4
I SLEPT LIKE A BABY. The normalcy of staying up late and sleeping in late once again took over. I was always a night owl, preferring the dimness of moonlight over the harshness of sunlight. I had too many thoughts that kept me awake at night. I was in the process of seeking out bright minds that could enlighten me on the meaning of life in this day and age of consumerism. I had met Felix—an older man, an actual philosopher, with apparently years of wisdom ahead of me. He had basically told me that you make your own meaning in life and that there’s nothing outside us that gives us meaning. I could get on board with that but I didn’t like the fact that he didn’t think certain ways of living were better than others in an objective sense. I had some reservations about this I couldn’t get over.
I needed more answers. I decided to keep searching. There was another Meetup later that day on Buddhism that I RSVPed for. It was an introduction to meditation class. I thought this might be exactly the kind of place I could get some answers. I made breakfast even though it was past noon, and watched the day’s news. The economy is doing better the news anchor says. We apparently added over a hundred and seventy-five thousand new private sector jobs last month. I shrugged this news off with indifference. The last thing I cared about was finding a job. I took a look at my phone. No calls. No messages. No one was around. All my friends were at work. I had all the time in the world and yet no one to spend it with. It seemed like another one of life’s little ironies again, how it always seems to make fun of an otherwise good situation. I mustered up the energy to shower, got dressed, and took the subway over to the city to check out the meetup.
After about five minutes a man came out to the front of the room with a relaxed smile on his face. He was a white guy who looked to be in his late thirties. He wore business casual clothes as if he had just come from work, although his pants seemed a little too loose fitting. The chatter began to calm down by his presence, during which time he just kept his smile. He looked high, but I reckoned he was just a person with thorough knowledge in meditation. Once the crowd got quiet enough he began speaking.
“Hello everyone,” he said in a very calm voice. “I see many new faces in the crowd. That’s good. I see some familiar faces as well.” Long pauses interrupted his sentences.
“How many new people do we have here? Please raise your hand if this is your first time.” I hesitated raising my hand for a moment because I didn't want to out myself as a newbie, but I was surprised to see about half of the room was new.
“That’s excellent,” he continued. “I’m always pleased to find so many people interested in meditation. For those of you who are new I’m going to go into some of the practices that I teach, and for those of you here last time I’m going to go into a little bit more detail. So the kind of practical meditation I teach is called Chan meditation. Chan meditation was developed in China. I studied meditation in China for several years under Master Ling. And so what I do now is I teach it to people in the hopes that it does for you what it did for me.
“You know, earlier today I was on the subway and I bumped into this woman as we were exiting the train and she gave me this really dirty look—you know that look that says ‘you idiot’—and she gave me this evil stare like she wanted to kill me. I could see so much anger coming from her. So I tried to make the best of it and said sorry. But she didn't react at all; she just walked away. And this reminded me of the ways we tend to get so emotional over minor things. In the modern world we all know how stressful life can be. Bills pile up, we have to work long hours, we have to deal with bosses who have unrealistic demands, we have arguments with our loved ones and strangers on the street. These kinds of things agitate us. They make us short tempered. They fill us with anxiety about the future. They can make us depressed. And as a result our minds become obsessed with our problems. I’m sure that woman on the train was probably in this state. So what we do with Chan mediation is we relax. We relax our minds, and we relax our bodies, in order to recognize our problems and we learn how to deal with them.
“So in Chan meditation we focus on our breath. We let it get more and more concentrated so that we go so deep into concentration that we can forget about everything. We can forget about our body, forget about the environment, forget about any sense of space and time to allow our mind to be completely absorbed internally. As you go deeper there could be a ruckus around you and you wouldn't notice, because the senses will stop functioning. There will be just a deep concentration and clarity of mind that’s often called somati or somatic mediation. The word somati has a meaning of just being unmoved, undisturbed, as opposed to how we’re oftentimes disturbed by many things. But in the Chan tradition, in the northern Buddhism or Mahayana tradition, somati takes on a different meaning—not of concentration, but of being able to be stable in all situations. Whether we’re sitting in meditation or whether we bump into somebody, or whether we’re approached by someone aggressively—or—we’re just sitting by our self and something triggers a memory. It doesn't have to be an interpersonal relation.
