In meditation we are coming to know our mind because it is there that we experience happiness and suffering. As the Dalai Lama wrote in The Art of Happiness:
In identifying one’s mental state as the prime factor in achieving happiness, of course that doesn’t deny that our basic physical needs for food, clothing, and shelter must be met. But once these basic needs are met, the message is clear: we don’t need more money, we don’t need greater success or fame, we don’t need the perfect body or even the perfect mate—right now, at this very moment, we have a mind, which is all the basic equipment we need to achieve complete happiness.
Our mind is often clouded with turbulent thoughts and emotions that obscure us from seeing reality and having clear discernment in our life. But in our meditation training, we can see our experience as it is, rather than how we want, fear, or hope it to be.
Now that we have some degree of concentration and mindfulness practice, we’re going to open our meditation to our entire world by using objects of our five senses as the support for our practice. These are:
The method is the same as when we focused on tactile sensations during body scanning: we direct our awareness lightly toward a chosen object of our five senses and observe in a witnessing mode of direct perception.
We need not react to any of the sense objects, either by trying to prolong the experience or cut it short. Instead, we keep our awareness open and steady, and perceive whatever is presented to it. Most of us will, however, quickly observe how our mind wants to engage with certain forms of stimulation and tries to stop others. Take for example, a sound that you don’t particularly like—the stomping of feet in the apartment above you, the sound of a leaf blower, or the roar of a motorcycle. The moment after that sound is perceived, you may react with displeasure, and a mental commentary quickly ensues about why the sound should stop, or perhaps anger or frustration swells up within you toward the individual making the sound. Another layer of mental commentary rapidly picks up to reinforce your dislike, and soon you’re completely lost in a chain of thoughts, even when the original sound is no longer present. You are reacting to your reaction of the sound more than to the sound itself.
Take another example, such as an aroma you like, say that of freshly baked bread, or coffee, or pizza. Your awareness perceives that scent and a moment afterwards a sense of pleasure arises, which moves you to think about, perhaps, the last time you had that delicacy, or maybe move into the future to think, Maybe I’ll have pizza for lunch tomorrow … and perhaps my best friend can join me to dine outside at the Italian café … but oh no, I’ve heard there is snow forecast … but how could there be snow in April ... for sure, I should try to support that environmental group that works on climate change.
Wow! That was a quick succession of thoughts, almost effortlessly going from pizza to climate change! And we go on thinking excursions like this all day. Thought loop after thought loop after thought loop… Why do we do this? We do it because of our habit of thinking, and because of our attachment to some thoughts and aversion to other thoughts. Often the things we think about the most are those things for which we have a sincere dislike!
Is all of this thinking bad? What’s the problem with allowing your mind to run off here and there? You should examine this question, and perhaps write about it in your meditation journal.
My point is that none of our thinking, conceptualizing, ruminating, and endless forays into the future or the past lead us to any lasting contentment. In fact, we are in an ever-revolving chase for some “thing” that will give us a degree of contentment, happiness, or wellbeing. When we do find things that give us moments of contentment, they seem to dissolve and we are left chasing again. This endless chasing creates an undercurrent of dis-ease in our life.
This is why we’ve been exploring what happens when we allow our chasing mind to settle a bit. When that happens, instead of chasing what we think will bring us happiness, we begin to experience what our life is really offering right now.
Using objects of the five senses in our meditation practice cultivates a relaxed and supple mind that isn’t swayed by the objects around us. We needn’t push away the objects of our senses, nor indulge in thinking about them either. In fact, what we are opening ourselves to is the complete experience of our life right now, in this body, with these senses.
In our next guided meditation practice we will begin by using sound as the object of our concentration.
Assume your meditation posture. Arrange a solid foundation for your legs and hips. If you are seated, place a pillow or support under your backside and thighs, so that you feel completely supported. You can also lie down. In either case, have your spine straight, shoulders pulled back and relaxed, chin slightly tucked under, and your eyes either closed or open with a soft downward gaze.
