WHAT TYPE OF MEDITATION IS BEST?

Now, in a sense the question, ‘What type of meditation is best?’ is a silly one. ‘Best’ for what? The question implies that meditation has some inbuilt purpose. If so, then meditation is only a means to an end. The truth is this---meditation is both the means and the end. Sadly, there is a deep tendency in all of us to look for purpose everywhere. For example, we ask, ‘What is the purpose of life?’ Well, friends, there is no purpose or meaning to life. Life just is. The important thing is to give your life purpose and meaning.

Having said all that, when you boil things down there are two basic types or kinds of meditation, namely, mindfulness and concentration meditation of which there are a few sub-types including mantra meditation and object-focused meditation.

The practice of concentration meditation, where you focus and fix your attention on some single object (physical or mental) single mindedly and without interruption until the mind eventually enters a deep, trance-like stillness, can lead to some positive results such as calmness and peace as well as beneficial physiological changes in the body such as a reduction in blood pressure. However, most of the beneficial effects of concentration meditation are fairly short-term and short-lived even when (and if) that trance-like stillness is achieved. 

The Indian spiritual teacher, international speaker and author J. Krishnamurti [pictured left] was quite dismissive of concentration meditation. This is what he had to say about a commonly practised form of concentration meditation known as mantra meditation (where you repeat some mantra over and over to yourself):

The other method [mantra meditation] gives you a certain word and tells you that if you go on repeating it you will have some extraordinary transcendental experience. This is sheer nonsense. It is a form of self-hypnosis. By repeating Amen or Om or Coca-Cola indefinitely you will obviously have-a certain experience because by repetition the mind becomes quiet. It is a well known phenomenon which has been practised for thousands of years in India---Mantra Yoga it is called. By repetition you can induce the mind to be gentle and soft but it is still a petty, shoddy, little mind. You might as well put a piece of stick you have picked up in the garden on the mantelpiece and give it a flower every day. In a month you will be worshipping it and not to put a flower in front of it will become a sin.

Krishnamurti went on to say:

Meditation demands an astonishingly alert mind; meditation is the understanding of the totality of life in which every form of fragmentation has ceased. Meditation is not control of thought, for when thought is controlled it breeds conflict in the mind, but when you understand the structure and origin of thought, which we have already been into, then thought will not interfere. That very understanding of the structure of thinking is its own discipline which is meditation.

Perhaps Krishnamurti was a bit too hard on concentration meditation and in particular mantra meditation. He saw it as 'utterly mechanical' and something for 'the frustrated, narrow, shallow mind, the conditioned mind.' However, many people find it helpful. Me? I don’t. Concentration meditation of whatever form is just another attachment, and it actually strengthens attachment because it relies almost entirely upon the use of one's conditioned mind and constant repetition. There is far too much focus on one thought or object. That is not a good thing. I like to get rid of attachments. (I’ve had quite a considerable number of them in my lifetime, and all they ever gave me was suffering.) You need to know this---concentration meditation doesn't lead to freedom from suffering, for where there is attachment, there is suffering. Also, concentration meditation does not provide you with any insight nor does it lead to wisdom in any deep sense (or at all for that matter). Did you get that? Concentration meditation will not give you any perspective on yourself. It throws no light on the basic problems of our lives---namely, our innate selfishness. The latter is the result of too much self-absorption. If anything, concentration results in more self-absorption, but you wouldn’t know because you’re too busy focusing your damn attention on some silly candle or statue or mantra. Not my cup of tea.

On the other hand, the practice of mindfulness (or insight meditation as it is also known) does lead to wisdom and insight. The essence of mindfulness is non-attached (note: not attached, but rather detached) objective and choiceless awareness of what is actually present from one moment to the next. The expression choiceless awareness means awareness without discrimination, judgment, interpretation, or analysis. Anything, absolutely anything, can and ought to be made the subject of your awareness. The great thing about mindfulness is that you can ‘do’ it all day long. It’s not something you do for just 20 minutes in the morning or evening although that is highly recommended as well. Mindfulness is simply ... living mindfully. All the activities of daily life can and ought to be the objects of mindfulness, that is, your awareness: occurrences outside of you as well your own bodily actions and sensations, thoughts, feelings, emotions, and mental images of all kinds. Nothing is ignored or suppressed when it comes to awareness---not even awareness itself.

