BREATHING AND THE ART OF STARTING OVER
IMAGINE RECLAIMING ALL THE ENERGY that could be available to us but isn’t because we scatter it, squandering it on endlessly regretting the past, worrying about the future, berating ourselves, blaming others, checking Facebook yet again, throwing ourselves into serial snacking, workaholism, recreational shopping, recreational drugs.
Concentration is a steadying and focusing of attention that allows us to let go of distractions. When our attention is stabilized in this way energy is restored to us—and we feel restored to our lives. This week you’re going to learn techniques for deepening concentration through focusing on the breath.
Sometimes distractions are internal—the continuous replaying of old mistakes and regrets (Why didn’t I listen to my dad? or If only I’d married Jeffrey) or the nursing of past injustices (How could she have accused me of disloyalty? I was the one who stuck up for her!). We focus on things we can’t undo. Or we throw our energy into obsessively fantasizing about a future that may never happen (What if I tell the committee my ideas and they put me down? Or what if they steal my ideas, and don’t give me credit? I’ll quit!) and then getting terribly agitated about it, as if the woes we’re imagining had already come to pass. “I’ve been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened,” Mark Twain once said. Or we live in a state of perpetual postponement that blinds us to the potentially fulfilling moment in front of us: I’ll be happy when I graduate, we tell ourselves, when I lose ten pounds, when I get the car/the promotion/the proposal, when the kids move out.
And plenty of the distractions are external: the familiar competing tugs of home and work; the twenty-four-hour media matrix; our noisy consumer culture. We often try to buy our way out of pain, regarding material possessions as talismans against change, against loss and death. “Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers,” the poet William Wordsworth wrote.
And not just getting and spending; also texting, Web surfing, tweeting, Skyping, digitally recording. A colleague recently led stress-reduction sessions for people who felt themselves to be suffering from an excess of distraction, an inability to settle and simply be. One man complained that he didn’t have enough time in the day, that he felt disconnected from his family and generally anxious. When my friend asked him how he typically spent his time, the man described reading an average of four newspapers and watching at least three TV news shows every day.
Relearning how to concentrate, says the writer Alain de Botton, is one of the great challenges of our time. “The past decade has seen an unparalleled assault on our capacity to fix our minds steadily on anything,” he wrote in the 2010 essay “On Distraction.” “To sit still and think, without succumbing to an anxious reach for a machine, has become almost impossible.”
Linda Stone, a former executive at both Apple and Microsoft, has coined the term Continuous Partial Attention to describe a pervasive and exhausting condition you’re likely to find familiar. Simple multitasking—it seems almost quaint—was, she says, motivated by the desire to be more productive and to create free time for friends, family, and fun. “But Continuous Partial Attention is motivated by a desire not to miss anything,” she writes. “We’re talking on the phone and driving; carrying on a conversation at dinner and texting under the table.… Continuous Partial Attention involves an artificial sense of constant crisis, of living in a 24/7, always - on world. It contributes to feeling stressed, overwhelmed, overstimulated, and unfulfilled; it compromises our ability to reflect, to make decisions, and to think creatively.”
Not that there isn’t a place for video games or shopping or watching the news avidly. It’s moderation and conscious deployment we’re after—knowing what we’re doing when we’re doing it, rather than being on automatic pilot and turning to these activities out of habit. The point is not to hate the stuff we’ve bought, or berate ourselves for being a news junkie, or withdraw from modern life, but to be willing to experiment with our time and attention, connecting more fully with our life as it happens. Concentration lets us put on the brakes and spend time just being with what is, rather than numbing out or spinning away into excess stimulation.
The larger effect of distraction is a disconcerting sense of fragmentation. We often feel uncentered; we don’t have a cohesive sense of who we are. We find ourselves compartmentalizing, so that the person we are at work is different from the one we are at home. We might be confident in the office and fragile at home, or vice versa; withdrawn with our spouse but the life of the party when we’re out with our friends. Our best self, the one who values patience and compassion, isn’t the same self who snaps at the kids. Or as a student said to me recently, “I’m filled with lovingkindness and compassion for all beings everywhere—as long as I’m alone. Once I’m with someone else, it’s really rough.” For some of us, it’s the other way around; we’re fine when we’re with others but ill at ease in our own company.
Each of us is, of course, a combination of many traits, states of mind, abilities, and drives; they’re all part of us. Some qualities are paired opposites, and we can spend a lifetime resolving and integrating competing characteristics and needs—for both intimacy and independence, for vulnerability and strength. When our attention is tuned in, when we’re aware of ourselves, these different parts of us work in concert and in balance; when we’re distracted, they don’t, and that’s when we feel fragmented and compartmentalized. Meditation—training our attention—allows us to find an essential cohesiveness.
Establish a meditation corner you can use every day. It could be in your bedroom or office; in the basement or on the porch. Wherever you practice, pick a place where you can be relatively undisturbed during your meditation sessions. Turn your cell phone, other mobile devices, and laptop off and leave them in another room.
Traditionally people sit on a cushion on the floor. If that doesn’t work for you, you may sit in a straight-backed dining room or kitchen chair, or on the couch. (If you’re unable to sit at all, you may lie down on your back with your arms at your sides.) If you’re sitting on the floor, a pillow or sofa cushion is fine; you can also buy a special cushion meant especially for meditating, or a meditation bench that lets you sit in a supported kneeling position. (You’ll find a list of sources for these items in the Resource Guide.) Some people decorate their meditation place with meaningful objects or images. Others bring an inspiring book from which they read a short passage before meditating.
“Distrust any enterprise that requires new clothes,” Henry David Thoreau said. He’d have been pleased to learn that meditation calls for no special outfit. Comfortable clothes are best. But if you find yourself stuck in uncomfortable ones, don’t let that stop you.
Plan to meditate at about the same time every day. Some people find it best to sit first thing in the morning; others find it easier to practice at lunchtime, or before going to bed at night. Experiment to find the time that works best for you. Then make a commitment to yourself. Write it in your datebook.