Relax your body and bring your mind into your body.
Take a few deep breaths—a full inhalation all the way up to your collarbones and a deep relaxing exhalation. After a few breaths like this, allow your breathing to return to its natural flow.
To establish your motivation, perhaps think:
May this meditation practice bring a clarity of mind and openness to my heart, so that I may be more open, loving, and caring with my family, friends, and even those whom I do not know.
Settle your body into a posture of ease and let it rest there, stable and calm, including your eyes. Deeply relax. And turn your attention to feeling your body abiding in motionlessness.
Feel your legs for a few moments. What are the sensations there? Heaviness, groundedness, firmness?
Feel your spine’s lift and notice any sensations along your back and the back of your head. Scan upwards.
Then slowly sweep your attention down the front side of your body, noticing the felt experience in your face, chest, and belly. Release any tension. Allow your abdomen to remain loose and relaxed.
Now turn your attention to the sounds around you. What sounds do you hear?
Perhaps the humming of any electrical appliances in the room or maybe a distant roar of an airplane in the sky. Perhaps you can hear the sound of your breath, or something else within your body. Open your awareness and take in any and all sounds, not focusing on or favoring any one in particular. Just listen.
There are likely to be many different sounds around you. Allow yourself to be aware of whatever sounds are more prominent.
You need not think about the sounds, or even name them. Nor attend to any mental images or ideas about them. Simply hear sound, any sound, for however long it lasts, and remain open to whatever sounds arise and fade away. Leave the hearing in the hearing, free of after-thinking and mental commentary.
You may also notice other things around you, such as sights or tactile sensations. This is no problem, but attend primarily to sound. Immerse yourself in the soundscape in a very relaxed and attentive way.
Let your awareness remain motionless, just aware of sound. Relaxed but not spaced out. Alert but not tense.
Practice in this manner for 10 minutes or so.
Finally, release your mental focus on sound and completely relax. Rest with an open presence for a short while.
To conclude with a dedication, perhaps you can think:
May my meditation practice today on sound bring spaciousness and clarity in my life so that I can more effectively benefit others.
Be sure to write in your meditation journal about your first times practicing sound meditation.
We will meditate upon objects of all the five senses in our next session, but first I would like to discuss an important topic. We have been refining certain mental tools in our meditation practice, namely concentration, mindfulness, and relaxation. We have also talked about awareness, which I’d like to explore a little more deeply now.
Often when we speak of awareness, we talk about awareness of some “thing,” either one of the objects of touch, sound, sight, smell, and taste, or a mental object like an emotion or thought, for example, I’m aware of the dog or I’m aware of how angry I am. I’m not talking about the objects that awareness is aware of here. Rather, I’m talking about awareness itself—that which knows, which perceives, which cognizes.
Let’s investigate this by looking at the qualities of awareness.
First, awareness seems to illuminate any and all phenomena in our life. It is a kind of clarity that allows the entirety of our world to unfold in its manifest forms. So, in this sense, awareness illuminates.
An example of this that is often given by teachers in India is that of an old-time movie projector. I’ve heard this metaphor given by teachers in both the Buddhist and Hatha Yoga traditions as a way of thinking about the illuminating aspect of awareness.
The process of illumination
When a movie is played, the images are projected onto a screen. That screen is like our world of phenomena, in which the drama of our life and the lives of those around us is being played out. These stories, outside us and even inside our head, are an enticing saga in which we often completely lose ourselves.
Then there is the filmstrip that moves through the projector. This film represents our habitual tendencies, likes, dislikes, and inclinations—the fuel for the narrative we tell ourselves about who we are and what we think and feel about the drama of our life.
The cogs, wheels, and machinery of the projector are like all of our different senses, which function to supply the appearance of a solid and real world upon the screen.
The screen, the film, and the projector are all creating appearances, but behind them all is a light bulb that supplies the light. Without the light of the lamp, none of the appearances would appear.
