Chapter 7
There once was a person who suffered from severe shifts in moods. He (or maybe she; it was so long ago that the records are lost) had been seeking treatment for many years. He had built up many ideas about his problems and was quite convinced that he was unlucky in life. Although he hadn’t given up on trying to help himself, he felt discouraged about ever getting better. He heard about a great meditation master and thought that maybe meditation could help him. So he decided to seek out this master to learn meditation. When he arrived, a servant came to the door. The visitor said, “I have bipolar disorder and was hoping the master could help me with meditation. I know a lot about my problems. I have tried all kinds of treatments, but I’m still suffering. I heard about the master’s methods. Please ask him if he will accept me as his student.” The servant welcomed him in and said, “Please wait.” The servant returned in a few minutes and said, “I relayed your message to the master, and he asked if you would like to join him for tea.” The student was pleased, and thanked the servant as he followed him into the office.
The master smiled and motioned for the student to sit down with him on a straw mat. As the master began preparing the tea, the student thought he should tell the master about himself. He said, “I know a lot about my problem. I know it affects the brain. I’ve heard that mania could be a defense against depression, and I believe that genetics is part of the problem. I think it’s a lifelong problem, and I probably can’t do much about it. But I tried doing cognitive therapy, I’ve done group therapy, and I—”
The master continued preparing the tea without saying a word while the student kept up a running stream of conversation. “I know a lot about meditation. I believe in direct perception, but I’m not too clear on emptiness. I wonder if emptiness is something or nothing.” While the master placed the tea leaves in the pot, the student watched, saying, “I know a lot about tea. There’s oolong tea and green tea. You know, green tea is really good for you, and then, of course, herbal teas are healthy too. I like peppermint tea, although it doesn’t have caffeine, and I really like caffeine!”
The master silently handed him a cup. The student scrutinized the cup and said, “What a beautiful cup! I know a lot about cups! There are cups from China that are very delicate. Korean cups are often unsigned, because they like the idea of an anonymous artist. My favorite kind of cups are the older ones.”
The master silently began pouring. The student continued talking: “I know a lot about pouring! Did you know that in England they pour tea from two pots, one with tea and the other with hot water? And you have a nice way of pouring.”
As the student chattered on and on, the master kept pouring and pouring. The cup filled higher and higher, until the tea began spilling out onto the mat.
Startled, the student said, “Master, Master! My cup is overflowing!”
The master smiled and said simply, “As is your mind. First empty your cup, and then it can be filled!”
This classic meditation story illustrates an important point. Your mind is filled with a continual stream of thoughts. When you are manic, your thoughts move quickly with ever-flowing ideas. And when you are depressed, although you may think more slowly, you continually ruminate critically about yourself and others. Typically, the thinking you do in either mood may interfere with meeting new possibilities openly.
Clearing your mind has a profound effect. It is especially helpful when you are trying to make a change. So, we invite you to empty your cup. The meditations in this chapter teach you the third form of meditation used in this book, no-focus meditations to clear your mind. You learn to let go of those thoughts and impulses that may be getting in your way. In addition, this type of meditation helps you to create a fertile void, the empty moment, where new potentials can emerge more easily and naturally. You find your balance point in the empty moment. So, by clearing away the stream of thoughts that interrupt the empty moment, you pave the way for change.
Meditation for clearing the mind has been found to bring about neuroplasticity in the brain that is helpful to bipolar disorder. A recent study showed increase in gray matter in the cingulate gyrus, anterior insula, and hippocampus when people practiced a Zen meditation for clearing the mind (Grant et al. 2010). Increasing the size of these brain areas will help you to regulate your emotions better, increase your awareness of inner experiencing, and improve your memory.
Experiment with the following exercises to develop the ability to clear your mind. Be patient; these exercises do respond to practice. And keep in mind that stable, consistent practice is healthy. But focus on the experience of the exercise, not on the exercise just as a means to an end. Without a goal in mind, simply enjoy each experience for itself and let your abilities develop naturally.
The series of five exercises presented here will lead you step by step into clearing your mind. We also offer you several alternative methods. Some ways of emptying your mind might feel more natural to you than others. Try all the exercises once. Then repeat them, and work longer with the ones that seem easiest for you to do. As your skills develop, you will be able to spend more time on the ones that seem harder. Begin with one minute for each exercise, but work up to at least five minutes as soon as you are able to do so. Do the exercises at different times of day. You may discover that some times are better than others. You will continue to develop your skills by using variations of these meditations in part 3. You are beginning a process here, one that ripens over time.