I suggest you start by sitting for twenty minutes of meditation three times the first week—but if you’d rather start with a shorter time and gradually lengthen it, that’s fine. Decide before each session how long it’s going to be. (Set an alarm if you’re worried about knowing when the time is up.) The four guided meditations on the CD accompanying this book are between 15 and 20 minutes long. You’ll add one more day of meditation in Week Two, another in Week Three, and two in Week Four, so that by the end of the month you’ll have established a daily practice.
Formalizing a time to meditate will enhance your sense that this is a deeply important activity. But here’s the fundamental question: What will get you to sit down on that cushion or chair? Sometimes people think, If I don’t have an hour, I won’t do it. Even five minutes, though, if that’s all you have, can help you reconnect with yourself.
Spend some time at the beginning of each session settling into the posture; the first thing you need to do is really inhabit your body. The traditional components of meditation posture have been used for many centuries. At first they may feel odd and uncomfortable, but you’ll come to be at ease with them.
Legs: If you’re on a cushion, cross your legs loosely in front of you at the ankles or just above. (If your legs fall asleep during meditation, switch and cross them the other way around, or add another cushion for a higher seat.) Your knees should be lower than your hips. People who are unable to cross their legs can sit with one leg folded in front of the other without crossing them. You can also kneel by using a meditation bench or by placing a cushion behind you between your thighs and calves, as if you were sitting on a short bench. If you’re sitting on a chair, keep your feet flat on the floor. That will help you sit up straight so your breathing can be more natural.
A simple meditation posture, with legs crossed easily.
Back: Whether you’re on a cushion or a chair, the way you hold your back is the most important part of the meditation posture. Sit up straight, but don’t strain or go rigid. Picture your vertebrae as a neat stack of coins. The natural curve at the small of your back will help support you. Maintaining a straight spine helps you breathe more naturally and stay alert. If you’re sitting in a chair, try not to lean against the back of it, in order to keep your spine straight. With your spine stacked this way, your hips are level, your shoulders are level, and you are a balanced, solid triangle.
Arms and hands: Let your hands fall naturally onto your thighs, resting palms down. Don’t grab on to your knees, or use your arms to support the weight of your torso. Some meditators prefer to arrange their hands in this way: Cup your right hand in your left, palms up, with the tips of your thumbs barely touching and forming a triangle with your hands.
Some meditators prefer to rest their hands in this position.
Head: When you’re seated with a straight spine, look levelly in front of you. This drops your head very slightly forward. When you lower your gaze or close your eyes (see below), maintain this position. Keep your shoulders relaxed; if you find them rising into a shrug, gently lower them.
Eyes: Close your eyes, but don’t squeeze them shut. If you’re more comfortable with your eyes open (or if you find yourself dozing off), gaze lightly at a point about six feet in front of you and slightly downward. Soften your eyes—don’t let them glaze over, but don’t stare hard, either.
Jaw: Relax your jaw and mouth, with your teeth slightly apart. A teacher once told me to part my lips just enough to admit a grain of rice.
This week, you begin learning how to use concentration to overcome myriad distractions in your life.
You’ll start on the most intimate and workable level: Week One’s meditation sessions will be devoted to improving concentration by aiming your attention at your breath as it moves in and out of your body. We choose the breath as our focus because it’s something we do naturally: There’s no intentional effort involved. (If you have respiratory problems, or you’ve tried several times to follow the breath and found that doing so makes you anxious, experiment with focusing on sounds, as in the Hearing Meditation in this chapter, or use the Body Scan Meditation that you’ll find in Week Two.)
Thoughts and feelings will inevitably arise and claim your attention, but you’ll practice repeatedly noticing and letting go of these distractions, then returning your awareness to the in and out of your breath. Breathing, discovering you’ve been distracted, and starting over: simple and manageable.
Some of these thoughts and feelings may be fascinating and delightful; some may make you uncomfortable; some may be deadly dull. You’ll practice letting them all go, without taking the time to judge them. This is a crucial first step in learning how to be more centered and present.
Almost immediately you’ll feel the healing power of being able to begin again, no matter where your attention has gone or for how long. Everyone who meditates, beginners and longer-term practitioners alike, gets hijacked at times by thoughts and feelings; it’s impossible not to be. But once you see how doable it is to start over, you won’t judge your efforts so harshly. And you’ll learn that starting over and not fruitlessly berating yourself are skills you can bring into your everyday life when you’ve made a mistake or lost sight of your aspirations. You can begin again.
Another healthy result of concentration: It brings wholeness when we feel scattered, because we allow ourselves to be aware of all of our feelings and thoughts, the pleasant and the painful ones. We don’t have to exhaust ourselves by running away from difficult or troubling thoughts, or by keeping them hidden, or by beating ourselves up for having them. And because we’ve begun to be kinder to and more accepting of ourselves, we can be kinder to and more accepting of others.
As meditation moves us toward wholeness, we rediscover a strong center, an inner store of mental and emotional strength that was once lost to us. Many people who practice concentration to steady their attention use the same word to describe the feeling it gives them: empowered. Once we have a sense of a center, we can more easily withstand the onslaught of overstimulation, uncertainty, and anxiety the world launches at us without getting overwhelmed. We’re stronger because we not only see more but also see more clearly. When your attention is diffuse, it’s like a broad, weak beam of light that doesn’t reveal much. Concentration brings the weak beam down to a single, sharply focused, supremely bright, exponentially more illuminating point.
You may not be convinced that sitting and breathing can lead to personal transformation. But you’ll soon have the opportunity to test this for yourself; your meditation practice is about to begin. Don’t worry about getting it right. When your mind wanders, as it inevitably will, don’t be alarmed. Just notice whatever has captured your attention, then let go of the thought or feeling and gently bring your attention back to the breath. No matter how far away you drift, or for how long, don’t be concerned. If you get tangled up in thoughts, release them and start over. If you feel bored, or panicked, start over. If you can’t sit still, start over. If one day this week you just can’t find the time or the will to meditate, start over the next day.
