How to Meditate

Thanks to Ethan Nichtern of The Interdependence Project (www.theidproject.org) for these instructions.

Shamatha Meditation Session (10-30 minutes)

1. Preparation
PLACE: Find a good, relatively quiet, relatively neat place (your bedroom, your living room, a group session, etc.). Commit to a length of time beforehand for this session and don’t alter it unless there’s a real emergency. A timer is good so you don’t even have to worry about looking at the clock. If you want to do five minutes, that’s wonderful, but commit at the beginning and stick to it. Shrines (totally optional) are nice reminders of entering the space of meditation, but they have to be made personal – maybe a picture of someone who inspires you personally (Pema Chodron, Martin Luther King, your favorite Aunt, etc.) and reminds you of what is possible when a human being is able to really open her/his heart and mind. A candle and incense might remind us to wake up. But keep the space simple and clean.

STANDING BODY CHECK-IN: Stand still in tadasana (mountain pose) in front of your cushion, facing forward, accommodating the space in front of you. Let the knees microbend so that you can really feel the ground connecting to your feet. Gather the attention to one place in the body for 15-30 seconds as an initial, transitional mindfulness of body practice. If you have more time (20-30 minute session), you could do a full, slow body scan as follows:

Scan upward from the soles of your feet up to the crown of the skull. If there is a particularly place of tension in the body, let your attention rest there a little longer and see what happens to the feeling when your attention is fully placed on it. After the standing exercise, sit down.

SITTING POSTURE: Below are some tips on sitting posture, which may or may not be useful. The most important thing is to balance comfort with a feeling of dignity, which is accomplished by lengthening the spine and relaxing the body. Take a few moments to deliberately arrange the seated posture (and during the session, refresh the posture as needed, including taking resting postures when discomfort sets in).

A. THE SEAT – The main thing about posture is a comfortable seat. Sit up high enough on a blanket, blocks, pillows, meditation cushion etc. so that your sitz bones can really plug down into your seat without compromising the spine. Sit up high enough on cushions so that the knees are lower than the hip joints, and the legs can just get out of the way of the pelvis. Make sure your ankles are padded by a blanket or mat (and the knees too if the knees are on the floor), which will ease the tendency of the feet to fall asleep. If you’re in a chair, let the feet ground flat into the floor.

B. THE UPPER BODY – The spine lifts up out of the pelvis without breaking at the waist.  Find the energetic balance where you are not slumping but not using every single muscle in your upper body to hold yourself up. The chest is open but not puffed. The shoulder blades are dropping down the back but not pinching the spine. The skull is balanced on the atlas of the spine. The chin is just slightly contained inward without losing the balance of the skull. Let your upper arms fall from the shoulders. Fold at the elbow and drop your palms lightly wherever they fall on the thighs. The face is relaxed; the lips are not pursed. If you are practicing eyes-open, the eyes release and the gaze softens and lowers to a little area on the floor about 4-6 feet in front. This is not a staring contest. Our eyes accommodate what’s in front of them without needing to chase what they see. If this is too distracting, close your eyes.

2. Contemplate Your Intention

Take a few moments to refresh your understanding of why you are doing meditation. Some questions to ask as time and mood allows: “What am I trying to accomplish this session?”  “What is my inspiration for this practice?”“What is my long term aspiration for my practice?”

Pick one or more of these questions each day. Allow the contemplation to surprise you, meaning inquiry as honest questions of your current intention.

3. The Object of Meditation – Working with the Breath

Begin to place your attention on the breath. Also, if you would like to focus your attention on the breath in a specific location in your body, that may help settle in as well. Or you can count breaths if it feels very scattered and distracted. Or you could slightly emphasize attention to the inhalation (if you feel unsettled) or the exhalation (if you feel heavy emotions). However, if and when you feel a little more settled in the practice, try to place attention on the full cycle of each easeful breath as it moves in the body, then let it go and place your attention on the next breath. Each breath is a thread, an anchor we can rely on to connect with the present moment, which is the definition of “object of meditation.” The object is the embodiment of NOW, and we connect by feeling it, literally and physically.

4. Working with Thinking, Gathering the Scattered Mind

Thinking is not bad!

The moments when we notice our attention has left the breath are powerful successes, not failures. Our awareness is flexing its muscles.

When these moments of awareness arise, acknowledge them. Return the attention as clearly as possible to the breath. When thoughts arise more subtly, without losing mindfulness of the breath, no action is required.

You might also note that the mind has left the breath by labeling, saying “thinking.” Try to let the voice that says thinking be gentle and direct. Then, with a light touch of mindfulness, gently guide the attention back to the simple act of breathing, placing the attention on the body breathing. If you find yourself saying “thinking” every two seconds, relax the labeling technique and just come back to the flow of the breath whenever you realize that your mind has wandered. We are most concerned about the thoughts that really take us away from the breath, the moments we really go astray from the present. Those are the ones we need to acknowledge and guide ourselves back from.

Remember that the trick is to be as clear and decisive as possible with the discursive, chatty mind, to cut through the fluff with simple precision, while at the same time allowing enough mercy for heavier mind-states and emotions to be accommodated and explored. This is quite a delicate and intuitive balance.

5. Contemplate Your Session

Close every session with some moments contemplating your meditation session, as well as your inherent wisdom and compassion.

You could simply ask yourself the question “what went right this session?” and recall your specific successes in mindfulness, awareness, and gentleness during the practice session, or during the previous day. If you felt a lot of scatteredness, over-stimulation, heaviness, dullness, lust, doubt, judgment, or self-aggression during today’s session, you could explore the awareness that notices these states of mind, instead of the states of mind themselves. If it felt like your practice was regressing from previous successful sessions, contemplate the truth of your right effort, and rejoice in that. If none of these seem applicable, then contemplate what it means to have a sense of humor.

At the end of the session, offer yourself a bow to honor your inherent wisdom and compassion. Transition out of the session slowly, feeling confident that this training in precision and gentleness can infiltrate every aspect of your post-meditation (aka “life”) experience.