The Meditator's Dilemma Page 5

  In working with others, I have always found that with patience, memories like these rise to the surface, even for those who had difficult childhoods. One client, Sandra, had a challenging early environment and initially had trouble recalling any memories before the age of seven. She believed that all memories before this time were bleak and didn’t want to consider another possibility. Changing the subject, I asked Sandra about her early school years. She reported that school wasn’t great, but it got her out of her house, which was a relief. Suddenly she paused, surprised:

  I totally forgot about my first-grade teacher. Maybe she knew about my home situation. Anyway she had these big, warm eyes, and when she looked at me, I felt so cared for. I was so hungry for that. Once I was up at the pencil sharpener, and when I turned to go back to my seat, she looked directly at me. It felt so warm and supportive that I stood there, transfixed.

  This turned out to be an important distilled memory for Sandra, one we used to deepen her meditative holding environment.

  My discovery of a more inviting way to enter meditation includes first learning the art of feeling good intentionally, in the present moment. We need to feel enlivened early in meditation in order to want to stay with it. Mindfulness needs to feel refreshing to ensure the future practice of mindfulness. If we are as unhappy in meditation as we are at other times, except being more aware of the unhappiness, where is the incentive to continue?

  In my experience, the most reliable way to introduce safety, comfort, and trust in meditation is by evoking memories that elicit the feelings needed to create the foundation for our practice. Trying to think our way into feeling good is futile. Relaxation is one of the most fundamental aspects of the internal holding environment. We will next explore how to access a calm, relaxed state.

  QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION

  I thought that being mindful is learning to be with what is in the present moment; are you suggesting that we distract ourselves from reality in the here and now?

  Temporarily, yes. The Buddha himself emphasized the importance of creating a worthy vessel for navigating the stormy seas of the mind. Is creating the vessel a distraction? No, it’s preparation for the journey ahead. In fact, you wouldn’t want to leave home without it; you will be thrashing among the waves.

  What is the difference between guided imagery exercises in psychotherapy and how you are using imagery with mindfulness?

  Guided imagery can be used to effect positive changes in life. Here it is employed to create and enrich the inner holding environment for meditation. Once the positive feeling associated with the image arises, the memory has served its purpose, and the encouragement is to let go of the image.

  PART TWO

  CULTIVATING THE HOLDING ENVIRONMENT

  I understood immediately that certain things—attention, great energy, total concentration, tenderness, risk, beauty—were elements of poetry. And I understood that these elements did not grow as grass grows from a seed, naturally and unstoppably, but rather were somehow gathered and discovered by the poet, and placed inside the poem.

  —Mary Oliver

  5

  RELAXATION

  IT IS COMMON TO DIMINISH THE IMPORTANCE of relaxation in meditation circles; it is often seen as hedonistic, an escapist search for pleasant sensation. Real meditation should not be about making oneself more comfortable, but rather freeing oneself from attachment and emotional entanglement. If relaxation happens to arise as a byproduct of meditation, fine, but it should not be sought after.

  I subscribed to this perspective for many years, believing that relaxation (and any form of ease-seeking, for that matter) was a sign of laziness or indulgence and fundamentally “meditation lite.” After all, the Buddha wasn’t interested in getting comfortable. Or was he? Didn’t he prescribe a path that leads to increasing contentment and peace of mind? And isn’t relaxation a central aspect of this?

  In many contemplative traditions, an uneasy tension exists between pleasure and the search for deeper meaning. Implicit in the archetypal spiritual journey is the notion that carnal pleasures must be sacrificed if wisdom is to arise. Without such sacrifice, deeper insights will not be gained. Even if the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak and must be kept in check. During the main meal of the day at the Trappist monastery where I lived for six months, a brother always stood in the front of the dining hall and read scripture. The abbot told me that this was “to keep our focus on God and not get lost in the sensual world of taste.”