In Week One, try to do a twenty-minute sitting meditation on three days of this week. You can use the following Core Breathing Meditation or you can try one of the two variations offered in this chapter—the Hearing Meditation and the Letting-Go-of-Thought Meditation. You might also practice incorporating the mini-meditations into your day.
This classic meditation practice is designed to deepen concentration by teaching us to focus on the in and out breath.
Sit comfortably on a cushion or a chair in the posture detailed in Week One. Keep your back erect, but without straining or overarching. (If you can’t sit, lie on your back, on a yoga mat or folded blanket, with your arms at your sides.)
You don’t have to feel self-conscious, as though you’re about to do something special or weird. Just be at ease. Close your eyes, if you’re comfortable with that. If not, gaze gently a few feet in front of you. Aim for a state of alert relaxation.
Deliberately take three or four deep breaths, feeling the air as it enters your nostrils, fills your chest and abdomen, and flows out again. Then let your breathing settle into its natural rhythm, without forcing or controlling it. Just feel the breath as it happens, without trying to change it or improve it. You’re breathing anyway. All you have to do is feel it.
Notice where you feel your breath most vividly. Perhaps it’s predominant at the nostrils, perhaps at the chest or abdomen. Then rest your attention lightly—as lightly as a butterfly rests on a flower—on just that area.
Become aware of sensations there. If you’re focusing on the breath at the nostrils, for example, you may experience tingling, vibration, pulsing. You may observe that the breath is cooler when it comes in through the nostrils and warmer when it goes out. If you’re focusing on the breath at the abdomen, you may feel movement, pressure, stretching, release. You don’t need to name these sensations—simply feel them.
Let your attention rest on the feeling of the natural breath, one breath at a time. (Notice how often the word rest comes up in this instruction? This is a very restful practice.) You don’t need to make the breath deeper or longer or different from the way it is. Simply be aware of it, one breath at a time.
Perhaps you’re asking yourself, Should I be following along, performing each action described as I read about it? What happens when I close my eyes—do I peek at the instructions? Good questions. Four of the meditations in this book are also on the accompanying CD, so you can close your eyes and listen to my voice guiding you through the practice, if you wish. But I suggest that before you try each meditation exercise you read the instructions through completely a couple of times so you can absorb them and know what to expect.
And if you get lost at any point while you’re doing one of the meditations, remember these simple, basic guidelines: Breathe naturally and focus on the sensations of each breath. If you have a thought or a feeling, notice it and then gently return to following your breath.
During the course of this meditation session, you may find that the rhythm of your breathing changes. Just allow it to be however it is. Sometimes people get a little self-conscious, almost panicky, about watching themselves breathe—they start hyperventilating a little, or holding their breath without fully realizing what they’re doing. If that happens, just breathe more gently. To help support your awareness of the breath, you might want to experiment with silently saying to yourself in with each inhalation and out with each exhalation, or perhaps rising … falling. But make this mental note very quietly within, so that you don’t disrupt your concentration on the sensations of the breath.
Many distractions will arise—thoughts, images, emotions, aches, pains, plans. Just be with your breath and let them go. You don’t need to chase after them, you don’t need to hang on to them, you don’t need to analyze them. You’re just breathing. Connecting to your breath when thoughts or images arise is like spotting a friend in a crowd: You don’t have to shove everyone else aside or order them to go away; you just direct your attention, your enthusiasm, your interest toward your friend. Oh, you think, there’s my friend in that crowd. Oh, there’s my breath, among those thoughts and feelings and sensations.
If distractions arise that are strong enough to take your attention away from the feeling of the breath—physical sensations, emotions, memories, plans, an incredible fantasy, a pressing list of chores, whatever it might be—or if you find that you’ve dozed off, don’t be concerned. See if you can let go of any distractions and return your attention to the feeling of the breath.
Once you’ve noticed whatever has captured your attention, you don’t have to do anything about it. Just be aware of it without adding anything to it—without tacking on judgment (I fell asleep! What an idiot!), without interpretation (I’m terrible at meditation); without comparisons (Probably everyone trying this exercise can stay with the breath longer than I can! Or I should be thinking better thoughts!), and without projections into the future (What if this thought irritates me so much I can’t get back to concentrating on my breath? I’m going to be annoyed for the rest of my life! I’m never going to learn how to meditate!).
You don’t have to get mad at yourself for having a thought; you don’t have to evaluate its content: just acknowledge it. You’re not elaborating on the thought or feeling; you’re not judging it. You’re neither struggling against it nor falling into its embrace and getting swept away by it. When you notice that your mind is not on your breath, notice what is on your mind. And then, no matter what it is, let go of it. Come back to focusing on your nostrils or your abdomen or wherever you feel your breath.
The moment you realize you’ve been distracted is the magic moment. It’s a chance to be really different, to try a new response—rather than tell yourself you’re weak or undisciplined, or give up in frustration, simply let go and begin again. In fact, instead of chastising yourself, you might thank yourself for recognizing that you’ve been distracted, and for returning to your breath. This act of beginning again is the essential art of the meditation practice.
Every time you find yourself speculating about the future, replaying the past, or getting wrapped up in self-criticism, shepherd your attention back to the actual sensations of the breath. (If it will help you restore concentration, mentally say in … out with each breath, as I suggested above.) Our practice is to let go gently and return to focusing on the breath. Note the word gently. We gently acknowledge and release distractions, and gently forgive ourselves for having wandered. With great kindness to ourselves, we once more return our attention to the breath.
Sometimes in my own practice I use the image of holding something very fragile, very precious, as if I had something made of glass in my hand. If I were to grab it too tightly, it would shatter and break, but if I were to get lazy or negligent, my hand would open and the fragile object would fall and break. So I just cradle it, I’m in touch with it, I cherish it. That’s the way we can be with each breath. We don’t want to grab it too tightly or be too loose; too energized or too relaxed. We meet and cherish this moment, this breath, one breath at a time.
If you have to let go of distractions and begin again thousands of times, fine. That’s not a roadblock to the practice—that is the practice. That’s life: starting over, one breath at a time.