This light is like the illuminating aspect of awareness that allows the movie of our life to appear. While the drama depends upon the light, at the same time, the light is completely free of all the stories and narratives in the drama.
The second quality of awareness is knowing, or cognizance. Awareness not only illuminates, it also knows. Knows what? Whatever objects of the five physical senses and mental phenomena move before it.
Here the example of a mirror is often given. When an object moves in front of a mirror, the mirror reflects it exactly as it is, without changing, altering, or manipulating it. The mirror, or awareness, doesn’t have to make an effort to perceive the object—it just happens.
When our awareness perceives an object, for the very first moment it does so purely, free of concepts, seeing it exactly as it is, just as a mirror effortlessly reflects an object. But the next moment, if our perception is affected by like or dislike, attachment or aversion, we tarnish that pure perception with our habit of labeling, then thinking, and the chain reaction of our thought loops. This “thinking” obscures the pure perception and we do not discern reality as it is, but rather as we think it is. In meditation we allow our awareness to remain in this mirror-like purity rather than obscuring it.
Is there ever a time when our awareness isn’t functioning? Its illuminating and knowing aspects seem to be ever-present. Even when we’re asleep and dreaming, it is this awareness that both illuminates our dreams and knows that they are happening.
Just as when we are dreaming but believe it to be real, so too in our waking state we get lost believing in the drama of our life. We become exhausted chasing contentment in our thought loops, because we can never quite find it there. We only meet dissatisfaction when we search for lasting contentment in our projections and thinking.
So what happens when we return, again and again, to pure knowing, to the illuminated awareness of now, instead of our habit of thinking? This is what we discover in meditation.
We have seen in our practice of focusing on tactile sensations, as well as sound, how we have a choice between observing directly what we experience, or being distracted by our mental habits of liking and disliking. Whereas before we started to meditate, the objects of our five senses—sensations, sounds, sights, scents and tastes—would send us off on thought loops, some short and some long in duration, now we are seeing for ourselves how sense objects that once were a cause of distraction are now integral to our meditation practice. We see how our distracted mind is a reminder to come back to the present, to return to the here and now.
Once I was with the Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh at his monastery in Thailand. We were sitting in an open-air meditation hall. Between the hall and the nearby rice paddy fields there was a large pond that was full of slimy green and brown mud.
I had come to meet Thich Nhat Hanh and discuss with him the challenges of being a meditator while still engaging in the world of social action, as his life had been an example of socially engaged Buddhism for more than 40 years. I told him how many young people who were involved in social change burned out quickly because they felt overwhelmed emotionally and couldn’t sustain the energy needed to make a difference over the long haul. It was often their anger that tired them the most. And I asked him how he could view his so-called adversaries or political opponents with anything but aversion.
“How do you not let your anger overwhelm your composure and patience?”
He paused. Then he pointed toward that slimly green pond.
“There, you see?”
There was a single pure white lotus flower.
“No mud, no lotus.”
That was all he said. No mud, no lotus. Then he rang a bell in front of him that signaled for us to meditate for a short while.
After we had meditated, he spoke again and equated three things: the lotus, the Buddha, and our potential for awakening. The lotus lives within the sludge of a dirty swamp, but is not tainted by it. Similarly, while the Buddha lived within the world of aggression and suffering, it was his compassion that blossomed.
And, just like the lotus and the Buddha, we too must rise to the challenge of meeting our distractions and aggravations—our own mud—with pristine awareness shining and compassion radiating.
Any object of our five senses can be used individually in our meditation practice, just as we did with sound. Or, as we will now see, we can open all five senses up simultaneously.
In the practice, as before, we directly perceive an object as it appears to our awareness.
The Buddha taught this practice concisely in the Root Sequence Discourse (Mulapariyaya Sutta), when he said:
In what is seen, there should be just the seen;
In what is heard, there should be just the heard;
In what is felt, there should be just the felt;
In what is known, there should be just the known.
We will meditate upon the five senses sequentially, opening our attention to each sense field one by one, and then we will remain with all five of the senses open at once, spacious and attentive to whatever in the realm of the five senses presents itself to our awareness.