  This separation of spirit and flesh was also manifest in the time of the Buddha. Ascetic practices were the rule of the spiritual day, and eating as little as possible was encouraged. The Buddha engaged in these practices fully, and ultimately his body became emaciated, and his practice, listless. Finally, he began to question the premise of extreme renunciation:

  But with this racking practice of austerities I haven’t attained any superior human state, any distinction in knowledge or vision worthy of the noble ones. Could there be another path to Awakening? I thought: “So why am I afraid of that pleasure that has nothing to do with sensuality, nothing to do with unskillful mental qualities?” I thought: “I am no longer afraid of that pleasure that has nothing to do with sensuality, nothing to do with unskillful mental qualities, but that pleasure is not easy to achieve with a body so extremely emaciated. Suppose I were to take some solid food: some rice & porridge.” So I took some solid food: some rice & porridge.1

  This was not well received by the five monks who attended to the Buddha. “[They] were disgusted and left me, thinking, ‘Gotama the contemplative is living luxuriously. He has abandoned his exertion and is backsliding into abundance.’”

  However, this was an important turning point in the Buddha’s journey, leading to his discovery of the “middle path” between asceticism and indulgence. Part of the Buddha’s insight was the distinction between the overly indulgent pleasure connected with sensuality and the wholesome sense of contentment that arises when the mind is calm and balanced. He found the latter to be increasingly important in his journey toward awakening.

  I embraced renunciation during the first twenty-five years of practicing meditation, though this only became clear to me in retrospect. At the time, when I was twenty, it seemed appropriate for me to be hit with a stick; surely I could make more effort and relinquish all things comforting. During this period I fasted regularly, once going two weeks with no food or juice, drinking water only. I saw this as a way to strengthen my resolve and weaken my attachments to material pursuits. The primary form of denial in my practice during these years was a renunciation of comfort in any form during meditation itself. I simply made too much effort. I strained. This was a time when working hard was encouraged in meditation. There was far less support from teachers to soften or relax. It was “sit down and pay attention.” All things come to those who strive. I embraced that motto in my practice.

  Needless to say, a holding environment includes none of this mind-over-matter mode of practicing. The notion of bootstrapping ourselves with willpower in meditation will always backfire. If we are not comfortable in meditation, if there is no sense of ease in the atmosphere of our practice, if it is not refreshing, it is not likely to last. As the Buddha discovered, the pursuit of truth in a climate of denial or tension won’t bear much fruit.

  We humans—wired to be vigilant, scanning for threats, anticipating catastrophe, engaging in fight and flight—habitually push and pull and steer and orchestrate our experience. This leads to mental and physical tightening, a psychophysical clenching. Further straining is not helpful whatsoever to address this predicament. Yet this is what so many of us do in meditation. We just keep pushing and pulling. Have you ever played with a Chinese finger trap? It is only through relaxing that you can remove your fingers. So it is with meditation.

  Relaxing the body is therefore neither indulgent nor peripheral, but the starting point in developing a nurturing holding environment for meditation. The colloquial saying “
Just relax” assumes that this is an easily achievable state. It is not. In the West it is high art and takes practice, as does learning to play an instrument. We don’t come home from a music lesson and say, “I failed today.” Whether we have played an instrument or not, we are familiar with the learning curve involved in a new mind-body activity. Think of learning to ride a bicycle. It wasn’t so easy at first, right? I remember the fateful day when the training wheels first came off. I received a loving push across our yard. Headed for one of those T-shaped clothesline poles that graced every backyard, I froze, unable to change directions, and crashed. Was that a failure or part of the learning curve?

  Let’s give ourselves a break and reframe meditation as a creative step-by-step process. We are learning something entirely new, a skill that goes against the grain of our conditioning. It involves less effortful attention than in the early days when we were tossed into the deep end of the pool: Pay attention! Plop down! Instead, let’s start more simply, in the wading pool of relaxation.