If you feel sleepy, sit up straighter, open your eyes if they’re closed, take a few deep breaths, and then return to breathing naturally. You don’t need to control the breath or make it different from the way it is. Simply be with it. Feel the beginning of the in-breath and the end of it; the beginning of the out-breath and the end of it. Feel the little pause at the beginning and end of each breath.
Continue following your breath—and starting over when you’re distracted—until you’ve come to the end of the time period you’ve set aside for meditation. When you’re ready, open your eyes or lift your gaze.
Try to bring some of the qualities of concentration you just experienced—presence, calm observation, willingness to start over, and gentleness—to the next activity that you perform at home, at work, among friends, or among strangers.
Sit comfortably or lie down, with your eyes closed or open; if they’re open, find a spot in front of you on which to rest your gaze. Center your attention on the feeling of your breathing, wherever it’s predominant, wherever it’s easiest for you—just normal, natural breath. Follow your breath for a few minutes. Then turn your attention from focusing on the breath to focusing on hearing the sounds around you.
Some sounds are near and some far; some welcome (wind chimes, say, or snatches of music) some not so welcome (a car alarm, a power drill, an argument on the street). In either case, they’re simply sounds arising and passing away. Whether they’re soothing or jangly, you note the sounds and let them go.
Here’s an optional way to end any meditation in this book:
As you come to the close of your practice session, feel the pleasure that comes from caring for yourself, paying attention, taking risks, and being willing to begin again. To do so isn’t conceited or vain; you’re experiencing the joy of making healthy choices.
And because the inner work we do is never for ourselves alone, make a point of offering the positive energy you generate in your practice to those who have helped you. Maybe it is someone who took care of things at home so you’d have more free time or someone who has been encouraging you in your practice. You can offer the energy, the positive force, the sense of possibility you’ve been generating to this person, so that the work you do within is for them as well. May my practice be dedicated to your well-being.
Maybe someone you know is hurting. The greater awareness, sensitivity, love, and kindness you’re developing can be dedicated to their happiness as well. Or think of your family and the greater community. Every step we take toward peace and understanding affects everyone around us.
At the end of your meditation, say to yourself, May the actions that I take toward the good, toward understanding myself, toward being more peaceful be of benefit to all beings everywhere.
And when you feel ready, you can open your eyes.
There’s nothing you have to do about these sounds; you can hear them without any sort of effort at all. You don’t need to respond to them (unless, of course, it’s the sound of a smoke alarm, or your child crying); you don’t need to judge them, manipulate them, or stop them. You don’t even have to understand them or be able to name them. See if you can just hear a sound without naming or interpreting it. Notice changes in intensity or volume as the sound washes through you, without interference, without judgment—just arising and subsiding, arising and subsiding.
If you find yourself shrinking from a sound or wishing it were over, note that and see if you can be with it in an open, patient way. Keep your body relaxed. If the sound is upsetting, return to following your breath for a few minutes. Don’t strain to hear, just stay open for the next sound.
If you find yourself craving more of a sound, take a deep breath and relax. Simply notice that a sound has arisen, that you have a certain response to it, and that there’s a little space between those two events. Stay open for the next sound, recognizing that sound is continually coming and going outside of our control. If you find yourself getting tense in response to a sound, take a deep breath and relax, using whatever technique works for you; maybe it’s directing breath into a tight area of the body. Or you can, at any point, return to following your breath as an anchor, as a reminder of easy, spacious relaxation. If thoughts come up, notice them and let them go. You don’t have to elaborate: Oh, that’s a bus. I wonder what number? I wish they’d change the route so it’s more convenient. I wish I didn’t have to ride a bus at all. I’m so annoyed that my car’s in the shop … All you have to do is hear. All you have to do is be present.
And when you feel ready, you can open your eyes.
As you return to your daily activities, consider the way this meditation reminds us that we can meet experiences with more presence and centeredness.
Michelangelo was once asked how he would carve an elephant. He replied, “I would take a large piece of stone and take away everything that was not the elephant.” Practicing concentration during a meditation session is something like learning to recognize what is “not the elephant”: It’s a continual letting go of that which is nonessential or distracting. When we’re practicing concentration and a thought arises in the mind—a memory, a plan, a comparison, an inviting fantasy—we let go of it. If anger arises, or self-judgment, or eager anticipation of a party we’re going to that night, we simply let it go, calmly returning to the object of concentration. We release a thought or a feeling not because we are afraid of it or because we can’t bear to acknowledge it as a part of our experience, but because in this context, it is unnecessary. Right now we are practicing concentration, sustaining our attention on the breath.
In this meditation you can sit comfortably or lie down. Close your eyes, or if you’re keeping them open, find a spot in front of you to rest your gaze. Center your attention on the feeling of the in-and-out breath, at the nostrils, chest, or abdomen—just the normal, natural breath. As you feel the sensations of the breath, make a very quiet mental notation of breath, breath with both the in-breath and the out-breath. When a thought arises that’s strong enough to take your attention away from the breath, simply note it as not breath. Whether it’s the most beautiful thought in the world or the most terrible, one you’d never disclose to another soul, in this meditation, it’s simply not breath.
You don’t have to judge yourself; you don’t have to get lost in making up a story about what triggered the thought or its possible consequences. All you have to do is recognize that it’s not the breath. Some of your thoughts may be tender and caring, some may be cruel and hurtful, some may be boring and banal; all that matters is that they’re not the breath. See them, recognize them, very gently let them go, and bring your attention back to the feeling of the breath.
Our habitual tendency is either to grab on to a thought and perhaps build a complicated scenario around it, or to push it away and struggle against it. In this meditation, we encounter thoughts and stay detached, centered, and calm. We simply recognize It’s not the breath and very gently let the thought go, returning our attention to what is the breath.
And when you feel ready, you can open your eyes and relax.
Ordinary life activities offer a chance for small bursts of meditation, times when you can shake off distraction or anxiety and restore concentration and calm.
