Korpo

After a long pause I've decided to return to a practice of meditation. I've been dedicating time to explore my body sensations every day, but I did not follow any guideline or sat for it. But just recently I felt drawn to the Vipassana tradition again, so to clarify what to do I got myself a book describing Goenka's method - "The Art of Living" by William Hart - and started out.

The recommendation is to build concentration first by watching the breath at the nostrils. My first attempt was not much of a success, though. I didn't know how long I had practiced, I was agitated, uncomfortable and full of resistance.

Not only read I more of the book since then, I also looked at what went wrong. To ease the tension of "How much longer?" that so easily pops up in the mind I set a timer, and I set it to a reasonably short time. 10 minutes. This is not what my meditation time used to be, but it seems quite doable, and even my mind submits much more readily to it.

I was quite surprised by the difference - instead of being agitated by how much longer it would take I would get agitated that my timer would fire and end the session when it had turned out much more relaxing and doable. It wasn't much. I simply reset the timer again and went back.

When distractions popped up I took a page out of the book and named them. Mostly tension, contraction, discomfort. But even once fear. As my mind contemplated these reactions and found a name for them they became less distracting, though not all of them immediately. I recentered on the breath. I even once named a distraction music. That eased the business a lot because I did not have to come up with a fancy name for it.

What is emphasised in the book and what I strongly relate to is the reaction. How we react to whatever the mind comes in contact with determines how easily it will pass away. Charged reactions will increase resistance, habit and attachment. Neutral reactions will defuse them.

In this sense the many distractions and sensations popping up that were not my breath at the nostrils may have seemed many and too much. But my reaction to them wasn't too strong. I used to be upset about this stuff. Yes, I do have a busy mind and haven't done much to calm it lately, at least not in terms of practice. Yes, I do have a habit of inner storytelling. But it turned out to be no big deal.

Even in the little time I practiced I could feel my state of consciousness change. I sank into deeper darkness and came back to the breath. I saw some unexpected light and came back to the breath. I relaxed and breathed deeply. I got drawn into a small point. I got tensed up. I named it, I forgot the breath sensation, I returned, I found it changed, I accepted the change, I tried to find it again, even if subtler.

So I did and the time passed in no time. I had attempted concentration for 20 minutes and the resistance had been manageable. I left it with a feeling of "I can do this" and of small successes.

The change from the original session had been to set a clear goal and limit. Instead of going for 20 minutes outright I went for a rather manageable-seeming goal, and when I achieved it I found that I could do more and did so, but in much more relaxed way. As we train a muscle in sports it's better to do as much as feels doable instead of risking harm and injury by blindly persisting.

The mind may not be subject to such harm, but we can certainly tense ourselves up by replacing relaxation with willpower and pushing, habits which ultimately are not conducive when you try to step from concentration to meditation. The mind needs to be relaxed but alert. A tense mind is not relaxed and much less alert, it has much less space.

And space is the quality you look for when you want to observe. The more space, the more ability to observe. The more expectations, the more "It should be like this", the more pushing, and the less space there will be. So I hope I will be able to give my mind a break and train it more like I would a muscle - stopping when I feel strain or tension instead of persisting. Repeated relaxed and measured effort can build a stronger muscle - of the body and of the mind.