We begin by making a distinction between the moving and the still. Seated, with eyes closed, I ask you to show a preference for the still while allowing the moving (thoughts, feelings, breathing) to continue uninterrupted. What you will readily know as the still will initially be external physical contact, which will be felt at certain contact points. You can start with either one of these:
The meditation approach outlined in the "Meditation Program Instructions" below should be read (or listened to) before one starts. The instructions should not be consulted again after the second meditation sitting. By the third meditation sitting, if not sooner, you should be completely without "outside" instructions or guidance.
Showing preference is simply the intention to prefer the stillness of the contact points over the pursuit of the planning, thinking, and regurgitating of your wandering mind. It is essentially showing preference for being in the present moment, even though your mind may only be drawn into the present for a few seconds at most. Even as you show preference for the stillness of your body sitting, there is an acceptance of your thoughts and feelings. You gently allow your mind wandering to coexist with your awareness of the contact points even if your mind wanders for a long time.
Following these instructions, you may experience lengthy periods of your mind being very active, making it difficult for you stay with the contact points for even a few seconds. You may wonder if sitting with all this mental chatter is really meditating. I assure you it is. The purpose here is to gently acquire a vantage point of stillness from which to observe the activity of your wandering mind. We cannot force our minds to be still, for that will just create more agitation, tension, aggression, and self-dislike. In this path of gaining greater peace and tranquility, we use peaceful means from the very beginning.
Along with the instruction to show preference for the stillness of the body as you sit, I usually suggest that people put aside all of their expectations and ideas about meditation and sit without any goal, objective, or purpose in mind. Just allow the meditation process itself to unfold without trying to control or judge it. It does not matter if you are doing it right, for the only way to fail at this is by attempting to control your meditation experience instead of letting it be just what it is. Through this approach you will learn a natural way of being in your experience but not entirely of it, and in time you will develop what I would call a natural form of detachment.
By allowing your mind to wander, you will find that the themes of your thinking during meditation often circle around yourself. They contain memories, recent as well as distant, plans for the future, habitual ways of thinking and reacting to situations, and a host of feelings, perceptions, likes and dislikes. Usually, when you are not meditating, these mind wanderings are 'you'; they are made of you, you are the main character. This way of relating to our minds is so well practiced that it is not going to stop just because we have decided to meditate.
Meditating with the earlier instructions may have the periodic effect of dissipating the energy of your mind wanderings, and you will find the thoughts and feelings diminishing on their own, leaving your mind less preoccupied and more open and light. That is one scenario, and it is one that often yields the desired result, but does not provide any insight into the supports and conditions that keep such mind wanderings alive and active. Thus, though the mind quiets down, it is only a temporary peace, as your mind will once again latch onto the same themes it has before. I have seen that the most direct way through this is to know the supports and conditions of the mind wanderings by seeing into what fuels these thoughts and feelings. A good place to look is the themes found in the mind wanderings.
Recollective Awareness creates an authentic awareness of meditative process without disrupting or hindering it. By recollecting events that occurred in the meditation sitting afterwards, one develops a familiarity with the various themes, moods, states of mind, and other aspects of one¹s meditative experience. This familiarity carries over into future sittings, creating an authentic awareness of what occurs within meditation.
Thus you need not try to be aware during the meditation sitting. In fact, trying to be aware all the time or in the present moment will generally have the effect of interrupting the flow of your meditative process. Besides that, it may take considerable willpower and effort to maintain being in the present, and this effort will inevitably produce tension and internal struggle. The awareness often gained in that manner is not authentic, in the sense that it is artificially put into place and is often used as a way to control and manipulate one¹s mind in meditation.
Instead, I suggest that you develop awareness after-the-fact through a practice of recollection. The recollection is most easily done when the sitting has ended. Take a few moments to bring back to mind what is most easily remembered about the meditation sitting. Then you may decide to write down a description of your meditation sitting in a journal.
This simple and natural act of recollection is enough. It need not be wholly accurate or detailed; it just needs to be honest and capable of generating a genuine memory of what occurred. Out of such recollection will come an increased awareness of what goes on in meditation, though it may not be the highly alert and vigilant awareness that one might hope for. That is because authentic awareness fluctuates. It is not the same in all states of consciousness. In some of the sleeplike or trancelike states one encounters, awareness can only function at a very low level, but it is there nonetheless. Through recollecting such states of mind afterwards, it is possible for one¹s awareness to increase slightly, just enough to know more of the experience than was previously possible.