Anywhere we happen to be breathing, we can be meditating—standing in line at the DMV, watching our kid’s soccer game, before going into an important meeting. A few times a day, wherever you are, take a moment or two to tune in to the feeling of your breath at the nostrils, chest, or abdomen, whichever is most comfortable for you. You don’t have to close your eyes, look odd, or feel self-conscious. You’re just grabbing a quick, centering moment—as short as following three breaths—to connect with a deeper sense of yourself.
Some people set up routines or choose cues in order to build these moments of mindfulness into their day: They take three mindful breaths before they answer an e-mail; or stop and follow the breath for a few moments when the microwave dings as they’re heating up their lunch; or they let the phone ring three times before they pick it up, and take a mindful, centering breath in that brief interval. I heard about one executive who has her assistant put a free minute on the calendar before every meeting for a short following-the-breath break. These moments of stealth meditation may restore the calm state we achieve in longer practice sessions, and they remind us that the breath is always there as a resource, to center us so we remember what matters.
The practice of feeling your breath and bringing your attention back again and again may not be glamorous or dramatic, but it makes a difference in those times when you have to say to yourself, “I need to start over. I can’t just stay stuck in this place.” This is a wonderful skill to bring to your life.
When I started practicing meditation, I assumed that taming the mind and developing concentration took a great deal of grim, laborious effort. At the first meditation retreat I ever attended, I became so frustrated with trying to pay attention that, in a frenzy, I declared to myself that the next time my attention wandered I would just bang my head against the wall.
Fortunately the lunch bell rang just then. Standing in the meal line, I overheard a conversation between two students I didn’t know. One was asking the other how his morning had gone. The tall, thin man replied with great buoyancy of spirit, “I couldn’t really concentrate very well, but this afternoon may be better.”
That startled me, and I turned around to get a better look at this guy. Why isn’t he as upset as I am? I thought. Doesn’t he take this stuff seriously at all? This was my first meeting with Joseph Goldstein.
Five years later Joseph and I, along with Jack Kornfield and other committed friends, founded the Insight Meditation Society. By that time, I’d come to understand what lay behind Joseph’s lighthearted statement. I’d learned, as my practice evolved, that the conditions required for concentration to develop were far from the sort of tormented battle I’d engaged in. Straining to attain calm makes no sense, yet that’s often what we do. I realized that struggling to keep the mind on an object such as the breath doesn’t create the conditions in which concentration most readily arises. When the mind is at ease, however, when our hearts are calm and open and confident, we can more comfortably, naturally concentrate. But how do we arrive at this state of ease?
Experiment with the variations on the Core Meditation. On some of your practice days, use them in place of the Core Meditation.
Or incorporate into your daily practice just those components you find helpful. You might, for example, choose to switch from following the breath to hearing sounds whenever you feel tense or anxious during your practice.
Or you might decide to employ the mental note not breath when you feel especially distracted.
Use whatever works for you.
It helps to have the perspective Joseph had in that lunch line so many years ago. He accepted that there are always ups and downs in meditative practice, as there are in life. Sometimes meditation is easy, fun, even ecstatic. Sometimes it’s annoying, difficult, painful. Whatever it is, we stick with it: Effort needn’t be struggling or straining—it can be relaxed perseverance.
Those inevitable up-and-down cycles don’t need to define our sense of progress in meditation. You can’t bully yourself into awareness; kindness and acceptance work much better. When thoughts and feelings distract us during our meditation session, we acknowledge them without judging them, and we let them go. This view doesn’t make us undiscriminating or complacent. Rather, we capture the energy previously used to blame ourselves and direct it toward making informed choices about how we want to relate to what has come up in our minds.
Instead of being discouraged if you feel sleepy, anxious, or distracted when you wanted to feel peaceful and focused, remember that success in meditation is measured not in terms of what is happening to us but by how we relate to what is happening. Do you calmly observe your sleepiness, anxiety, or distraction? Success. Do you try to stop punishing yourself for feeling these things? Success.
The theologian and civil rights leader Howard Thurman recommended that we “look at the world with quiet eyes.” It’s an intriguing phrase. Too often, we’re more like those cartoon creatures whose eyes are popping out on springs: “I see something I want! Give it to me!” Boing! “Wait—I see something better; I want that instead!” Boing! We grab the object, the person, the rush, and clamp on to keep it from changing or leaving. And then—boing—we yearn for something else, because we aren’t even really paying attention to what we’re grasping so tightly.
Not paying attention keeps us in an endless cycle of wanting. We move on to the next thing because we aren’t really taking in what we already have; inattention creates an escalating need for stimulation. When we’re keenly aware of what’s happening, we don’t need to grasp for the next great moment of sensation or taste or sound (all the while missing what’s actually here, right in front of us). Nor do we need to postpone our feeling of happiness until a more exciting or more pleasing object comes along, thinking, This is OK, but it would be better if … Only when we are attentive in each moment do we find satisfaction in our lives. The point of our practice is to point us to our direct experience.
When we live without awareness, numb to small delights, we may more easily fall into addictive behavior, as we need increasing levels of stimulating sensations, either pleasant or painful, in order to feel alive. In the poem “Escapist—Never,” Robert Frost writes,
His life is a pursuit of a pursuit forever.
It is the future that creates his present.
All is an interminable chain of longing.
When our lives feel like an interminable chain of longing—when nothing satisfies us the way we thought it might—often the first link in the chain is not being fully present. Here’s how it works: Imagine eating an apple. If you do so paying very little attention to the sight of it, the feel, the smell and the taste, then eating the apple isn’t likely to be a fulfilling experience. Becoming aware of a mild discontent, you’re likely to blame the apple for being boring and commonplace. It’s easy to miss the fact that the quality of your attention played a major role in your dissatisfaction.
You may begin to think, If only I could have a banana, then I’d be happy! You find a banana, but you eat it in the same distracted or inattentive way, so again you end up feeling unsatisfied. But instead of realizing that you weren’t paying attention to the experience of eating the banana, you start to think, My life is just too prosaic; how could anybody be happy with apples and bananas? What I need is something exotic. I need a mango. Then I’ll be happy.
