Wherever You Go, There You Are

If you haven’t noticed, there tends to be a current of thoughts and emotions flowing through our minds pretty much every second of our lives. (My hunch is you’ve probably noticed by now. :)

Think of the current of thoughts and feelings like a river. Sometimes mellow and sometimes overflowing and raging.

One of the key goals of meditation is to help us learn how to step out of that current and observe it from the shore. And, as we practice stepping out of the current and observing… stepping out of the current and observing… stepping out of the current and observing… we strengthen our mind muscle so we have a much greater chance of gaining control of any emotion (whether it’s impatience or anger or shame) that threatens to sweep us away.

Concentration. As Kabat-Zinn advises us, our mindfulness will only be as strong as our ability to calm our mind and point it in the direction we choose.

He continues: “You can think of concentration as the capacity of the mind to sustain an unwavering attention on one object of observation. It is cultivated by attending to one thing, such as the breath, and just limiting one’s focus to that. In Sanskrit, concentration is called samadhi, or “onepointedness.” Samadhi is developed and deepened by continually bringing the attention back to the breath every time it wanders. When practicing strictly concentrative forms of meditation, we purposefully refrain from any efforts to inquire into areas such as where the mind went when it wandered off, or that the quality of the breath fluctuates. Our energy is directed solely toward experiencing this breath coming in, this breath going out, or some other single object of attention. With extended practice, the mind tends to become better and better at staying on the breath, or noticing even the earliest impulse to become distracted by something else, and either resisting its pull in the first place and staying on the breath, or quickly returning to it.”

Love the idea of developing our samadhi—the onepointedness muscle that allows us to step out of the current of our habitual and reactive thoughts/feelings and to choose the most empowered responses.

Here’s how I like to think about it: Imagine Arnold Schwarzenegger’s physique. All ripped up and sculpted from the countless hours he’s spent in the gym.

Now imagine His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Although it’s not quite as easy to see inside his mind, it’s at least as sculpted as Schwarzenegger’s body. He’s spent as many hours training his mind as Schwarzenegger has spent on his body. “Meditation workout” after workout, the Dalai Lama’s done repetition after repetition—training his mind to come back to his breath, to come back to love, to come to back patience and compassion.

How’s your mind looking? All Schwarzenegger-ed out or a little soft and flabby?! :)

It’s always a good idea to have a “Why?” for what we’re doing, eh? Kinda hard to truly make that 100% commitment unless we have a really strong vision of how it ties to our most fundamental values…

So, what’s your “Why?” for developing a meditation practice?

Here’s a quick look at mine: I’m committed to creating an authentically awesome life—expressing as much love, creativity, kindness, generosity, enthusiasm, courage, wisdom, inspiration, joy and overall goodness as I can in service to my Wife, my family, my friends, my community and the world.

To do this, it’s *incredibly* clear to me that the starting point is getting my mind strong. Optimism/the ability to shape the contents of our consciousness is THE #1 principle all the great teachers come back to again and again and again (as I talk about in all these Notes, the Optimal Living 101 class and my book). It’s equally clear to me that meditation is one of the most powerful ways to strengthen my mind as I develop the ability to step in between stimulus and response.

Now, I’d meditate if all I got out of it was the ability to step in between a challenging stimulus and a craptastic habitual response—choosing my most empowered response instead of a lame one. But, what’s really cool is that we get a lot of other goodness out of meditation.

As we discuss in our Note on The Relaxation Revolution, science now shows that mind body practices such as meditation not only keep us significantly healthier, they literally alter our genetics—changing the way our genes express themselves and keeping us much more healthy, creative and fully alive. That rocks.

But that’s not it.

I also know that cultivating my samadhi muscles helps me plug into the Divine within me—helping me shine with a radiant enthusiasm that supports the expression of all my other virtues.

And, finally, I kinda see meditation as a shower for my mind. I don’t know about you, but I shower at least once a day. If I missed a day or two and you came within a few feet of me, you’d know. If I missed a week or two, you’d *definitely* know and I don’t want to imagine what I’d smell like if I missed a month or two. SAME thing with my mind. If I missed a day or two, you’d know. If I missed a week or two, you’d *definitely* know and I don’t want to imagine who I would be if I missed a month or two.

And, finally, finally, starting every morning with my meditation practice, it’s pretty much impossible for me to have a really bad day (and definitely not two in a row). There’s something truly magical to sitting down and cleaning my consciousness up so consistently…

So, that’s a quick look at why I’ve meditated every day for at least 30 minutes for the last 2+ years and why I don’t plan to miss a day for the rest of my life. What’s YOUR Why?!?

You might dig Kabat-Zinn’s awesome exercise to help us discover it: “TRY: Asking yourself why you meditate or why you want to meditate. Don’t believe your first answers. Just write down a list of whatever comes to mind. Continue asking yourself. Also, inquire about your values, about what you honor most in your life. Make a list of what is really important to you. Ask yourself: What is my vision, my map for where I am and where I am going? Does this vision reflect my true values and intentions? Am I remembering to embody those values? Do I practice my intentions? How am I now in my job, in my family, in my relationships, with myself? How do I want to be? How might I live my vision, my values? How do I relate to suffering, both my own and others?”

