Photo by Liza Matthews.
Yes, it’s a strange thing to do — just sit there and do basically
nothing. Yet the simple act of stopping, says Pema Chödrön, is the best
way to cultivate our good qualities. Here are five ways meditation makes
us better people.
The mind is very wild. The human experience is full of
unpredictability and paradox, joys and sorrows, successes and failures.
We can’t escape any of these experiences in the vast terrain of our
existence. It is part of what makes life grand—and it is also why our
minds take us on such a crazy ride. If we can train ourselves through
meditation to be more open and more accepting toward the wild arc of our
experience, if we can lean into the difficulties of life and the ride
of our minds, we can become more settled and relaxed amid whatever life
brings us.
Meditation teaches us how to relate to life directly, so we can
truly experience the present moment, free from conceptual overlay.
There are numerous ways to work with the mind. One of the most
effective is through the tool of sitting meditation. Sitting meditation
opens us to each and every moment of our life. Each moment is totally
unique and unknown. Our mental world is seemingly predictable and
graspable. We believe that thinking through all the events and to-dos of
our life will provide us with ground and security. But it’s all a
fantasy, and this very moment, free of conceptual overlay, is completely
unique. It is absolutely unknown. We’ve never experienced this very
moment before, and the next moment will not be the same as the one we
are in now. Meditation teaches us how to relate to life directly, so we
can truly experience the present moment, free from conceptual overlay.
We do not meditate in order to be comfortable. In other words, we
don’t meditate in order to always, all the time, feel good. I imagine
shockwaves are passing through you as you read this, because so many
people come to meditation to simply “feel better.” However, the purpose
of meditation is not to feel bad, you’ll be glad to know. Rather,
meditation gives us the opportunity to have an open, compassionate
attentiveness to whatever is going on. The meditative space is like the
big sky— spacious, vast enough to accommodate anything that arises.
In meditation, our thoughts and emotions can become like clouds that
dwell and pass away. Good and comfortable, pleasing and difficult and
painful—all of this comes and goes. So the essence of meditation is
training in something that is quite radical and definitely not the
habitual pattern of the species: and that is to stay with ourselves no
matter what is happening, without putting labels of good and bad, right
and wrong, pure and impure, on top of our experience.
Meditation gives us the opportunity to have an open, compassionate
attentiveness to whatever is going on. The meditative space is like the
big sky— spacious, vast enough to accommodate anything that arises.
If meditation was just about feeling good (and I think all of us
secretly hope that is what it’s about), we would often feel like we must
be doing it wrong. Because at times, meditation can be such a difficult
experience. A very common experience of the meditator, in a typical day
or on a typical retreat, is the experience of boredom, restlessness, a
hurting back, pain in the knees—even the mind might be hurting—so many
“not feeling good” experiences. Instead, meditation is about a
compassionate openness and the ability to be with oneself and one’s
situation through all kinds of experiences. In meditation, you’re open
to whatever life presents you with. It’s about touching the earth and
coming back to being right here. While some kinds of meditation are more
about achieving special states and somehow transcending or rising above
the difficulties of life, the kind of meditation that I’ve trained in
and that I am talking about here is about awakening fully to our life.
It’s about opening the heart and mind to the difficulties and the joys
of life—just as it is. And the fruits of this kind of meditation are
boundless.
As we meditate, we are nurturing five qualities that begin to come
forth over the months and years that we practice. You might find it
helpful to reconnect with these qualities whenever you ask yourself,
“Why am I meditating?”
1. Steadfastness
The first quality—namely, the first thing that we’re doing when we
meditate—is cultivating and nurturing steadfastness with ourselves. I
was talking to someone about this once, and she asked, “Is this
steadfastness sort of like loyalty? What are we being loyal to?” Through
meditation, we are developing a loyalty to ourselves. This
steadfastness that we cultivate in meditation translates immediately
into loyalty to one’s experience of life.
Steadfastness means that when you sit down to meditate and you allow
yourself to experience what’s happening in that moment—which could be
your mind going a hundred miles an hour, your body twitching, your head
pounding, your heart full of fear, whatever comes up—you stay with the
experience. That’s it. Sometimes you can sit there for an hour and it
doesn’t get any better. Then you might say, “Bad meditation session. I
just had a bad meditation session.” But the willingness to sit there for
ten minutes, fifteen minutes, twenty minutes, a half hour, an hour,
however long you sat there—this is a compassionate gesture of developing
loyalty or steadfastness to yourself.
We have such a tendency to lay a lot of labels, opinions, and
judgments on top of what’s happening. Steadfastness—loyalty to
yourself—means that you let those judgments go. So, in a way, part of
the steadfastness is that when you notice your mind is going a million
miles an hour and you’re thinking about all kinds of things, there is
this uncontrived moment that just happens without any effort: you stay
with your experience. In meditation, you develop this nurturing quality
of loyalty and steadfastness and perseverance toward yourself. And as we
learn to do this in meditation, we become more able to persevere
through all kinds of situations outside of our meditation, or what we
call postmeditation.