With some effort, you find your mango. The first few bites are wonderful; this is a fresh sensation. You proclaim it delicious, just what you were looking for. Soon, however, you’re finishing off the exotic mango in just the same distracted, preoccupied way you ate the prosaic apple and the banana, and once again you’re left with a feeling of dissatisfaction, of yearning. It’s not the fault of the apple, the banana, or the mango. It’s the quality of your attention that’s driving your quest for something more. That’s how an “interminable chain of longing” gets forged. Concentration is what breaks the chain.
Each time you meditate, record in a small notebook how long you practiced and the predominant aspect of your meditation—a few quick notes, such as “sleepy,” or “couldn’t stop planning for tomorrow,” or “clear and energized,” or “wished I were skiing.” Then at night add a word or two describing your general emotional state that day—“impatient,” say, or “resolved,” “openhearted,” “calm and confident,” “anxious.” At the end of every week, review your journal and see if you notice a relationship between your sitting and the rest of your day.
Learning to deepen our concentration allows us to look at the world with quiet eyes. We don’t need to reach out and grab ever more exotic or forbidden fruit. We develop calm and tranquility—and the calmer we get, the more at home we feel with our body and mind, with life as it is.
Q: I find it very hard to concentrate on my breath. Am I doing something wrong?
A: Being with the breath isn’t easy to do. To explain the proper technique for focusing attention on the breath, I often use the image of trying to pick up a piece of broccoli with a fork. Your goal is connecting the fork with the broccoli just deeply enough so that you can lift it to your mouth. To accomplish this, you need two things. The first is aim: If you wave the fork around in the air without homing in on a target, you won’t get a lot to eat. The second is a careful modulation of energy. If you’re too listless, the fork will hang in your hand; if you’re too forceful and bash at the broccoli, food and plate will go flying. Either way, you won’t get any nourishment. So we aim our attention toward just this one breath and simply connect.
A practical tactic: If mentally saying in … out, or rising … falling as you inhale and exhale doesn’t help you aim your attention, try counting the breath. As you breathe in, make a silent mental note of “in.” And as you breathe out, note, “one.” So, with the breath, it’s “in,” “one.” “In,” “two.” “In,” three,” and so on. The numbering should be very quiet, with your attention really on the feeling of the breath. When you get up to ten, you can begin again with one. If you’re human, you’re likely to get lost in fantasy or entangled in a train of thought before you hit two or three. As soon as you realize your mind has wandered, just go back to one and start again with the next breath. Starting over doesn’t imply failure. It’s just a method of support for deepening concentration.
One of my teachers had a trick question he asked students during meditation retreats: “How many breaths can you be with before your mind starts to wander?” People want to be able to say, “I can be with the breath for forty-five minutes or an hour before I get lost in thought.” But really, we can be with two, three, maybe four breaths before our attention starts to wander to the past, to the future, to judgment, to analysis, to fantasy. The question is: What happens in the moment when you recognize that your mind has wandered? Can you gently let go and return your attention to the present moment, to feeling your breath? The real key to being with your breath is being able to begin again.
Q: When I try to meditate, I become so conscious of the breath that I almost hyperventilate. How do I just breathe normally?
A: When I was a beginner, I found that every time I began one breath, I would already be anticipating the next. Leaning forward was the habit of my mind; I was very wary and concerned about what would happen next in life, and I brought that hypervigilance into meditation practice. I had so much performance anxiety that I couldn’t concentrate on my breath. What I needed was to settle back in my mind and let the breath come.
But sometimes we settle back too far, get too relaxed, and that’s when we get sleepy or bored or distracted. We almost lose interest in the breath. When that happens, we need to rev up our energy—take more of an interest in the process of breathing, refocus, reconnect. One way to do that might be to give yourself a little challenge: See if you can feel the end of one breath and the beginning of the next.
Losing and restoring balance is part of the practice. The trick always is to begin again—to realize that nothing is ruined when we lose track of our breath.
Q: I really can’t stop thinking when I meditate. Isn’t meditation supposed to get rid of thoughts?
A: The point of meditation is not to annihilate thoughts; obviously there are plenty of times in life when thinking is called for—vital, in fact, to our survival. What we hope to learn is the difference between thinking and being lost in thought. We don’t want to stop our thoughts but to change our relationship with them—to be more present and aware when we’re thinking. If we’re aware of what we’re thinking, if we see clearly what’s going on in our minds, then we can choose whether and how to act on our thoughts.
Furthermore, you could have the most vile, terrible thoughts and you’d still have a good meditation session, depending on how spacious you are with those thoughts—that is, how much room you give them just to be, how closely you observe them, how forgiving of yourself you are. As several teachers of mindfulness have said, “Thoughts aren’t facts.” And thoughts aren’t acts. They’re just thoughts, part of the passing mental landscape. Thoughts moving through your mind are like clouds moving across the sky. They are not the sky, and the sky remains unchanged by them. The way to be with them is just to watch them go by. That’s not generally how we experience our thoughts, but that’s what you’re working toward. I also like the image of the mind Dan Siegel, M.D., co-director of UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center, uses in his book Mindsight: “The mind is like the ocean … no matter what the surface conditions are like, whether it’s smooth or choppy … deep in the ocean it’s tranquil and serene. From the depth of the ocean, you can look toward the surface and simply notice the activities there, just as from the depth of the mind you can look upward toward … all that activity of mind—the thoughts, feelings, sensations, and memories.”
Both vivid images point to the same fact: Thoughts and feelings move through our minds and constantly change; they’re not who we are. They’re just what we’re thinking and feeling in the moment.
Q: What happens when I want to empty my mind but no matter what I do, I keep obsessing about a particular person?