  Relaxing the Body

  There are two steps in practicing relaxation of the body. I recommend that you take three to four minutes for each step, after first reading the following instructions.

  STEP 1: SETTLING THE BODY

  SHAKING LOOSE

  Helping the body to relax is step one. This is the foundation, yet rarely is it attended to. How can a content mind inhabit a tense body? Many animals can recover very quickly from even traumatic episodes, literally shaking them off. While we do not have that capability, releasing some of our gross, physical tension is possible and strongly recommended.

  There are a number of ways to relax the body, many of them familiar from yoga, tai chi, and qigong. The method doesn’t have to be fancy or time-consuming; a little stretching will do.

  In the first grade we stood and swayed as we sang this little song:

  Bend and stretch,

  Reach for the stars,

  Here comes Jupiter,

  There goes Mars.

  I still do this from time to time; it never fails to bring a smile.

  A simple method is to stand and shake out your arms and legs. Loosen all your joints. Do a few neck rolls. Sway from side to side. The form doesn’t matter. What does matter is getting the body a bit looser and more pliable.

  Remember the technique that appealed to you most, so you can return to it in the future.

  TAKING YOUR SEAT

  I am not an advocate of the straight-as-a-statue posture for meditation. Nothing in nature is that straight. You want to be reasonably upright but also at ease. As you are settling into your posture, try lifting and lowering the shoulders (almost as if they were attached to two threads, gently guiding them higher and slowly releasing), making fists for a few seconds, opening your mouth wide for a moment or two, or slowly nodding your head yes and shaking it no. These are places where tension is commonly carried, and such movements introduce a complementary response of relaxation. Just before closing my eyes, I often scrunch up my face—pursing the lips and drawing the muscles of the face toward the nose—for a few seconds. This not only helps the facial muscles to relax, but brings a childlike sensibility into the moment.

  Your Breath in Meditation

  Have you seen the deep, natural rise and fall of a baby’s belly when he or she is breathing? We begin to lose that at around age two. Early on in life, we learn to constrict and control our breath if we feel unsafe. It’s part of our defense system. It’s also a way to shut down uncomfortable emotions.

  The breath is sometimes seen as the gateway between mind and body. As such, it deserves special attention. Relaxing the breath allows feelings to arise and flow. An essential part of the holding environment in meditation is to reawaken the baby’s deeply relaxing style of breathing.

  Intentionally relaxing or manipulating the breath was, and still is, generally considered to be the province of yoga and pranayama. The typical mindfulness instruction is “bring attention to the flow of sensations of the breath without controlling it in any way.” Because the breath has been conditioned to be constricted and shallow, that’s what I will notice if I follow this instruction. Since that doesn’t feel good, I am not going to want to do it for very long, or with interest. Big problem here. This is one of the initial core instructions, and following it is said to lead to important things. Not so in my experience.

  Ironically, in the core teaching on mindfulness of breathing, the Buddha himself recommends calming the breath. Somehow this has not found its way with conviction into many meditation instructions in the West.

  STEP 2: RELAXING THE BREATH

  When we tense a muscle group and then stop tensing, there is a spontaneous response of relaxation. This is the operating principle of progressive muscle relaxation, and it is the surest way to introduce relaxation of breath also. Here are three suggestions for bringing this quality of ease into the breathing process.

  HOLDING THE BREATH

  Close your eyes. Enjoy an attitude of curiosity about the following process. Take three deeper-than-usual breaths. Hold the third one until some tension begins to build, but not too much. Then allow the breath to flow out. Don’t push it out. Notice what happens as the breath begins to establish equilibrium.

  CONTROLLED DEEP BREATHING

  Holding the breath, even for a short time, is uncomfortable for some practitioners. Here is an alternative to the exercise above:

  1. Take a few long, even breaths, roughly an eight count in and an eight count out.

  2. Draw the breath all the way in, and push it all the way out.

  3. After five or six cycles, stop on the full inhale, and let the breath tumble out and begin to rebalance your breathing.