Love that. Reminds me of Eknath Easwaran’s awesome comment in his brilliant Conquest of Mind (see Notes): “Sri Aurobindo, one of twentieth-century India’s most luminous figures, has a good motto for reminding us of this: “All life is yoga.” Every moment, he means, is an opportunity for training the mind.”

And Genpo Roshi’s equally awesome comment in his equally brilliant Big Mind Big Heart (see Notes): “We’re at the point in our evolution that we all have to become conscious. This is a time of revolution. There’s no holding back. So I’m about tearing down the monastery walls and seeing the whole world as the monastery, as the practice, as the spiritual temple. What we’re all working on is this very being, this very life. This is the temple, it has no walls.”

This is a *huge* part of my meditation practice. It’s not about sitting for 15 or 30 or 60 minutes and then being rude at the breakfast table. We’ve gotta look at every moment as another opportunity to train our minds and to become more connected to our Highest Selves.

So, let’s practice every moment!

How cool is that?!?

They didn’t even have a word corresponding to “meditation” in Buddha’s Pali. Love it.

This practice that we now call meditation was (and is) better understood as “development through mental training.” Fact is, it’s impossible to develop into full human beings unless we deliberately train our minds.

So, let’s!!! :)

That’s from a chapter called “Meditation: Not to Be Confused with Positive Thinking.” :)

Meditation isn’t about learning how to change our thoughts from negative to positive per se. It’s about learning to observe the thoughts themselves. That process alone has an alchemizing effect—simply seeing that we are NOT our thoughts is remarkably powerful. And cultivating this practice is another way to develop the samadhi muscles that allow us to step out of the stream of negative thoughts that can often sweep us away.

Kabat-Zinn has a beautiful image to bring this point home. He says: “Another way to look at meditation is to view the process of thinking itself as a waterfall, a continual cascading of thought. In cultivating mindfulness, we are going beyond or behind our thinking, much the way you might find a vantagepoint in a cave or depression in the rock behind a waterfall. We still see and hear the water, but we are out of the torrent.”

Beautiful…

Wondering how you should sit? There ya go: Sit with dignity.

Whether it’s sitting in a chair or in a more formal meditation posture, keep the word “Dignity” in mind.

If you’ve read enough of these Notes you know I’m a huge fan of consistency on our fundamentals and turning our discipline into blissipline.

There’s something truly magical about becoming the type of person who does what needs to be done—independent of whether or not we “feel” like it.

So many teachers hit on this theme. For now, let’s celebrate David Reynolds’ wisdom from his great book Constructive Living (see Notes) where he says: “The mature human being goes about doing what needs to be done regardless of whether that person feels great or terrible. Knowing that you are the kind of person with that kind of self-control brings all the satisfaction and confidence you will ever need. Even on days when the satisfaction and confidence just aren’t there, you can get the job done anyway.”

A key idea of effective mindfulness meditation is to have an “anchor” for your attention.

Imagine a boat getting tossed by the ocean’s waves. To keep the boat in one place, the Captain throws down an anchor. Same thing with our minds. If we want to keep our minds in one place, we’ve gotta establish an anchor. And the breath is one of the best ones out there.

Kabat-Zinn continues: “To use your breathing to nurture mindfulness, just tune in to the feeling of it… the feeling of the breath coming into your body and the feeling of the breath leaving your body. That’s all. Just feeling the breath. Breathing and knowing that you’re breathing. This doesn’t mean deep breathing or forcing your breathing, or trying to feel something special, or wondering whether you’re doing it right. It doesn’t mean thinking about your breathing, either. It’s just a bare bones awareness of the breath moving in and the breath moving out.”

(For more on specific techniques for meditation, Google Jon Kabat-Zinn and/or check out www.Blissitations.com where we’re developing resources to help you develop an awesome meditation practice grounded in all these Big Ideas!)

In a chapter called “What Is My Job on the Planet with a Capital J?” Kabat-Zinn tells the inspiring story of Buckminster Fuller—who, apparently, before he was recognized as a genius, had failed numerous times by age thirty-two and was contemplating suicide. Apparently everything he tried didn’t work out and he thought perhaps life would be better for his wife and infant daughter if he ended his life.

What an *awesome* exercise!! Ultimately, our meditation is not the end goal in itself but a vehicle to help us most fully live. So, what’s YOUR J-O-B with a capital J-O-B?!? :)

Here’s to embracing our practices that help us most fully plug in so we can shine with an uberbright radiant enthusiasm that lights up our world.

P.S. “Once the universe is your employer, very interesting things start to happen, even if someone else is cutting your paycheck. But you do have to be patient. It takes time to grow this way of being into your life. The place to start of course is right here. The best time? How about now?”