A: First, it’s important not to blame yourself for having these thoughts. I learned a valuable lesson from one of my earliest teachers in India. I went to him in great distress because I’d had jealous thoughts during meditation. “Why are you so upset about the thought that came up in your mind?” he said. “Did you invite it?” That was eye-opening. Do we say to ourselves, At five o’clock I’d like to be filled with self-hatred and regret? Of course not. Just notice the thoughts and sensations very briefly, and move on, returning to the breath. The point isn’t to condemn yourself for the content of your thought; it’s to recognize the thought, observe it, let it go, and return to following your breath.
Q: I start out okay, I really get rolling—then it seems I’m back to square one, and I can’t concentrate at all. Will I ever make progress?
A: My early meditation practice was extremely painful, physically and emotionally. But then I went through a phase of experiencing real delight. I would sit, follow my breath, and feel as if I were floating in the air, my mind serene. Oh, I would think, isn’t it going to be wonderful living the entire rest of my life in this lovely state?
In our everyday lives, when we aren’t attentive and mindful, we very often get swept up in a chain of associations and lose touch with what’s happening in the here and now. The same thing can happen during meditation, and it’s useful to observe that process in microcosm. Here’s a snapshot of ten minutes in the life of a typical meditator:
You’re sitting and feeling your breath, and you think, I wonder what’s for lunch? And that leads to another thought: Maybe I should become a vegetarian, because it would be better for my health and more in tune with my values. And then you’re off and running: Okay, I’ll be a vegetarian. But it’s hard to be a vegetarian, unless you’re a really good cook. I’ll go to a bookstore the instant this sitting is over and buy a bunch of vegetarian cookbooks. And while I’m there, I think I’ll get a book on Mexico, because I really want to go to Mexico on my next vacation. No, wait—now that I meditate and I’m a vegetarian, I’ll go to India! What should be my first stop? You wake up in Delhi—and the last thing you remember thinking was, What’s for lunch?
Our objective when we meditate is to know what we’re thinking as we’re thinking it, and to know what we’re feeling as we’re feeling it instead of mentally ending up on another continent, wondering how we got there. When waves of memories, plans, and random thinking seem overwhelming, focus on breathing softly without forcing the breath. This will begin to settle your mind.
But then my knee would start hurting, or my back would ache, or I’d feel restless or sleepy, and I’d chastise myself: What did you do wrong to make that beautiful, extraordinary state go away?
In fact, it didn’t go away because I did anything wrong: It went away because everything goes away. Every sensation, every emotion, is changing all of the time. Each experience, however intense, is ephemeral. All of life is transitory. Observing the ebb and flow of thoughts and feelings teaches us to embrace this truth.
Square one isn’t such a bad place to be. Any meditation, even one in which you catch yourself getting distracted, or feeling bad, is a useful one.
Q: How do I keep from nodding off in meditation?
A: Don’t worry about dozing; it’s going to happen. Part of meditation is the burgeoning of calm and tranquility, part of it is an increase of energy, and the two aren’t always in synch. Inevitably there’ll be times when the calm side is deepening but you’re not generating enough energy to match it. That’s not a bad state, just an imbalanced one—and it will make you drowsy.
You can deal with sleepiness in a variety of skillful ways. One is accepting that it’s an impermanent state. It comes and goes; you’ll get past it. Another is approaching the sleepiness with openhearted acceptance and observing it closely. Thinking of it as an enemy only makes you feel worse; you are piling tension and animosity on top of fatigue. Try being with the drowsiness and observing its different components. Where do you feel the fatigue? Are your eyes drooping, your limbs heavy? Is your head falling forward? How many signs of drowsiness can you spot? Has your breath changed? Your posture? Taking an interest in your drowsiness and investigating it is likely to wake you up.
You can also take some practical steps to pick up your energy. One of my Indian teachers would frequently ask students how our practice was going. At that point I was falling asleep frequently in meditation, and I was very anxious about anyone finding out. But when the teacher asked the woman next to me how she was doing, she told him unselfconsciously, “Oh, I fall asleep all the time.” I was so relieved! And then instead of an esoteric response, the teacher simply said: “Try standing up, or throwing some cold water on your face”—very practical suggestions to change the energy balance. You can also try sitting with your eyes open, or stepping outside for a moment when you start to nod off. Over time, your practice will deepen; you’ll find balance, and you won’t be so sleepy.
Here’s an anchoring exercise you can use if your mind is wandering and following your breath isn’t helping: Become aware of your body’s touch points—the small areas, about the size of a quarter, where your back, thighs, knees, or buttocks are in contact with the chair or cushion, your hand is in contact with your knee, your lips are touching, your ankles are crossed. In the small gap between your in-breath and out-breath, focus on these points of contact; picture them, feel them. Doing so may pull you away from your spiraling thoughts and bring you back to this moment, this breath.
Q: When I meditate, I’m very antsy. Then I start beating myself up for it, which just makes my restlessness worse. What can I do?
A: Restlessness is the flip side of drowsiness, a signal that our system is out of balance because of a tranquility deficit. A student once asked me, “Has anyone ever died of restlessness?” I told her, “Not from just one moment at a time of it.” And luckily, that’s how everything happens—one moment at a time.
If your restlessness is taking you away from following your breath, make the restlessness the temporary object of your meditation. The first thing to do is look for what you’re adding on to the restless feeling—those secondary thoughts like, I shouldn’t be feeling this. This is no good. I’m so out of control. Everyone else is in control. I’m the only one who isn’t. If only I were stronger (more patient, smarter, kinder), I wouldn’t feel this way. When you’re in high- energy mode, it’s easy to go off on a judgment jag. Instead of chastising yourself, try observing the physical sensations that accompany these thoughts and the emotions that arise; notice them and name them. Perhaps restlessness is composed of frustration, boredom, fear, annoyance.
Another very different approach to restlessness is balancing the energy by giving it room to move. That might mean sitting with your eyes open instead of closed, or listening to sounds come and go, or finding ways to make your mind feel more expansive, such as looking at the space in the room instead of the objects, or feeling your whole body sitting in space. It might mean switching to a walking meditation. It might mean going outside and looking at the sky.
