Meditation Amsterdam - Meditation Learnings and the Journey Ahead

Meditation Learnings and the Journey Ahead

Happy 2018 from Meditation Amsterdam!!

To start the year, I feel like writing a bit of a general piece about the things I learned from my meditation journey last year, what worked, what didn't and how to use that moving forward in the personal road ahead, as well as advise that I can offer to those who are embarking on their spiritual or self growth journey.

Maybe this post will be a bit messy but contrary to other posts in the blog, this is meant to serve not just for information but also for inspiration, which is much needed in what is usually a challenging path.

So without further ado here are some key lessons learned during the year, which I coincidentally reflected on today, when reviewing this little handwritten journal (yes I guess I keep a dear diary) in which I make notes of things I read about when they finally land in my head, or things I experience.

Lesson # 1:  Meditate as if your life depended on it, because it does

So I guess the first thing to address is "why bother with meditation?".  After all you'll be sacrificing time that could otherwise be spent watching your favorite Netflix series, scrolling around on Facebook, or following the latest ups and downs of your Bitcoin investments.  Why does this activity take precedence not only over your idle time but often over time you would spend actively doing something else?

The answer is that meditation is not an option, and it's not a hobby.  Some have actually stated that daily meditation will soon become accepted as fundamental an activity as brushing your teeth.

This is because meditation promotes a number of mental (and in turn physical) traits that have a direct impact on the quality of your life, and in its absence weeds grow.  What are some of these traits:

Focus and Centeredness:  
To the degree that you are focused and your mind is resting on a single activity, you perform it better, feel more at ease, and spend less energy.  A monkey mind burns a lot more energy and it is dissipated, scattered.

Think of meditation as a magnifying glass that turns the scattered light from the sun into a single point through which it can burn.  This is what your mind becomes when it's not jumping around.

Your ability to focus naturally makes you effective on the task at hand, it puts you in what's called a state of flow, where your entire mind is dedicated, literally single minded, as opposed to being divided and pulled in different directions.

Your frontal cortex grows strong, giving you actual power over the most amazing machine known in the universe, the human mind. You are finally the conductor.



Mindfulness and Presence:  
Your degree of mindfulness is expressed by how aware you remain in the present moment, including not only the input coming in via your 5 senses, but also the 6th sense of inner body sensations, as well as your thoughts, emotions and feelings.

Think of mindfulness as a grounding force that empowers you to decide how you want to use your mind, instead of having it take you wherever it wants.  Perhaps for the very first time, you'll be in control of your beliefs, thoughts, feelings and actions.  This is empowering beyond anything else.  There is nothing that cannot be achieved when this kind of self mastery is growing within you.

In the words of Bruce Lee you are awake and you are aware.  You detect useless though patterns and change them at will.  You catch yourself robotically reaching for the cigarettes/candy/alcohol/etc, and stop yourself not through will power, but through a growing strength that gives you the power to define your habits.


Integration:
Your general level of happiness and health will be determined by the degree to which your mind (consisting of your brain, and peripheral nervous system) is integrated, functioning as a coherent unit.

It is useful to think of the mind as an orchestra.  The brain is not a single organ but a collection of specialized parts, each competing for resources to carry out their task and priorities.  When these specialized musicians play to different tunes the outcome is very poor and puts you in a state of distress, illness and unhappiness.

Through meditation your mind grows into the state of Yoga, which means integration.  Your hemispheres connect more, your reptilian, limbic and cortex brains connect more, and the nerves in your body and organs connect stronger with your brain.

All this connectedness results in happiness and health.  Some have gone as far as defining integration of the mind as the key condition for health and meditation in its different modalities is the fundamental tool to achieve it.

A great reference for this point is the book MindSight by Dr. Daniel Siegel (http://www.drdansiegel.com/books/mindsight/):

Mindsight

Insight:
From all the benefits above, as you start to live more on your "higher Self", or away from your fight or flight mode of anger, fear and desire, a deep sense of fulfilment grows within and you begin to realize a sense of connectedness with all things around you.

You become happier, more open and more giving.  Less easily fazed, more aware and more forgiving of your own reactions and those of people around you.

Ultimately all the psychological and physical benefits of meditation are considered by the gurus to be just "nice byproducts" on your path to full self realization.