As for what we are to do if and when we get distracted: we notice, we release the thinking, relax, and return to the practice.
Find a comfortable place where you can sit or lie down and remain motionless for 10–15 minutes. Arrange your hips and legs so that you are steady and stable. Lengthen your spine, draw your shoulders back and down, and then relax. Slightly tuck your chin under as you relax your face. Release any gripping or tension around your eyes, at the back of your throat, in your shoulders or in your belly. Let your eyes be soft and closed, or, if open, in a downward gaze, resting motionless.
Having adjusted your posture, you can adjust your attitude to think:
Through my practice of meditation today on the five senses, may I open my heart and mind completely so that I may be able to benefit more beings.
Gather your mind and bring it into your body. Feel your body as a composite whole, motionless.
Direct your awareness to hover within your body and feel whatever are the most prominent tactile sensations. Remain very relaxed, very alert. There’s no need to think about the sensations. Just feel them. Lightness, heaviness, warmth, coolness—feel whatever sensations are present.
You may also notice that the sensations change as you perceive them. They may be pulsating, vibrating, or throbbing. Just notice them. You may also notice a kind of like or dislike of them. Just notice that too.
Stay with the sensations for a few minutes.
Now move the attention that has been on tactile sensation to the field of sound. You don’t have to go here and there and try to find sounds, just let your awareness be open and still, and know whatever sounds are moving around you or through you. Perhaps you hear the thumping of your heart, or the rasping of your breath, or the humming of an air conditioner.
Some sounds move quickly, like cars swooshing by; others remain or repeat like the percussion of a ticking clock. Whatever is present, leave the hearing in the hearing. Listen, free of after-thinking.
Practice in this manner for a few minutes.
If you notice your mind moving away from your object or field of concentration, release the thinking, relax, and come back to the practice. No mud, no lotus.
Then, while leaving the doors to your previous two sense doors open, move your attention to the field of visual stimulation. Whether your eyes are closed or open, adopt a witnessing mode in perceiving whatever shapes, colors, patterns, or shades of light are presenting themselves to you.
Leave the seeing in the seeing. Observe whatever sights are present, free of after-thinking.
Practice like this for a few minutes.
Next, while leaving the doors to your previous three sense perceptions open, redirect your attention to whatever scents are around you. Notice whatever sweet, pungent, smoky, fruity, chemical, decayed, or fragrant scents are there. There’s no need to name or label them. Simply smell them.
There may be a change present as one scent comes and goes, while others seem to persist. Perhaps you notice that you like or dislike different scents. There’s no need to mentally push away or indulge. Just smell for a few minutes.
Turn your attention now to whatever tastes are present on your palate. Place your awareness on the front of your tongue, mid-tongue, and the back of the mouth. Notice the sweet, bitter, sour or salty tastes. Some might bring a kind of liking and some a kind of disliking. Just observe.
You don’t have to think how the tastes got there. Just notice them.
Now allow all five of your senses to be completely open at once. Let your awareness be both vast and clear like the sky. Allow all of the objects of your five senses to be perceived purely, free of after-thinking. Sensations, sounds, sights, scents and tastes arise and dissolve.
Let your awareness be open and still and simply know whatever moves before it. There’s no need to suppress or ignore any sense object, or indulge or think about it. Stay very relaxed. Very alert.
Practice like this for a few minutes.
Finally, let all mental effort go and relax. There’s no need to concentrate now, or attend to anything, or use mindfulness. Release and relax in silent stillness for a few moments.
To conclude with an auspicious dedication, perhaps you can think:
By opening my mind and heart completely, may I discern clearly the way to be of most benefit to others.
When we cultivate a calm body and mind in meditation as well as develop some degree of single-pointed concentration, it’s not uncommon to have powerful surges of energy. Sometimes we experience these as strongly felt emotions. For individuals who have a strong visual disposition, there may be some kind of visionary experience. I’m not going to suggest an interpretation of any of these experiences. But I will offer this: if or when strong surges of energy seem to disrupt your meditation, you don’t need to be particularly surprised, distressed, or elated.