To Try or Not to Try
You might think that clearing the mind means trying to stop all your thoughts, but it’s not what you might expect. You don’t try to clear away all your thinking. And yet, you do commit yourself to the process by taking your time to meditate. These meditations will lead to a slowing of the relentless stream of thoughts until your consciousness has moments of stillness. Think of your mind as similar to a murky lake that becomes clear when the mud settles to the bottom. The potential for clarity is there in the lake, but the mud of thought is stirred up. All you need to do is allow your thoughts to settle. Look for moments between thoughts, and build from there. Throughout the process, you lessen the obstructiveness of thought so that inner calm emerges naturally. Paradoxically, by starting where you are and accepting what is there as you begin, you set the change process in motion. Between each thought in the rushing stream of thoughts, you can find an empty clearing. Fullness and emptiness are there together. Trust that the flow and the Tao of your inner nature will begin to emerge.
Exercise 7.1 Warming Up to No-Focus Meditation: Notice the Spaces Between
You are accustomed to thinking about the content of your thoughts and being swept along with them. But there are always moments between thoughts, subtle pauses. Empty space makes it possible to perceive anything. For the words on this page to be readable, there must be places without words, empty spaces, that allow the words to appear and their meaning to be revealed. Meditation brings out the hidden in what is evident.
You can find spaces everywhere. Even when you are in the midst of a manic or depressive episode, there are spaces between—subtle moments without symptoms. Learning to recognize empty space may help you to enlarge those healthy periods between symptoms for longer periods of stability.
Turn your attention to your face and notice your two eyes. Now, ask yourself, How much space is there between my eyes? Don’t think of what’s between your eyes; simply sense the literal distance between them. Meditate on that space between your eyes for a minute or so. Now, moving down through your body, ask yourself, How far apart are my shoulders? Think of that distance as an open, empty space. How far is it from your head to your toes? And what about the distance between where you are sitting and the wall? Empty spaces are always part of everything. Without the outside, there can be no inside. Look for the spaces now and meditate on them.
Exercise 7.2 Visualize Stillness for Clarity
In this exercise, use a peaceful visualization to slow down your mental chatter. Although we describe a scene in nature, feel free to use any peaceful place you prefer that is personally meaningful to you.
Sit quietly with your eyes closed. Imagine sitting on the shore of a pond that is alive with activity: frogs croak; crickets sing; birds fly overhead; a fish jumps out of the water, feeds on insects, splashes back in, and jumps out again in another spot after a bit. Wind whips over the water, stirring up the muddy bottom. All is movement. Then gradually, as the day passes, the conditions begin to shift. The wind dies down. The frogs settle in for a nap, the crickets are silent, the birds perch in the trees, and the fish stops jumping and waits. The pond is quiet. The murky, rippled surface calms as the mud sinks, leaving the water crystal clear. All is stillness. Imagine this scene vividly. Stay with the quiet, clear water.
Exercise 7.3 Clear Your Mind as You Walk
Begin with the mindfulness methods you practiced in chapter 6. Stand up and begin walking slowly, letting your arms swing naturally at your sides. Walk slowly, with awareness of every step. Pay attention to how your foot meets the ground. Notice how your weight shifts from foot to foot. Keep your breathing and your body relaxed as you walk slowly. Focus your attention on walking. If your mind starts to fill with thoughts about things other than walking, stop and wait as you return your mind to awareness of standing. Then, when your thoughts have returned to the present moment, begin walking again. Maintain awareness of every step with a quiet mind. Once you have become attuned to walking, let go of any focus on walking and just walk. Let your arms and legs move spontaneously, without thought. Allow yourself to be relaxed and natural as you move. When you feel ready to stop, stand for a minute or two, remaining open and aware in the moment.
Exercise 7.4 Classic Mind-Clearing Meditation
Meditation can bring about a slowing of thoughts until they literally stop, leaving a clear, calm consciousness. The instructions given here are drawn from the classic Zen instructions for zazen, a form of no-focus meditation. A famous Zen monk named Dogen wrote, “If you practice in this way for a long time, you will forget all attachments, and concentration will come naturally. This is Zazen” (Dumoulin 1988, 76).