2. Clear Seeing
The second quality that we generate in meditation is clear seeing,
which is similar to steadfastness. Sometimes this is called clear
awareness. Through meditation, we develop the ability to catch ourselves
when we are spinning off, or hardening to circumstances and people, or
somehow closing down to life. We start to catch the beginnings of a
neurotic chain reaction that limits our ability to experience joy or
connect with others. You would think that because we are sitting in
meditation, so quiet and still, focusing on the breath, that we wouldn’t
notice very much. But it is actually quite the opposite. Through this
development of steadfastness, this learning to stay in meditation, we
begin to form a nonjudgmental, unbiased clarity of just seeing. Thoughts
come, emotions come, and we can see them ever so clearly.
In meditation, you are moving closer and closer to yourself, and you
begin to understand yourself so much more clearly. You begin to see
clearly without a conceptual analysis, because with regular practice,
you see what you do over and over and over and over again. You see that
you replay the same tapes over and over and over in your mind. The name
of the partner might be different, the employer might be different, but
the themes are somewhat repetitious. Meditation helps us clearly see
ourselves and the habitual patterns that limit our life. You begin to
see your opinions clearly. You see your judgments. You see your defense
mechanisms. Meditation deepens your understanding of yourself.
3. Courage
The third quality we cultivate in meditation is one that I’ve
actually been alluding to when I bring up both steadfastness and clear
seeing—and it happens when we allow ourselves to sit in meditation with
our emotional distress. I think it’s really important to state this as a
separate quality that we develop in practice, because when we
experience emotional distress in meditation (and we will), we often feel
like “we’re doing it wrong.” So the third quality that seems to
organically develop within us is the cultivation of courage, the gradual
arising of courage. I think the word “gradual” here is very important,
because it can be a slow process. But over time, you will find yourself
developing the courage to experience your emotional discomfort and the
trials and tribulations of life.
Meditation is a transformative process, rather than a magic makeover
in which we doggedly aim to change something about ourselves. The more
we practice, the more we open and the more we develop courage in our
life. In meditation you never really feel that you “did it” or that
you’ve “arrived.” You feel that you just relaxed enough to experience
what’s always been within you. I sometimes call this transformative
process “grace.” Because when we’re developing this courage, in which we
allow the range of our emotions to occur, we can be struck with moments
of insight. These insights could never have come from trying to figure
out conceptually what’s wrong with us or what’s wrong with the world.
These moments of insight come from the act of sitting in meditation,
which takes courage—a courage that grows with time.
Meditation allows you to see something fresh that you’ve never seen
before or to understand something new that you’ve never understood
before.
Through this developing courage, we are often graced with a change in
our worldview, if ever so slight. Meditation allows you to see
something fresh that you’ve never seen before or to understand something
new that you’ve never understood before. Sometimes we call these boons
of meditation “blessings.” In meditation, you learn how to get out of
your own way long enough for there to be room for your own wisdom to
manifest, and this happens because you’re not repressing this wisdom any
longer.
When you develop the courage to experience your emotional distress at
its most difficult level, and you’re just sitting there with it in
meditation, you realize how much comfort and how much security you get
from your mental world. Because at that point, when there’s a lot of
emotion, you begin to really get in touch with the feeling, the
underlying energy, of your emotions. You begin to let go of the words,
the stories, as best you can, and then you’re just sitting there. Then
you realize, even if it seems unpleasant, that you feel compelled to
keep reliving the memory, the story of your emotions—or that you want to
dissociate. You may find that you often drift into fantasy about
something pleasant. And the secret is that, actually, we don’t want to
do any of this. Part of us wants so earnestly to wake up and open. The
human species wants to feel more alive and awake to life. But also, the
human species is not comfortable with the transient, shifting quality of
the energy of reality. Simply put, a large part of us actually prefers
the comfort of our mental fantasies and planning, and that’s actually
why this practice is so difficult to do. Experiencing our emotional
distress and nurturing all of these qualities—steadfastness, clear
seeing, courage— really shakes up our habitual patterns. Meditation
loosens up our conditioning; it’s loosening up the way we hold ourselves
together, the way we perpetuate our suffering.
4. Attention
The fourth quality we develop in meditation is something I’ve been
touching on all along, and that is the ability to become awake to our
lives, to each and every moment, just as it is. This is the absolute
essence of meditation. We develop attention to this very moment; we
learn to just be here. And we have a lot of resistance to just being
here! When I first started practicing, I thought I wasn’t good at it. It
took me a while to realize that I had a lot of resistance to just being
here now. Just being here—attention to this very moment—does not
provide us with any kind of certainty or predictability. But when we
learn how to relax into the present moment, we learn how to relax with
the unknown.