At times you may find that recollection naturally occurs in the meditation sitting. You experience something and then find yourself reporting it to yourself, giving it a description, or just commenting on how strange the experience was. At other times, you may find that your mind quiets down and there are more periods of being settled and still, and at those times you may intentionally bring back to mind some of what has just occurred in the sitting. Whatever the case may be, handle the recollection lightly. You need not feel compelled to remember things that occurred in your meditation sittings. Trust that the act of recollection, and the familiarity with the experiences that comes with it, is enough. It is not likely you will remember much of what occurs in your meditations, and I suggest you do not push yourself too hard to remember things. For the most part, when writing down your sittings or reporting them to someone, just start with what you remember best and then add some of things that come back to mind once you have started the recollection process.
There are four main questions people ask when they learn meditation:
For meditating at home during the week, it is a good idea to find a place to meditate which is not used for anything else. Look around your house for an empty spot, such as a small area of your living room, bedroom, or den. If you do not find such a space, you can make one by shifting some furniture around. The reason for this is to make meditation distinct and separate from anything else you do at home.
Sit in a comfortable position, one that you can remain in for the duration the sitting. You can sit cross-legged on the floor or you can sit on a couch or a chair, with your legs dangling or propped up. You may sit with back support (especially if you need it for a physical condition) or without it. You may sit upright with a straight back, but that should not be a major concern of yours. If you slouch while you sit, just be aware of your posture without changing it; you may straighten your back slowly if you need to.
At the beginning, sit for 20 to 30 minutes at a time. If you are having tranquil sittings, increase the time to 40 to 60 minutes. If you are having sittings with a lot of anger, anxiety, restlessness, or boredom, reduce your sitting time to about 10 to 15 minutes, though try to sit again later that same day or the day following. Use a gentle sounding alarm to time your sittings, or sit with a clock in plain view and glance at it when you feel near the end of the sitting.
The best time to sit for meditation is any quiet time that you have during the day or night. Experiment with different times of day and night, and when you find a time that suits you, try to meditate every day or so at that time. This type of self-discipline can be helpful at the beginning of your practice; but, if it becomes too oppressive, and thus makes you dislike meditation, then meditate only when it feels right to you, which may be as often as once or twice a week.
Journal writing is done for a variety of purposes, but rarely are meditators advised to keep a journal. Instead, meditation students are often discouraged from writing about their meditation experiences, and some retreat environments prohibit any kind of writing during the retreat period. The logic in this is that clear and succinct: meditation is about direct and immediate experience, getting out of one¹s head and into one's "senses," so writing about it (reflecting back on it also, for that matter) is removed from the experience and is therefore something to be avoided. I believe there is some merit in this argument and that meditation sittings should not always be subject to scrutiny after the fact. Although I would say this primarily from a slightly different perspective than is common: writing about meditation sittings can at times interfere with how the meditation sittings progress, creating annoying (or just plain critical) thoughts and feelings that would not be there otherwise, as in this excerpt from someone who participated in the meditation program before having attended one of my workshops
Found another thing rather annoying. Many thoughts are about what I'm going to write when I come to this journal. I construct sentences and file thoughts away. What's under this? Perhaps the fact that I teach writing and so want it to be the "right thing." More so, I believe, because I've come to not trust my ability to recall memories. I worry that I will come to this writing and have 'nothing to say.'"
I have found no way to sidestep the inevitability of the journal writing task interfering with the meditation sitting. The same problem holds true with reporting meditation sittings in a group, and is an inherent problem in this meditation approach. Fortunately, it is not a major obstacle for most people, as over time the voice in your mind that reports on the sitting for the journal entries starts to get looked at in the meditation sittings as well. The problem principally presents itself when the meditator, as in the example above, is unsure about being able to remember things afterwards and write them down. My suggestion here is to let yourself forget about the task of writing down the meditation sitting and just sit as if it were all right not to remember anything about the sitting afterwards. Whatever you remember is enough, and sometimes, you cannot remember things that happened simply because at that time it is difficult to remember things (memory is not a constant; it fluctuates within meditation).
When it comes to writing about the sitting, there are a few guidelines that I have found helpful (which you may certainly disregard if they do not suit your writing style). One is to focus on "description" and to only include an analysis or "ideas about the sitting" if they occurred within the sitting and are part of the description. You can always put afterthoughts (analysis, ideas) in brackets or write them in the margins as long as you are clear that they were not formed within the sitting. The second guideline is to always include 1) the date, 2) time of day, 3) length of sitting, and, 4) where the sitting took place, especially if it was not at home. This is done as an aid in remembering where and when a sitting occurred and can help you look at what kind of effect time, place, or other people had on your sitting, if any. The third guideline is to use your own words and present things as accurately and honestly as possible. In doing this, you can allow yourself to be vague and uncertain if that is truly the case. Each sitting can take as many sentences and pages as you like; most people write between five lines and two pages.
The last guideline is simply to let the journal be what it will and not try to turn it into another project, another exercise, etc. It is just a meditation journal, meant for you to learn about what goes on when you sit in meditation.