Begin by doing this meditation for a few minutes. Then extend the time spent practicing as you are able to do so. If you find this difficult to do at first, don’t be discouraged. Frequent practice for short intervals helps. Zazen is typically performed in a specific way. Therefore, we offer the complete set of instructions that are given when someone first begins this classic practice. Practice zazen as instructed if you can, but feel free to vary your body positioning as we described in chapter 4, in the section “The Sitting Posture,” especially if you have any difficulties with sitting on the floor.
Set a thick pillow on the floor, and then add a second, smaller one on top. Sit down on the pillows and cross your legs. Place your hands on your lap, with your left hand on top of the middle joints of your right hand, with the middle fingers and thumbs lightly touching. Your hands will be shaped like an oval. One reason for crossing your legs and hands is to make the body a unity, with no distinction between left and right, no beginning and no end. Your mouth should be gently closed and your eyes half open, half closed. Do not focus your gaze on anything in particular. Remain relaxed but alert.
Keep your body straight, without leaning to one side or the other. Allow your spine to be straight. Relax your shoulders and keep your head straight, aligned in the center without tilting. Don’t strain. Breathing passages should be free and unrestricted as your breathing becomes calm and steady. Begin by simply sitting and not thinking about anything in particular. If a thought or wish arises, bring it to awareness, noticing the wish or thought as it is. Don’t evaluate it. Simply observe that it is, just as you did in the mindfulness meditations in chapter 6. Then allow the thought to leave, and return to not thinking about anything. In doing this, you will begin to become aware of both thinking and not thinking. Gradually, your thoughts will slow down a bit. Eventually your mind will clear, leaving a calm consciousness.
Exercise 7.5 Wu Wei: Indirect Mind Clearing
You probably have moments when you are doing things and not worrying about what you are doing. Even when you are experiencing bipolar symptoms, you have times when you might be watching a movie, reading a book, doing something you have done many times, or just standing in line, or you might even be in between activities, when your mind seems blank. You simply do what you do, accepting things as they are, without any pressures or concerns. At these moments, you tend to stop thinking about anything in particular. There is a natural inclination of the mind to be quiet and empty. You can use this natural tendency of mind to help build your skills for mind clearing. The next meditation follows wu wei, or letting be, and allows this built-in tendency to help you. As the great Zen master Shunryu Suzuki (1970, 33) explained, “The purpose is to see things as they are, to observe things as they are, and to let everything go as it goes. This is to put everything under control in its widest sense.”
Pick a time when you have no immediate responsibilities or obligations, and therefore less need for activity. You might find that right before sleep or first thing in the morning is a good time, or during a lunch break or at a time when you are alone and nothing has to be done. Another possibility is to find a time when your attention wants to drift or your mind feels blank. At moments like these, you might try to force yourself to do a chore or task, to become active. But instead, use that moment as an opportunity to try this exercise.
Spend a few minutes permitting your mind to be blank, and explore how expansive that blankness can be. Don’t try to discern what it is exactly; just let this spontaneous tendency be, and do nothing. These open moments of mind may happen while you are sitting, standing, or even waiting in line at the store. The important thing is to notice the moment’s opportunity, and when circumstances permit, let the experience take place.
Let your thoughts drift. Don’t do anything and don’t think about anything in particular. Simply sit quietly, allowing this experience to develop. Let your breathing be comfortable and allow your body to relax. After allowing the naturally occurring blankness to be there, even if only for a brief time, you may find that you can deliberately access this mental quiet at other times as well. Do the other exercises in this chapter again. You might find them easier to do.
Practice the meditations in this chapter and the previous two chapters until you feel comfortable with them. Be encouraged when you feel that you were able to do a meditation well, but don’t worry when a meditation seems too difficult for you. We have offered many different options. Some will be easier for you to do than others, and that’s normal.
You may begin to sense some movement toward balance. The effects are subtle at first. Part 3 shows you how to apply these meditations and variations of them to help you with your difficulties. We encourage you to keep practicing and enjoy the process! All of these skills will help you in part 3, when you address your problems and learn how to apply these methods to discover your optimal balance and ways to maintain it for a fulfilling, happy life.