Beginning Meditation, Continuing Meditation

Caitríona Reed

Beginning Meditation. At a recent introductory class someone asked, "We have been practicing meditation for a week now, when are we going to do it for real?" They had understood the word practice to mean a kind of rehearsal, a preparation for the real thing - a perfectly natural misunderstanding.

The word bhavana is often translated as practice. Its roots come from another word which means becoming. Perhaps it would be easier to say, when we learn to meditate, that we are learning to become.

Become what? .... human, whole, aware, alive, well. All these words might apply, but they still infer that there is something we lack which meditation can give us. It might be easier if we understood that meditation does not give us anything at all, rather it removes the obstacles that prevent us from being whole. We already possess everything we need-perhaps only as seeds still buried within us, but they are there nevertheless. Meditation becomes a way to uncover them... As when cultivating a garden, the gardener only helps produce the conditions in which plants can thrive, she does not grow the plants.

Practicing Mindfulness, we become more attentive, both to details, and to the bigger picture. We discover that the two are connected. The way we live this moment, for example, will affect the whole day, our whole life. If we can bring awareness to this moment there is happiness, not through the fulfillment of desires, but simply, because awareness is there. Simply to see, hear, touch, know-a tree, a street corner, a person-is its own reward. The rest of the day will be altered. We know this to be true. We have all experienced it often enough. Perhaps we haven't realized that, simple as it is, our capacity just to be attentive is the vital key to our happiness.

Little by little, with practice, we find ourselves more attentive. Attention feeds itself. It's absence feeds worry and neurosis. If at first it seems difficult to be attentive, it may be because we haven't liked ourselves much. We haven't been kind, to ourselves, or others. Under the circumstances it may be more comfortable not to be attentive; to be lost in fantasies, assumptions, ambitions, criticisms, memories, anticipation.. Now we will change that and learn to be attentive to the things we don't like so much about ourselves-not as a choice, nor as a kind of therapy-but because that's where our attention spontaneously goes. We turn towards what we have not taken into account-which, once integrated, will make us whole. Something miraculous within us can takes care of this turning. It is not what we imagined spiritual practice would be like, but this becomes our work for the time being.

At introductory meditation classes we suggest that people try meditation for ten years on a purely experimental basis; "Give it a try, don't have any expectations!" -such a luxury in a world of quick fixes. Then after ten years you can decide if you want to pursue the practice seriously. Maybe after twenty years you will still be exploring those parts of yourself you have not yet entirely made peace with. Maybe the work is never done. At the same time you can ask yourself, "How long does it really take to develop faith in my ability to create transformation in my life through quiet attention?" A day, an hour, a minute? Less?

Continuing Meditation. The First Precept of the Order of Interbeing. Do not be idolatrous about or bound to any doctrine, theory, or ideology, even Buddhist ones. All systems of thought are guiding means; they are not absolute truth.

The Second Precept of the Order of Interbeing. Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless, absolute truth. Avoid being narrow-minded and bound to present views. Learn to practice non-attachment from views in order to be open to receive others' viewpoints. Truth is found in life and not merely in conceptual knowledge. Be ready to learn throughout your entire life and to observe reality in yourself and in the world at all times.

To think of Meditation, of "sitting," as a something, a means to an end, a worthwhile commodity, a beneficial addition to your life implies that something is lacking. Meditation is both a cause and a consequence, a seed and a fruit. Meditation both leads to, and emerges out of, an internal shift in which you move from a rigid point of view to one that is fluid. You then take your life, and everything you experience, into account from many different sides. This is quite different from changing your belief system. It is the cultivation of an ability to recognize the interconnectedness, the transparency of everything, including beliefs. It is not nihilism. Quite the opposite. Far from losing their value in an ocean of relativity, things assume their place as unique manifestations. Everything becomes a key to deeper understanding, or rather, to a deeper sense of being. Mystics call the God they perceive moving underneath and through it all The Beloved. You can do the same; or you can call it emptiness, impermanence, love, Dharma.

Even the most mundane objects become valuable for what they are. In Buddhist texts the world of manifest reality is sometimes described as covered in jewels, radiant, exquisite, emanating and reflecting all as indescribably beautiful light moving in every direction. What was once a paving stone, or a weed growing beside it, is now a marvel. All this just from letting go of your point of view! Not as a dreamer, but alert with the simple act of attention. The paving stone still always a paving stone-the weed also always a weed.

It was once suggested that the Buddha did not begin his teaching by talking about suffering. He talked about joy, but very few understood. So in order to explain he spoke of ill-being, of Suffering. This is the first truth of the well-know formulation of his teaching-The Four Noble Truths. The third is the Truth of well-being, of Non Suffering. The two coexist, they inter-are. When we miss the transparent beauty of all of life and death-when we selectively grasp at what pleases us-we are thrown into a chasm (the second Noble Truth), separated as when at birth we appeared to leave the place where we were one with another. The practice is our return home (the Fourth Noble Truth), not to the womb, but to life; not by eliminating suffering, but by opening to it as a part of the tender fabric of our life.

Copyright (c) Caitríona Reed. Autumn 1996