  TENSING ARMS WITH CONTROLLED DEEP BREATHING

  This exercise is for relaxing both body and breath very quickly. It is effective whenever restlessness or sluggishness is present.

  1. Stretch both arms out to the sides with the thumbs pointing up.

  2. Take long, even breaths, roughly an eight count in and an eight count out.

  3. Notice the tension begin to arise in the arms.

  4. Continue until the tension increases a bit.

  5. After the last full inhalation, quickly drop the arms, and allow the breath to tumble out.

  6. Notice the relaxation in both the body and breath.

  KEEPING THE BREATH RELAXED

  In the exercise that follows, when relaxation begins to arise, encourage the breath to stay relaxed. This does not mean making effort that might create tension. It is more like settling back and watching over the breath in a kindly manner. When tension begins to creep back in, begin to explore ways of encouraging the relaxed breath. Perhaps tightening the breath again for just a few seconds and then letting go can reintroduce that quality of ease.

  GUIDED RELAXATION USING IMAGERY

  Another way to invite relaxation involves the use of imagery. Below is the guided meditation I most frequently use with clients at the beginning of a session. The intention here is to orient in the direction of ease, not to achieve perfect relaxation. We want to avoid creating a pass/fail project in every aspect of meditation, including creating the holding environment. Remember: relax as much as you can, without judgment.

  1. Close the eyes, and imagine letting the weight of the body settle more deeply, giving in to the downward pull of gravity.

  2. Take two or three deeper-than-usual breaths. As you exhale, imagine tension and stress leaving the body, knots of tension melting as the energy moves down.

  3. Allow the breath to establish a smooth, easy rhythm as the body continues to relax and the energy moves down in your body—as if you were safely drifting beneath the surface waves of turbulent thoughts and feelings of your mind, to a quieter and deeper place.

  4. You are watching over this settling process in a kind, caring way, keeping the breath soft. You can look up at the surface and observe the thoughts and feelings above, but they do not disturb you.

  5. A
s you become more relaxed, you may begin to notice a pleasant, contented feeling begin to arise. Slowly this feeling begins to spread, to radiate throughout the body and mind, and you are watching over this and enjoying the good feeling. It feels as if you are light, floating, effortlessly beginning to rise once again, up and up. Soon you will come to the surface, bringing the relaxed and spacious feeling with you.

  6. As you approach the surface, let go of the imagery, sitting and breathing in this atmosphere of comfort and ease. Take a few more easy breaths before slowly opening your eyes.

  In practicing this method of relaxing, feel free to explore your own imagery to find what is most powerful for you. I find water imagery and the downward flow of energy to be particularly effective in evoking relaxation. Nature scenes involving mountain trails and meadows have been helpful to some of my clients. One person found it relaxing to be going down into the earth in an elevator; another imagines lying in warm sunlight, soaking in the healing rays.

  By watching the process as you do it, your attention stays engaged in a mindful posture. This prevents you from becoming lost in the imagery; being aware of what is happening as it is happening is a hallmark of mindfulness.

  The purpose of visualizing is to evoke a particular mind-body state—in this case, comfort and ease—as we create the holding environment for our meditation practice. As the feeling becomes stable we can gradually let go of the “training wheels” of imagery.

  The next element of the holding environment is playfulness. I was always delighted when creating an oceanside sandbox, building a castle with a moat, safe from the waves. Let’s get into a mindful sandbox together.

  QUESTIONS FOR CONSIDERATION

  Is it possible to get too relaxed?

  Yes, though this is not typical for Western meditators. More common is the tendency to make too much effort, followed by the counterbalance of getting sleepy. The mind gets tired of pushing, finds it uncomfortable, and tries to find release through drifting or dreaming. Mindful relaxation is an oxymoron in our culture and in our meditation. If we are mindful, this is generally occurring with effort. When we are “relaxed,” most commonly we are spaced out or distracted.