Meditation is when one has entered into a meditation
posture (sitting, lying, standing, or walking) with the
"intent to meditate." Just the fact that one has
decided to meditate makes that activity meditation; for
all intents and purposes, one has started a meditative process,
no matter what happens.
That meditative process however may not be
the same for everyone or the same for one person all the
time. The process is affected by the intention one has for
meditation, as well as by the state of mind one is in. Often
one defines meditation by the nature of the intention (the
meditation practice) one chooses and not by the state of
mind one is in at the beginning. But what if one were to
define meditation by the states of mind that condition one's
meditative process rather than the intentional activity
one brings to meditation?
Meditation may then be "initiated"
by the intention to meditate but not restricted by the intention
to do a particular meditation practice. This is an important
distinction. When most people meditate, they do a particular
practice through which meditation then becomes defined.
They become meditators who use a certain mantra, do Vipassana,
count their breaths, etc. What happens when the intention
to meditate does not include such practices? The intention
to meditate then becomes not "doing a meditation practice"
but rather a willingness to be open to one's current state
of mind.
ACTUAL MEDITATIVE PROCESS
Seeing the actual meditative process is seeing
the dynamic nature of states of mind. It is known through
becoming conscious of one's relationship with the content
of one's meditative experience. I have delineated six distinct
meditative processes which are based on the shifting relationship
one has with the content of one's meditation sittings. They
are as follows:
1. Conflicted: experiencing some kind of inner struggle
or turmoil.
2. Connected: being settled or focused, including being connected
with an object of concentration.
3. Generative/experimental: generating a state of mind to
replace an existing state of mind or conducting an inquiry,
an experiment, or a prescribed contemplation.
4. Receptive/open: being passive and receptive in regard
to one's experiences or becoming open to all that arises.
5. Explorative: exploring the nature of one's experiences,
through recollection and/or in the moment, by seeing what
is occurring alongside, underneath, and within the experiences
one is having.
6. Non-taking up: experiencing while not taking up the experience.
Meditation practices have emerged out of people
experiencing these processes. A well-known example of this
is the Buddha's story as to how he discovered that awareness
of breathing leads to absorption (a connected process).
He saw how connection occurs through awareness of breathing
and then was able to teach a "meditation practice"
based on it. To invent a practice without knowing where
it leads would have been absurd.
A "conflicted process" by its very
nature will be judged as not meditating. It is meditating
because it occurs within meditation, and needs to be deemed
an acceptable experience before it can truly be allowed
into one's meditation sittings. So during the transition
that occurs at the beginning of a sitting, while not doing
any prescribed practice, one may be in conflict as to what
one should be doing. One will most likely doubt that this
is meditation and be confused as to what meditation really
is, and attempt to resolve this conflict by doing some kind
of meditation practice. Knowing that the conflicted process
will be a significant part of one's meditation practice,
learning to be with it in an accepting and gentle manner,
will do a great deal to make it more tolerable, and turn
it into an arena of interest and exploration as opposed
to it becoming something to be avoided or eliminated.
What tends to happen within a conflicted process
when an attempt is made to do a particular meditation practice
is that an additional layer of conflict is created within
the meditation sitting. When one has difficulty doing a
connected practice, such as keeping one's attention on the
breath, it is often due to the fact that one is in a conflicted
process and is trying to get past it. The effort to become
connected with the breath turns into an effort to stop one's
mind from wandering away from the breath, which creates
internal struggle and additional inner conflict. When one
stops trying to impose a "connected" practice
on a conflicted process, a noticeable decrease in tension
and conflict can be perceived.
When is the correct time for doing a connected
practice (such as being with the breath)? It is when a connected
process is already evident. Awareness of the breath at this
time may only require a gentle redirecting of one's attention
to the breath. If awareness of the breath is indeed capable
of furthering a connected process at that time, one's attention
will stay there with minimal effort. But if the connected
process is to be furthered by one's attention going to bodily
sensations, visual images, or thought activity, for instance,
then it may be difficult to hold one's attention on the
breath without using some kind of stronger effort or force.
It may be wiser to let the connected process inform one
of what kind of object is to be connected with at any given
time, for that can reduce desire and aversion in the connected
process.
In the explorative process, the nature of investigating
what goes on in meditation changes from a directed inquiry
(or prescribed contemplation) to an exploration of what
is occurring receptively in one's meditation sittings. This
type of exploration can occur after-the-fact and involve
recollection of a prior experience, as well as thoughtful
contemplation or analysis of that experience. The type of
thinking that goes on can be analytic in the sense of breaking
down the experience into parts, but may not have the added
psychoanayltic component of seeking childhood causes or
seeing experiences through the lens of developmental theory.
Such a thought process can also go on concurrently
with the experience being explored, even as the experience
is changing rapidly and distinctly. This kind of exploration
may yield occasional understandings, but, for the most part,
will be open-ended and culminate without any conclusions
being reached. Even when conclusions are reached, those
conclusions will also be subjected to investigation. This
is not an intentional process, as an inquiry or contemplation
would be, but rather a secondary process that forms out
of the receptive process, whereby what is experienced receptively
can be known and fully comprehended. Someone who goes through
this type of exploration in meditation may then re-define
meditation as an explorative process, where one's mind is
capable of looking into one's experiences without aversion,
greed, or attachment.
Any one of these six processes can be used
to answer the question "What is meditation?" For
one who values the connected process, meditation is the
focusing on, and connecting with, a particular object of
meditation. With the generative process, one is able to
create and sustain "better" states of consciousness
through reciting phrases, guided imagery, and active imagination.
The receptive process alone leads to defining meditation
as "letting go" of everything and being with just
what is. While the explorative process leads to a definition
of meditation as exploring and examining what one experiences.
Finally, the non taking up process fosters a definition
of meditation as not holding on to anything or being identified
with any part of one's experience.
Now no one will define meditation
as a conflicted process. The reason for that is meditation
has always been looked at as going beyond conflicted states
of mind. By including the conflicted process in one's overall
definition, meditation begins to include many elements and
experiences that have occurred within sittings that have
been deemed non-meditative and have been struggled with
as distractions, interruptions, failings. It is important
to have the conflicted process in one's definition of meditation,
for it is a significant part of one's meditative life. So
added to one's definition will have be that meditation includes
sitting with doubts, confusion, restlessness and agitation,
sleepiness and apathy, boredom, and just plain resistance
to meditating.