As I’ve said so many times on this blog, in the practice of mindfulness you simply observe and note what is happening by way of occurrence both inside of you and outside of you. You then let go of the objects of your awareness---one by one---as they variously and severally appear and pass away. Unlike concentration meditation you do not keep your mind fixed on one thing exclusively. Although some concentration is needed for the practice of mindfulness, it is only at the level of momentary concentration (‘bare attention’). This concentration is just enough attention to ‘wake up’ and stay awake and alert, open, and curious to the action of the present moment from one moment to the next. The concentration required is absolutely nothing like the type and depth of concentration required for the practice of concentration meditation. The essence of mindfulness is captured in these wonderful words from Saraha’s Treasury of Songs: 

Look and listen, touch and eat,
Smell, wander, sit and stand,
Renounce the vanity of discussion,
Abandon thought and be not moved from singleness.

The regular practice of mindfulness enables you to see your mind and to ‘view’ its contents. Yes, you come to look and see. You no longer seek to control or subjugate the mind as in concentration meditation. You no longer try to quieten the mind. I have said this before but it’s so important I will say it again----if you want to make spiritual progress, stop trying. The secret is letting go, but first you must let be, that is, let things be exactly as they are (at least for the time being). True contentment and peace of mind, and real spiritual growth, comes from subtraction and not addition.

You see, what you need is already there, within you, in abundance. Get rid of a few things---things such as judgmentalism, condemnation, and analysis, as well as all forms of self-absorption and self-centredness---and you will find what is already there. You do not have to ‘work’ for it in the sense of concentrating hard on some damn object. What is needed is to dis-identify and dis-relate the mind … with an effortless and gentle kind of effort … the effort of non-effort, it’s been called. Yes, let go of all attachments. Concentration is just another form of attachment, and more attachment will just keep you in the prison-house longer. Don’t be bound by anything---not even meditation.

I love these other words from Krishnamurti. He was talking about mindfulness---even though he didn't actually use the word ‘mindfulness’---when he said the following:

You are not analyzing, criticizing, judging ... you are listening, are you not? Your mind is in a state where the thought process is not active, but is very alert. Yes? And that alertness is not of time, is it? You are merely being alert, passively receptive, and yet fully aware; and it is only in this state that there is understanding. Surely, when the mind is agitated, questioning, worrying, dissecting, analyzing, there is no understanding. And when there is the intensity to understand, the mind is obviously tranquil.

Did you hear that? He said, ‘it is only in this state [that is, mindfulness] that there is understanding … [a]nd when there is the intensity to understand, the mind is obviously tranquil.’

Yes, awareness in the form of observation---and especially self-observation---leads to self-knowledge, insight, and wisdom … as well as real, lasting calmness, peace, equanimity, and serenity. Who could ask for anything more?

Note. The 'Keep Calm and Aum' image is courtesy of http://www.doyouyoga.com/the-power-of-aum/. All rights reserved.

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KNOW MINDFULLY---IN THE ABSENCE OF KNOWLEDGE

Know the taste of this flavour which consists in absence of knowledge.
Those who recite commentaries do not know how to cleanse the world.

Listen, my son; this taste cannot be told by its various parts.
For it is free from conceits, a state of perfect bliss, in which existence has its origin.

It is the very last segment that remains of the creation of illusion,
Where intellect is destroyed, where mind dies and self-centeredness is lost.
Why encumber yourself there with meditation?

A thing appears in the world and then goes to destruction.
If it has no true existence, how may it appear again?
If it is free from both manifestation and destruction, what then arises?
Stay! Your master has spoken.

Look and listen, touch and eat,
Smell, wander, sit and stand,
Renounce the vanity of discussion,
Abandon thought and be not moved from singleness.

From Saraha’s Treasury of Songs.

Translated from the Tibetan by David Snellgrove.

Saraha is credited with being considered to be one of the founders of Buddhist Vajrayana, particularly of the Mahamudra tradition, and was one of the first practitioners of Mahamudra meditation. He probably lived in the 8th century CE in India. He had a wife who was an arrow-maker who actually first taught him Mahamudra. He wrote three spiritual 'songs of realization' (dohas) on Mahamudra.