Life is never predictable. You can say, “Oh, I like the
unpredictability,” but that’s usually true only up to a certain point,
as long as the unpredictability is somewhat fun and adventurous. I have a
lot of relatives who are into things like bungee jumping and all kinds
of terrifying things—all of my nephews, particularly, and nieces.
Sometimes, thinking of their activities, I experience extreme terror.
But everybody, even my wild relatives, meets their edge. And sometimes
the most adventurous of us meet our edge in the strangest places, like
when we can’t get a good cup of coffee. We’re willing to jump off a
bridge upside down, but we throw a tantrum when we can’t get a good cup
of coffee. Strange that not being able to get a good cup of coffee could
be the unknown, but somehow for some, maybe for you, it is that edge of
stepping into that uncomfortable, uncertain space.
Meditation helps you meet your edge; it’s where you actually come up
against it and you start to lose it. Meeting the unknown of the moment
allows you to live your life and to enter your relationships and
commitments ever more fully. This is living wholeheartedly.
So this place of meeting our edge, of accepting the present moment
and the unknown, is a very powerful place for those who wish to awaken
and open their heart and mind. The present moment is the generative fire
of our meditation. It is what propels us toward transformation. In
other words, the present moment is the fuel for your personal journey.
Meditation helps you meet your edge; it’s where you actually come up
against it and you start to lose it. Meeting the unknown of the moment
allows you to live your life and to enter your relationships and
commitments ever more fully. This is living wholeheartedly.
Meditation is revolutionary, because it’s not a final resting place:
you can always be more settled. This is why I continue to do this year
after year. If I looked back and had no sense that any transformation
had happened, if I didn’t recognize that I feel more settled and more
flexible, it would be pretty discouraging. But there is that feeling.
And there’s always another challenge, and that keeps us humble. Life
knocks you off your pedestal. We can always work on meeting the unknown
from a more settled and openhearted space. It happens for all of us. I
too have moments where I am challenged in meeting the present moment,
even after decades of meditation. Years back, I took a trip alone with
my granddaughter, who was six years old at the time. It was such an
embarrassing experience, because she was being extremely difficult. She
was saying “no” about everything, and I kept losing it with this little
angel whom I adore. So I said, “Okay, Alexandria, this is between you
and Grandma, right? You’re not going to tell anybody about what’s going
on? You know, all those pictures you’ve seen of Grandma on the front of
books? Anyone you see carrying around one of those books, you do not
tell them about this!”
The point is that when your cover is blown, it’s embarrassing. When
you practice meditation, getting your cover blown is just as
embarrassing as it ever was, but you’re glad to see where you’re still
stuck because you would like to die with no more big surprises. On your
deathbed, when you thought you were Saint Whoever, you don’t want to
find out that the nurse completely pushes you over the wall with
frustration and anger. Not only do you die angry at the nurse, but you
die disillusioned with your whole being. So if you ask why we meditate, I
would say it’s so we can become more flexible and tolerant to the
present moment. You could be irritated with the nurse when you’re dying
and say, “You know, that’s the way life is.” You let it move through
you. You can feel settled with that, and hopefully you even die
laughing—it was just your luck to get this nurse! You can say, “This is
absurd!” These people who blow our cover like this, we call them
“gurus.”
5. No Big Deal
The fifth and last quality regarding why we meditate is what I call
“no big deal.” It’s what I am getting at when I say we become flexible
to the present moment. Yes, with meditation you may experience profound
insight, or the magnificent feeling of grace or blessing, or the feeling
of transformation and newfound courage, but then: no big deal. You’re
on your deathbed, and you have this nurse who’s driving you nuts, and
it’s funny: no big deal.
This was one of the biggest teachings from my teacher, Chögyam
Trungpa Rinpoche: no big deal. I remember one time going to him with
what I thought was a very powerful experience from my practice. I was
all excited, and as I was telling him about this experience, he had a
look. It was a kind of indescribable look, a very open look. You
couldn’t call it compassionate or judgmental or anything. And as I was
telling him about this, he touched my hand and said, “No . . . big . . .
deal.” He wasn’t saying “bad,” and he wasn’t saying “good.” He was
saying that these things happen and they can transform your life, but at
the same time don’t make too big a deal of them, because that leads to
arrogance and pride, or a sense of specialness. On the other hand,
making too big a deal about your difficulties takes you in the other
direction; it takes you into poverty, self-denigration, and a low
opinion of yourself. So meditation helps us cultivate this feeling of no
big deal, not as a cynical statement, but as a statement of humor and
flexibility. You’ve seen it all, and seeing it all allows you to love it
all.
This teaching is from Pema Chödrön’s book, “How to Meditate: A
Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind,” published by Sounds
True.
Read More »
