. That is one of the mysteries
and attractions of meditation. Yet sometimes even seasoned meditators
forget that meditation is not about trying to get anywhere special, and
can long for or strive for a certain result that will fulfill our
desires and expectations. Even when we "know better," it can
still come up at times, and we have to "re-mind" ourselves in
those moments to let go of such concepts and desires, to treat them just
like any other thoughts arising in the mind, to remember to cling to nothing,
and maybe even to see that they are intrinsically empty, mere
fabrications, however understandable, of what we might call the wanting
mind.
Another common misconception is that meditation is a certain way of
controlling one's thoughts, or having specific thoughts. While this
notion, too, has a degree of truth to it, in that there are specific
forms of discursive meditation that are aimed at cultivating specific
qualities of being such as loving kindness and equanimity, and positive
emotions such as joy and compassion, and equanimity, our ways of
thinking about meditation often make practicing more difficult than it
needs to be, and prevent us from coming to our experience of the present
moment as it actually is rather than the way we might want it to be, and
with an open heart and an open mind.
For meditation, and especially mindfulness meditation, is not the
throwing of a switch and catapulting yourself anywhere, nor is it
entertaining certain thoughts and getting rid of others. Nor is it
making your mind blank or willing yourself to be peaceful or relaxed. It
is really an inward gesture that inclines the heart and mind (seen as
one seamless whole) toward a full-spectrum awareness of the present
moment just as it is, accepting whatever is happening simply because it
is already happening. This inner orientation is sometimes referred to in
psychotherapy as "radical acceptance." This is hard work, very
hard work, especially when what is happening does not conform to our
expectations, desires, and fantasies. And our expectations, desires, and
fantasies are all-pervasive and seemingly endless. They can color
everything, sometimes in very subtle ways that are not at all obvious,
especially when they are about meditation practice and issues of
"progress" and "attainment."
Meditation is not about trying to get anywhere else. It is about
allowing yourself to be exactly where you are and as you are, and for
the world to be exactly as it is in this moment as well. This is not so
easy, since there is always something that we can rightly find fault
with if we stay inside our thinking. And so there tends to be great
resistance on the part of the mind and body to settle into things just
as they are, even for a moment. That resistance to what is may be even
more compounded if we are meditating because we hope that by doing so,
we can effect change, make things different, improve our own lives, and
contribute to improving the lot of the world.
That doesn't mean that your aspirations to effect positive change,
make things different, improve your life and the lot of the world are
inappropriate. Those are all very real possibilities. Just by
meditating, by sitting down and being still, you can change
yourself and the world. In fact, just by sitting down and being still,
in a small but not insignificant way, you already have.
But the paradox is that you can only change yourself or the world if
you get out of your own way for a moment, and give yourself over and
trust in allowing things to be as they already are, without pursuing
anything, especially goals that are products of your thinking. Einstein
put it quite cogently: "The problems that exist in the world today
cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them."
Implication: We need to develop and refine our mind and its capacities
for seeing and knowing, for recognizing and transcending whatever
motives and concepts and habits of unawareness may have generated or
compounded the difficulties we find ourselves embroiled within, a mind
that knows and sees in new ways, that is motivated differently. This is
the same as saying we need to return to our original, untouched,
unconditioned mind.
How can we do this? Precisely by taking a moment to get out of our
own way, to get outside of the stream of thought and sit by the bank and
rest for a while in things as they are underneath our thinking, or as
Soen Sa Nim liked to say, "before thinking." That means being
with what is for a moment, and trusting what is deepest and best in
yourself, even if it doesn't make any sense to the thinking mind. Since
you are far more than the sum of your thoughts and ideas and opinions,
including your thoughts of who you are and of the world and the stories
and explanations you tell yourself about all that, dropping in on the
bare experience of the present moment is actually dropping in on just
the qualities you may be hoping to cultivate -- because they all come
out of awareness, and it is awareness that we fall into when we stop
trying to get somewhere or to have a special feeling and allow ourselves
to be where we are and with whatever we are feeling right now. Awareness
itself is the teacher, the student, and the lesson.
So, from the point of view of awareness, any state of mind is a
meditative state. Anger or sadness is just as interesting and useful and
valid to look into as enthusiasm or delight, and far more valuable than
a blank mind, a mind that is insensate, out of touch. Anger, fear,
terror, sadness, resentment, impatience, enthusiasm, delight, confusion,
disgust, contempt, envy, rage, lust, even dullness, doubt, and torpor,
in fact all mind states and body states are occasions to know ourselves
better if we can stop, look, and listen, in other words, if we can come
to our senses and be intimate with what presents itself in awareness in
any and every moment. The astonishing thing, so counterintuitive, is
that nothing else needs to happen. We can give up trying to make
something special occur. In letting go of wanting something special to
occur, maybe we can realize that something very special is already
occurring, and is always occurring, namely life emerging in each moment
as awareness itself.
Copyright
© 2005 Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.
Excerpted from the book Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves
and the World Through Mindfulness by Jon Kabat-Zinn. Copyright ©
2005 Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. (Published by Hyperion; January 2005;
$24.95US/$34.95CAN; 0-7868-6756-6)
Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D., is the founding director of the Stress
Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health
Care, and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, as
well as Professor of Medicine emeritus. He leads workshops on stress
reduction and mindfulness for doctors and other health professionals and
for lay audiences worldwide. He is the bestselling author of Wherever
You Go, There You Are and Full Catastrophe Living, and, with
his wife, Myla Kabat-Zinn, of a book on mindful parenting, Everyday
Blessings. He was featured in the PBS series Healing and the Mind
with Bill Moyers, as well as on Oprah. He lives in Massachusetts.
For more information, please visit www.writtenvoices.com.