What are you to do with these rather powerful experiences? In the context of the meditation practice presented thus far, the instruction is simply to return to the method: treat the strong surge of energy, emotion, or vision as any other cloud-like movement that arises and dissolves in the sky-like space of your awareness.
You might ask, “Shouldn’t I figure out what these experiences mean during my meditation?”
If you want to investigate various kinds of meditation experiences through intellectual inquiry, you will have ample time to do so after your meditation practice concludes. But as far as formal meditation practice goes, the intent is to calm the body and mind and cultivate a non-distracted and attentive awareness that is not swayed by whatever emotions or visions or energies arise.
Once when I was on a strict Vipassana meditation retreat for a few weeks in Nepal, I had the very powerful feeling that I was levitating. We were practicing body scanning over and over during our 90-minute meditation sessions and each day we were meditating for 10 sessions, so it was rather intense. We were encouraged not to open our eyes, or shift our legs from half-lotus, or move our hands from our lap. But on the third day, I began to feel as though I was meditating about six inches off the ground. I was sure I was actually levitating.
Then on the next day I not only felt that I was levitating, but also that I was rocking from left to right like a pendulum.
I continued the meditation method, though I was nearly certain that what I was feeling was actually happening. It was quite exciting. I remembered reading stories of great yogis who could levitate and I thought that this experience must signify that I was on the precipice of grand meditative realizations!
After five consecutive days of having these feelings of levitating and swaying while I was meditating, I decided to ask a senior instructor about it. I described my experience to her, half-expecting a congratulatory response.
She grinned slightly and said in a matter of fact way, “Just open your eyes. See for yourself.”
Sometimes reality checks come in the most painfully obvious ways!
There is one other point I’d like to mention regarding experiences during our meditation practice. Some meditation manuals I have studied refer to three kinds of experiences that indicate we are making progress along the meditation path. These are bliss, clarity, and no-thought:
If these experiences emerge, and how frequently they happen, in meditation is dependent upon the disposition of the individual, and all three will not necessarily occur in every individual. Generally, we are more predisposed toward one of the three.
If and when they do come into our meditation practice, it is likely the result of having attained some degree of single-pointed concentration. However, it should be noted, there are many other signs of progress on the meditation path.
I mention bliss, clarity, and no-thought not because we are trying to have these experiences, but rather as a cautionary example. While these three experiences may be a sign that single-pointed concentration is improving, a warning is given in the meditation manuals. They caution that meditation-based experiences like bliss, clarity and no-thought can become obstacles on the path of the meditator, because they can have an alluring quality. That is to say, when they arise, we tend to grasp them, not wanting to let them go, and then desire to experience them again in our next meditation session. There can even be a sense of “waiting” for a certain kind of experience to arise in meditation. This is a deviation from the path of meditation.
So, while experiencing bliss, clarity, and no-thought is a positive sign, the instruction for our practice remains the same as before: remain attentively relaxed and observe as experiences arise and dissolve, without any fear of losing them or hope of their return. Recognize them as mere experiences and see their ephemeral quality, how they are almost dream-like.
I related earlier my experience of lower back pain on one of my first meditation retreats and how meditation transformed my relationship to it. During that retreat, the entire notion of “pain” dissolved as I continued to focus lightly on the sensation over the course of a few days, and what remained was the direct experience of pulsating heat and coldness. I saw how the label of “pain” was additional and the many stories I’d told myself about the “pain” were veils that prevented me from experiencing the sensation as it really was. My stories were more about my fear of pain than what I was actually experiencing.