The verses set out above, which I first read many years ago in that wonderful anthology The Rider Book of Mystical Verse, encapsulate the essence of mindful living. The ‘taste’ of anything---and we are not just talking about food---can only be known in the absence of knowledge. Further, the ‘taste’ of a thing cannot be told, or known, by its various parts. The thing---whatever it may be---must be tasted in its entirely, in its wholeness. The moment you try to break it down into its supposed component parts, the appreciation of the thing is lost. Gone. The essence of a thing lies in its no-thing-ness, that ‘state of perfect bliss, in which existence has its origin.’ In the words of Swami Vivekananda, 'All the differentiation in substance is made by name and form.' Name and form are constantly chaging, but substance---the self-livingness of life itself---ever remains.

When Buddhists and Hindus use the word ‘illusion,’ they are not talking about something that does not exist. Rather, the word refers to the absence of any separate, permanent, and independent reality. So, when we talk about the ‘illusory self,’ we are talking about a self---or rather a myriad of selves---that we internally generate but which have no separate, permanent, and independent reality. Now, I place great value on the intellect and reason, but I have come to the sad, yet blessed, realization that intellect and reason are ‘conceits’ that veil reality. To again quote Swami Vivekananda: 'To reach truth by reason alone is impossible. ... Reason can go only to a certain extent, beyond that it cannot reach.' When it comes to problem-solving of a legal or business kind, intellect and reason are, for me at least, paramount. However, when it comes to the appreciation of life, wisdom and understanding come when ‘intellect is destroyed, [when] mind dies and self-centeredness is lost.’ One other thing---'illusion' refers to name and form, into which everything is cast. 'Reason is differentiation,' that is, 'limiting something by our own minds' (Vivekananda). Differentiation---just another word for ignorance and belief in duality---is the result of 'egoism, attachment, aversion, and clinging to life' (Vivekananda).

The line ‘Why encumber yourself there with meditation?’ is an interesting one. There are different types of meditation. Only one type---mindfulness or insight meditation---affords insight into things-as-they-really-are. (Note. Mahamudra meditation involves both śamatha ('tranquility', and 'calm abiding') and vipaśyanā [vipassana] ('special insight').) Other types of meditation involve concentration of some kind, that is, concentration, whether by way of repetition or the focus of the eyes or mind, on some object, image, sound or whatever. Those types of meditation have their place, and can assist in calming the mind and relaxing the body, and possibly also in developing one’s powers of concentration. 

Mindfulness is quite different---the presence of choiceless awareness of, and bare attention to, the action of the present moment as it unfolds from one moment to the next. Mindfulness requires just enough attention (‘bare’ attention, it is called) to stay alert, open, deliberate, and curious. The essence of mindfulness is captured in these words:

Look and listen, touch and eat,
Smell, wander, sit and stand,
Renounce the vanity of discussion,
Abandon thought and be not moved from singleness.

The ideas expressed in the very last line are most important. Mindfulness involves a non-critical, non-analytical, non-judgmental, diffused state of mind. You look, you watch, you see, you observe, but you do not ‘stay’ with any one thought, feeling, image, bodily sensation, or external input. You remain---immoveable---not moving or being moved from your mental station of singleness. In so doing, you dis-identify and dis-relate your mind, and your moment-to-moment awareness, from every thought, feeling, image, bodily sensation, or external input, all of those things being 'fetters of self-interest' (Swami Paramananda). None of those things are you---the person among persons that you are. So, 'be unattached, let things work, let brain-centres work ... but let not a ripple conquer the mind ... do not bind yourselves; bondage is terrible' (Vivekananda).

The true essence of life lies not in its arising or vanishing, nor in its ‘manifestation [or] destruction,’ but in its be-ing-ness. The be-ing-ness of a thing---indeed, of existence in its totality---lies not in its form, which is forever changing. ‘A thing appears in the world and then goes to destruction.’ The be-ing-ness of a thing is something that goes beyond time and space. It just is.

'Abandon thought and be not moved from singleness.'