“To define somati I prefer to use the word stability, which means unshaken. The stability here refers to not being disturbed. And so how do we do that? How do we not be disturbed? In meditation it’s easy. We can sit down and we have our own personal space and we can relax ourselves and ignore everything and we can focus on our breath. We have a point of focus that we can settle on. It may not be easy. It may not be easy to reach that kind of clarity. However, there’s a point on clarity we need to emphasize. Clarity and stability often go together. But clarity—what does that really refer to? Does it mean being really sharp and attentive? It actually means being fully aware—as aware as you can be—mindful. But what does that mean? The awareness that Buddhist meditation emphasizes—this wisdom—it’s not just intelligence, or experience, like saying ‘Oh we’re wise because we have many years of experience doing something.’ It doesn't mean that. Wisdom, awareness, means in this present moment to be totally clear about the condition of our body, the feelings generated in the body, including the sense of touch, including our site and hearing, and even our emotions—these strange feelings we have in our body that get generated in connection with thinking, in connection with the environment. Clarity about these things and especially clarity about our mental reactions, clarity about our thoughts is wisdom. Wisdom you can say is clarity to the point where we’re no longer caught by our thoughts and reactions or no longer entangled in them.
“In the Chan tradition, Huineng, who is the sixth patriarch, often says not to dwell on our thoughts, not to dwell on our feelings or any experience. If we’re upset about something our friends might say to us ‘Don’t dwell on it.’ But here it doesn’t mean don’t think about it. It doesn’t mean like if there’s a pile of bills on your desk and you say to yourself ‘Just don’t dwell on it, it’ll be fine,’ or if there’s a bunch of messages on your phone from debt collectors and someone says ‘Just don’t dwell on it.’ It doesn’t mean don't think about things or don't handle situations. It means don't get caught up in situations. More specifically, don't mistake our thoughts and perceptions about the situation as so real that it’s the actual situation. And this may sound weird at first: to handle the situation I have to think about it, but when I think about it it’s really not the reality of the situation. So what do I do? Where does that put us? Wisdom is actually directly experiencing just the nature of our body, feelings, thoughts—any kind of reaction, and the nature of the environment we’re in. Just think of an example of when we’re bumped into and we’re disturbed by it. Mostly likely we’re going to be disturbed at first—a quick reaction in our mind. But if we’re practicing, if we’re aware, if we have a method we can use to help us become more aware of our body and mind in all different situations we’ll notice it right away. We’ll catch ourselves sometimes. When we get disturbed we’ll notice if we’re just about to react and we can say ‘Huh, it’s Ok.’ We can choose to react differently, we can react more calmly, even more kindly. Maybe we don’t catch ourselves so soon, maybe the expression goes to our face already, or we’re agitated to the point where it turns into speech, ‘What’s your problem?’ It comes out so fast. Too fast. But then we may catch ourselves if we have enough awareness, we may notice that kind of speech was a bit harsh, and not so necessary and you may say ‘Sorry about that, I was a bit stressed out.’ We can then readjust how we respond.
“When we encounter situations we don’t often encounter the reality of the situation. We’re often distant from the reality of the present moment that’s happening. The very moment of getting bumped is just a millisecond of experience—it just lasted that long. But we may notice that our thoughts generate a scenery very quickly—it captures that feeling and person’s expression. The reality of getting bumped has passed. We turn our heads and we still see it, we still remember getting bumped. It’s almost like the instant replay camera in a sports game. We all have an instant replay camera in our life constantly replaying things. Sometimes it’s useful. We may need to replay things that don’t register at first so we replay them in our minds for greater clarity. But dwelling on things like a broken replay machine where we can’t stop it and we dwell on the images of the past, or when we’re generating scenes of the future in a way that completely burdens us prevents us from seeing the present moment.
“When we meditate we may find first of all that we’re still dwelling on it because we’re avoiding it. We remember what it’s like to still engage. It can be really difficult to communicate sometimes and even hear someone else because we’re caught up with what happened before. We’re talking with someone in the present moment and of course we have to talk about the past and plan for the future, but we may get so fixated on saying ‘No that’s not what happened. What I saw was you were like this and I was like that.’ We have a completely fixed image and replay of the situation that makes us totally unable to accept someone else’s part of the story. I think we can all relate to that.
“So what is wisdom? Wisdom on one level is to be able to be aware of that—dwelling—aware of how quickly that happens and how that can interfere with how we deal with situations, and interfere with how we relate to people. A second level would be when we’re clearly aware that we’re aware of our thoughts and we’re aware that we dwell on them that we can realize it and say ‘Oh wait a second. I don’t have to continually watch the instant replay.’ You can choose not to continue the instant replay and you can retract back to the present moment and enjoy the game as it’s happening. This is wisdom. It’s a bit different from just being sharp. It’s about being fully aware of the present moment and fully aware of when we start to dwell. Another way to put it in Buddhist terminology is attachment. To dwell is to attach. Clarity—genuine clarity, helps us transform our troubles or attachments. One of the difficulties in life is this wisdom—the ability to see when we dwell—and then, the ability to drop it.