One of the things I realized in my practice was that my restlessness often took the form of incessant planning. I’d watch these thoughts carefully, trying not to judge them, and after the meditation session, I would reflect more fully on what had come up. I came to see that I was operating on the belief that if I could just plan things thoroughly enough, I could control them and make them happen. Planning made me feel secure. The insight I gained from closely observing my restlessness during meditation led me later to examine the anxiety behind my overplanning.
As I related to these emotions with compassion, I began to release the worry and restlessness that were taking me away from the present moment, both in meditation and in my daily life. Perhaps you’ll find such useful information when you explore your restlessness and observe the emotions that come up during your sessions. But save the analysis and probing for after meditation.
These two opposites—sleepiness and restlessness—are normal experiences. Especially at the beginning of a meditation period, as you enter into stillness, you may feel as if you have two voices in your head. One says, Nothing’s happening here, might as well sleep and the other says Nothing’s happening here, let’s make something happen. Either you can’t keep your eyes open, or you’re wired, your mind flooded with ideas and plans. Both conditions can be quite instructive, and are temporary.
Q: When I’m sitting and feel stiffness in my knees, should I adjust my posture, or just keep focusing on my breathing?
A: First make sure you’re not sitting in a position that strains your body. If the discomfort gets too intrusive, you should change position, maybe sit differently. You could be uncomfortable in the new, unfamiliar position you’re assuming. What sometimes happens to people new to meditation is that in the silence and stillness of sitting, you suddenly become aware of aches and twinges that you always have but don’t notice during your busy, active day. Also, deeply held tension can surface when you start clearing your mind and focusing on body sensations. If you find that you’re fighting the pain, hating it, it’s better to change your posture and begin again as though it’s a new sitting.
Meditation is a microcosm, a model, and a mirror. The skills we practice when we sit are transferable to the rest of our lives. In Week One we used the tool of concentration to steady and focus the mind. Following the breath, we became aware of thoughts, feelings, and sensations. We noted them and let them go without getting swept away by them, without dodging them or ignoring them (as we might normally have done in our busy daily lives), and without berating ourselves for having them. Such a small act can have big reverberations.
Conventional ideas about meditation say we’re succeeding when we can go from following one breath to following fifty before our attention wanders. But this is what success actually looks and feels like in this process:
We learn how to stay in the moment. As we follow the breath, our attention wanders; we catch ourselves and come back to the current breath—not the one that just left our body, or the one to come. For a few seconds, perhaps, we’re nowhere else but with that breath. Now we have a template for the feeling of complete attention in the present moment. A student once told me, “I was on vacation, hiking in Bryce Canyon, and on the very first day I started thinking about how much I was going to hate leaving and going back to work. I got so caught up in mourning the end of the trip that I wasn’t even paying attention to this place I love so much—I might as well have been back in the office. Then I sort of saw myself being spun away by my thoughts—I even said thinking, thinking to myself—and I let them go. I told myself to start over, and be where I was—a much better place than the future. Before I started meditating, I would have just gone on down the rapids and over the falls with my thinking, and missed the vacation I was having because I was already brooding over going back home.”
We practice letting go of judgments. As a beginning meditator, I certainly had a tendency to judge the way I was performing this new task: My breath isn’t good enough, deep enough, broad enough, subtle enough, clear enough. I found that I loaded on to the simple act of breathing all sorts of pronouncements and projections about what kind of person I was. Returning to the breath, continually letting go of these judgments, gave birth to compassion for myself.
We become aware of a calm, stable center that can steady us even when our lives are in upheaval. The better you get at concentrating your attention on the chosen object, the breath, the deeper the stillness and calm you feel. As your mind withdraws from obsessive thinking, fruitless worry, and self-recrimination, you feel a sense of refuge. You have a safe place to go, and it’s within.
One meditation student described accessing that center when she stopped working full-time to stay home and care for her aged mother, who suffered from dementia. Even with the help of her husband and children, she said, the task was overwhelming, and overwhelmingly sad. After several months, she felt hopeless and exhausted. “We couldn’t afford to put my mom in a good-quality nursing home, and because her physical health was okay, I pictured this state of affairs going on for a long time. I couldn’t imagine how I would manage years in this draining, demanding situation. I felt paralyzed and sort of hysterical. But I stopped and followed my breath, the way I’d learned, and then I just did what I had to do next. I didn’t think about the rest of my mom’s life, just the next task, the next moment. One moment at a time was doable. And I was able to remind myself that if I have resentful feelings or frustrated ones, it doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. I felt much better knowing that I could always stop and find some calmness and strength in my breath. I knew I wanted to do this for my mother, and I knew I could.”
We become kinder to ourselves. Every time we get distracted and then start over without chiding ourselves, we’re practicing compassion. Meditation teaches us gentleness with ourselves and the ability to forgive our mistakes and move on.
With true calm comes new energy. The inner quiet engendered by concentration isn’t passive or sluggish; nor is it coldly distant from your experience—it is vital and alive. It creates a calm infused with energy, alertness, and interest. You can fully connect to what’s happening in your life, have a bright and clear awareness of it, yet be relaxed. People tell me they’re surprised that just twenty minutes of practice a day can begin to create this change. One new meditator, a grocery store produce manager, told me, “After a month of meditating, I just felt peppier—even though I could hardly stay awake for it at first. I think it was because I was always running in a million different directions at once, starting a bunch of projects and never feeling as if I gave any of them my full attention, and I didn’t realize how tiring that was. Also, keeping my feelings at a distance—trying to bury anger and frustration, instead of feeling them—must have been really hard work. I stopped doing that little by little, because the instruction in meditation was not to judge myself. Maybe that’s part of why I don’t feel so tired.”
We become more self-reliant. Because the development of this inner calm and energy happens completely within and isn’t dependent on another person or a particular situation, we begin to feel a resourcefulness and independence that is quite beautiful—and a huge relief. We see that we don’t have to look outside of ourselves for a sense of fulfillment. Such calm, composed strength is its own special type of happiness.
*Listen to tracks 1, 2, and 3 from the audio meditations