No other activity will provided you with lasting self generating happiness no matter how far you take it, and to the degree that it does (say painting, or a certain sport), it does so due to the meditative qualities which it creates in you. So while you can pursue hobbies, work or love, it is fundamental to understand that you can't find external fulfilment in them and that if done with this goal in mind, only disappointment and more of the same can follow.

This is not a dogmatic statement, I'm happy to be proven wrong but there's many spiritual gurus who's knowledge has now been fully confirmed by the leading neuroscientists, and there is a solid amount of consensus on this point.  

Meditation equals happiness and health.

Lesson # 2:  Become a student of the Self and the Method(s)

If you're reading this, especially if you've gone this far it means you've started to unpack yourself and you're in the road to growth.

This said, you're in the battle for your Self, and the obstacles are many.  

Your current peers and friends or even family may be against you, telling you how weird you've become or criticising your new interests because they fall outside of what they are comfortable with.

Societal rules are most definitely against you, paddling consumerism, cleverness instead of wisdom, immediate gratification and a race to the top.  All seductive paths which cannot be beaten through force of will.

You're also battling your own biology, millions of years of evolution that make us what a meme once called "monkeys who would be perfect if not for anxiety".  You're full of wants and aversions.

Then you have your upbringing, your current life circumstances and a host of factors.

So with all this force working against your Self realization, ignorance is the one thing you cannot afford, and it is also fully within your control to fix.

Whether you decide to teach yourself how to meditate, or go via spiritual or secular meditation lessons, your number one priority as you begin, is to become extremely well-versed in understanding meditation from a theoretical point of view.  Fail to ignore this step and your practice is unlikely to go very long, and if it does, it is not likely to deliver much in terms of results.

Remember, fitness is what you get when you practice good technique.

In order to get you started, hereby a few resources about meditation which I found to be very helpful in to become an expert in your self development.  I might do an in-depth review of these down the line.


The Science of Enlightenment by Shinzen Young:
https://www.amazon.com/Science-Enlightenment-Shinzen-Young/dp/1591792320

The Science of Enlightenment

This audiobook comes from a spiritual angle but it's very down to earth and does not contain much supernatural or esoteric talk.  Shinzen offers an extremely extensive (16 hours) explanation of the importance of meditation, what to expect and the ultimate goal that we're trying to achieve with it.

It also contains a few guided meditations between some of the chapters which could get you started if you've never done it before.  The book is so good it's gotten friends of mine to immediately start committing 60 to 90 minutes per day to meditation, so beware!


The Mind Illuminated by Culadasa:
http://themindilluminated.com/

The Mind Illuminated

Possibly one of the most thorough step-by-step guides on how to meditate written to date, and has the great advantage of being written by a western author who is not only an expert meditator and also a neuroscientist. 

Takes you step by step on what to do, what to expect, and is effectively a 10-stage manual on exactly what to do to become extremely good and not waste any time.  Also contains some excellent interludes between chapters explaining from simple to complex, how the mind system works and what we're trying to achieve at a neurological level.

As scientific and factual as the book is, it is at the same time full of kind and loving words and not dry or cold at all.


Meditation, the first and last freedom, by Osho:
https://www.amazon.com/Meditation-First-Last-Freedom-Osho/dp/0312336632

Meditation, The First and Last Freedom

Apart from containing some beautiful words on what meditation is about from the perspective of a "mystic", this book dispels the dangerous notion that the only way to meditate is to sit in silence with your eyes closed.

Instead it offers a great number of meditation methods with which you can experiment to find what works for you.  This includes dynamic dances, walking and even meditating on planes.  Osho understands that meditation is not an activity but a quality that develops in you, and that ultimately the activity becomes secondary.  Great book for widening your perspective and experimenting to find your flavour.


Meditation Steps Youtube Channel by Dada Sadananda:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAv4LHSCXRoegzvAbwbZGoA

This is a lovely guy who I believe is Russian and is a monk that has a 10 step explanation of how to meditate including posture, breath and many other aspects.  He also goes into other spiritual angles that you can listen to if interested.

I personally find it pleasant to listen to his explanation and he has a tone and demeanour that embodies what one can become as practice develops.


Finally, there is much to be learned about not only the methods of practicing meditation (standing, dancing, focus on breath vs body awareness, etc), but also the understanding that the word "meditation" is as specific as the word "sport".  There are many varieties or styles that can be practiced and each of them develops different traits in the individual.  Some are for awareness like Vipassana, and others are for loving kindness.  Each has their value in your development.