That was one specific episode, and in the course of my 23 years of meditating, I’ve observed all kinds of different bodily pain in meditation. I’m not suggesting that we should try to have painful experiences, or create bodily discomfort in order to meditate upon them. We need not do that. Pain will arise quite naturally over the course of time—this is a time-honored truth for all of us! But when pain arises in our meditation, it can be quite instructive. It gives us the chance to observe our mental habits very precisely. This is to say, when we have an experience of, for example, throbbing, pulsating, or stabbing, we may sense it as unpleasant. Almost simultaneously, out of habit, we label it “pain” and want to get rid of it, mentally pushing it away, moving our body, and thinking about how not to have that feeling. Often, fear arises that the pain will never go away, making the entire experience even more unbearable in our mind. We fuel a chain reaction of thoughts and thinking that can make us feel uneasier mentally than the unpleasant sensation causing it.
I’m not saying pain isn’t real, or that we should somehow convince ourselves not to address the physical maladies with which it is associated. What I’m proposing is that pain presents us with a chance to look at our mind, our perception, and our habitual reactions toward felt sensations.
Medical research in the last decade has indicated that mindfulness and meditation contribute positively to pain management, including in chronic pain sufferers. Much of the research has focused on the patients’ perceived pain control, as well as depression arising from having chronic pain. If you are a chronic pain sufferer, I recommend that you speak to your doctor about incorporating mindfulness and meditation into your treatment.
What are we to do when pain arises in our body during meditation? We observe it. We look at it. If it is the kind of pain that requires us to move our body—say, for example, if our knee is aching badly—then we move. But if we don’t need to move, we can use the opportunity to look deeply at the sensation, and at the same time watch what our mind does with it.
In watching the sensation, we may notice the actual feeling, rather than what we think about the feeling. This is an excellent opportunity to see the difference between what we actually experience and what we think about it. We are looking into how the present moment is, rather than how we want it to be.
We might see that the sensation is not a solid thing, a static state, but fluid, moving, a beating experience, full of change—and this is a precious time. See, we can know intellectually that everything changes, but when we experience change within our body, it is no longer in the realm of the intellect but in the realm of our experience-based knowledge. This leads directly to coming to know reality, because we are observing the ever-changing flow that we call the present.
We don’t have to focus strongly on the sensations, rather approach them with the same spacious disposition that we always bring to our meditation practice. We observe, watch, and notice, attentively relaxed.
When I practice and share meditation with others, I don’t mind if there are ticking clocks, barking dogs, or street traffic around. Even busy places such as airports, where there is an avalanche of stimulation, can be wonderful locations for meditation. We don’t have to react to the sights and sounds and other commotion around us; meditation is dependent upon our mind and our mental agility to give ourselves space not to react.
That said, meditation teachers and most of the retreat manuals I’ve studied recommend finding a location for formal meditation sessions or retreat that is free from the usual noises and distractions of everyday life.
This is especially helpful when we are establishing our meditation practice.
If you are fortunate to have a quiet place in your home, or can spend some time in a cabin in the mountains or by the ocean, by all means take advantage of that for your meditation practice. But again, I have to remind you that we practice meditation so that we can be in the world fully and not shy away from it. We don’t want to use meditation practice, whether at home or in retreat, as an excuse to be an escape artist from our life! We should develop our meditation practice so that it is not dependent upon having the perfect external circumstance. Eventually, we will find that we can meditate anywhere, anytime.
Once I took a month away from my work as a human rights monitor to study and practice with my teacher in Tibet, and when I arrived he could tell I was in a stressful state. I told him about my work reporting on human rights violations and how angry I felt toward the perpetrators of the atrocities that I’d researched.
He nodded, but didn’t say anything.
He was teaching me a meditation practice in retreat that cultivated profound tranquility in body and mind, and after a few days, my mind began to settle.
During the second week, however, he saw me becoming too comfortable and peaceful in my meditation practice and thought I might become attached to being calm. One morning while I was quietly meditating next to him, all of sudden he blurted out the names of the political leaders to whom I had a strong aversion.
I immediately reacted, feeling a kind of hot rage rise within my chest.
He saw this play out in me and said, “Watch your reactions, don’t feed them. And then return to your object of concentration.”