“So this is the basic principle of Buddhist meditation as expressed in the Chan tradition—stability, clarity, both includes this wisdom. It includes not being disturbed. So what we do is more than just sitting meditation, because if we just sit and meditate and we feel relaxed, what will happen when we get up? Meditation becomes just like temporary medication. We’ll get up and say ‘Oh now I have to face the world again. I have to go face these people.’ And then all you’re clarity and peace is gone. So what we aim to do is carry that clarity, carry that awareness into daily life situations. Then we can catch ourselves, catch ourselves dwelling, catch ourselves generating all these self-centered evaluations projecting our attachments onto situations. And when we can see it’s actually good, we have the potential to free our mind from that burden.”
This all seemed very interesting to me. Getting my mind completely off of the nagging stresses related to work, making money, and having to pay bills was exactly what I wanted. He continued in his soft slow voice.
“So when that incident happened to me earlier today, I felt disturbed, it didn’t make me feel good. But I realized because of my practice that I was starting to see more about myself and my attachments and because of that I felt happy. We shouldn’t feel bad because we discover more and more of our internal stuff. The more we discover it the more we can transform it. In the beginning it’s trash because it’s interfering with our life. But when we see it clearly we can transform it with that awareness and it becomes what? Compost. The stuff we throw away is really good compost. So these different attachments, fixations in the beginning may be troublesome to even be aware of them, but by becoming clearly aware of them we shed light on them and transform them. And from garbage it becomes compost. It becomes something good. This is within the teaching of master Huineng. He had a saying that our fixations and troubles are our means of enlightenment. The word that’s used is bodhi. Like the word bodhisattva in Buddhism, you’ve heard that? It means awakened being, or being that’s intent on awakening. The fixations and attachments we have are the material for our awakening. If we feel that we have no problems, well first I congratulate you if you have totally no problems. You’d be a fully awakened being; a Buddha. But in reality we all have problems and the practice is all about seeing them layer after layer. Seeing them more clearly in a more subtle fashion and using our method to help recycle them—transform them.
“So when you look at it that way, when we feel disturbed and discover our troubles and attachments, we don't have to feel bad. We certainly don't have to feel abnormal. And we don't have to feel that we’re not practicing. So this is what he meant by our fixations, our awakening. So that’s the general principle behind the practice.
“So we’re going to begin in a few minutes,” he continued. “You might need to spread out so that you don’t bump into anyone near you because some of the exercises involve movements. When we do these exercises make sure that you’re comfortable. If you feel you physically cannot perform the task, don’t do it. Do whatever you feel capable of doing. Seated meditation is the most efficient tool for developing the mental stability and clarity we need to harmonize ourselves the proper way. So everyone please sit up in your chair. Make sure your spine is straight and you're not slouched over.” An assistant of his turned the lights off.
I erected my spine and followed the other positions he instructed us to have. I had meditated before so this wasn't exactly new to me.
“It’s important to have good posture,” he continued. “The right posture is something that comes very natural. It doesn’t have to be the full lotus position that they often tell you. Trying to fit into a position that our body doesn't want to be in would be the wrong position. It’s possible to feel worse after meditation, you can feel really sore after sitting for so long. So I want you to sit up straight, but in a way that feels natural. You can do whatever you want with your hands. Let’s begin by rotating our heads in large circles and we’ll do five to the right, and five to the left.”
I did as instructed along with the rest of the class. We were then instructed on a series of repetitive moves both sitting down and standing up that honestly felt very good, although it was a bit awkward doing this in front of all the other strangers. At the very end came the sitting meditation. We were instructed to sit still in a comfortable meditation pose and clear our minds. This was the most difficult part for me. My mind is always cluttered with thoughts and I can never get them to turn off. It’s one of the reasons why I have insomnia. But I tried and tried. And while sitting there about maybe 15 minutes into the sitting meditation, I think I had that moment of clarity. I felt relaxed and in the present moment—if even for only a few seconds. Was this it? What this what the Buddhists feel when they meditate?
Before I knew it it was all over. The timer that the teacher had set rang and he clapped indicating we should all stop. He let out a deep breath and asked, “How does everyone feel? Do you feel good?” I looked around the room and saw everyone coming out of their trance. I certainly felt relaxed.
“It’s important to make sure you’re comfortable after such meditation so we’re going to do a few stretching exercises before we finish.”
We then did some neck rotations and some arm and leg stretches before an assistant turned the lights back on. The room seemed so much brighter than before and I felt my eyes squinting. Another man came up front who appeared to have organized the event and thanked us all for showing up and that if we liked these events and wanted more of them to donate money in envelopes being passed around. I put in a few dollars because that's all I had. And then it was over.
We then did some neck rotations and some arm and leg stretches before an assistant turned the lights back on. The room seemed so much brighter than before and I felt my eyes squinting. Another man came up front who appeared to have organized the event and thanked us all for showing up and that if we liked these events and wanted more of them to donate money in envelopes being passed around. I put in a few dollars because that's all I had. And then it was over.