One book that explains the difference between these, with a highly scientific (as per the title) angle to them is a very recent book from 2017 by neuroscientists Goleman and Davidson, showing the most up to date and verifiable research we have.  These are literally the guys who somehow managed to get the most experienced monks (some with more than 50,000 hours of experience!!) to take EEGs and brain scans to show what the actual effects of meditation on the brain, validating what eastern gurus have said for a long time.

The Science of Meditation, Goleman & Davidson (https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/290654/the-science-of-meditation/):

The Science of Meditation

As you can see, I try personally to make the material I read a nice balance between metaphoric and inspirational from yogis and gurus, and also factual and scientific so that statements can always be brought back to pragmatic tasks and demonstrable benefits.  Meditation is a science and an art so the approach to studying it should reflect this in my opinion.

In conclusion, leave nothing to chance when it comes to educating yourself.  This is not being purely try-hard or outcome dependant, which are obstacles to enlightenment.  It is the "yan" part of the process while your actual meditation practice is the "yin".  In educating yourself via books, videos or a meditation teacher, you are setting the intention, putting in the effort so that your path is clear and well-informed.

Lesson # 3:  Put in the hours, no excuses, no delay

The sooner you realize this, the easier this is gonna go:  meditation is a lifelong and constant practice.  You can resist this, negotiate and try to weasel your way out of it but you'll only be delaying things and making it harder than it needs to be.

There is no quick fix, no magic pill, no occasional sitting around and hoping for things to change.  The reality of the spiritual path is that it is not for airheads, wimps or hippies.  It is the higher path and therefore requires more effort, more stamina, more determination than any other path.  So a high degree of realism and resolve is needed to succeed but the payoff is in proportion.

Some will be dismayed by this, that means they have not suffered enough and are fine staying stuck where they are.  That is OK, we each come to terms with personal development at our own pace.

Why is so much effort and raw hours needed for meditation to work?

The answer is that, like any other skill, mastery requires massive amounts of repetition.  Rome wasn't built in a day and what you are forging as explained in Lesson #1 is the steering wheel to the most powerful mechanism in the know universe: your own mind.  Surely you didn't thing this was easy!

You're building self mastery, and it has to be earned.

In the words of Alan Watts, the kind of power that comes from being able to control your mind is such that the universe will only convey it to someone who has developed the right character to wield it.  That character must be built. It must be earned and until we find a way to "download" enlightenment a la Matrix, you'll have to work for it.

So each day, you will take the most sophisticated chisel we know, and with it shape the raw stone of your self until the Self is revealed. Chipping away at old habits, useless thought patterns, lack of centeredness, superficial desires and other useless junk until you're left with a pristine precious stone.

You will also extend your meditation beyond the sessions themselves, and purposefully apply the attitude of returning the mind to awareness and focus every day throughout the day.  There is no point in meditating if you allow yourself to be completely scattered in all other moments of your life.

That would be like pouring water into a leaking bucket. Ultimately the idea is not to become great at sitting in meditation, but for the meditation states to become traits that cascade throughout your life.

In this constant practice, the theoretical learnings from Lesson #2will greatly help you in:

• Developing great motivation and intent to start and continue
• Having the right expectations to avoid disappointment
• Finding the method that works for you by experimenting
• Navigating common obstacles to practice and growth
• Creating an environment that keeps you engaged

Journey Ahead

As with every article, the invitation is really to embark in this most exciting and rewarding of journeys without delay.  To postpone the path of meditation is really a failure to understand what it is and to continue allowing distractions to prevail.

I won't make a big deal out of this point, other than to say personally the journey ahead simply contains much practice.  There is a danger in being a bookworm and novelty junky that you try to always find out the next best technique or benefit, where the bulk of the time does need to be spent in raw (but mindful, pun intended) practice.

However, this has now become such a habit and interesting and rewarding and challenging practice that I look forward to the silence.  And speaking of silence, I leave you with an Osho quote that always makes my voice crack and my hairs rise when I speak it out loud:

"... silence is a totally different phenomenon. It is utterly positive. It is existential, it is not empty. It overflows with a music that you have never heard before, with a fragrance that is unfamiliar to you, with a light that can only be seen by inner eyes. It is not something fictitious; it is a reality that is already present in everyone - we just never look in."



Wishing all a 2018 full of great experiences!!

Namaste
Pablo Bran
www.meditationamsterdam.com