Five Practices to Change Your Mind
Basic Buddhist
meditation practices can transform the way you think and the way
you view the world. Here, five teachers offer introductory methods
for changing your mind—and your life.
Barry Magid, Gil Fronsdal,
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, Peter Doobinin and Judith Simmer-Brown
/tricycle
Leave yourself alone!
Zen teacher Barry Magid describes the practice of
just sitting.
Imagine sitting down in front of a mirror. Your face
automatically appears. There is no effort required; the mirror is
doing all the work. You can’t do it right or wrong. The Zen
Buddhist practice of “just sitting” is like that. When we sit, our
mind automatically begins to display itself to us. Our practice is
to observe and experience what appears moment after moment. Of
course, just as when we look in a real mirror, things don’t stay
that simple for long.
We notice how our faces or our bodies look in the
mirror, and we immediately have an emotional reaction and form
judgments about what we see. Rainer Maria Rilke wrote that Paul
Cezanne was capable of painting a self-portrait with utter
objectivity, of looking at his own face with no more reaction than
“a dog which sees itself in a mirror and thinks, 'Here is another
dog.’” For the rest of us, it’s not so easy to simply observe who
we are. Looking in the mirror, we are tempted to use it as a makeup
mirror to touch up the parts of our self-image we don’t
like.
Our minds are never what we want them to be. That’s
part of why we sit in the first place. We are uncomfortable with
ourselves as we are. The greatest dualism we face is the split
between who we are and who we think we ought to be. Sometimes that
gap fuels our aspiration to follow Buddhist teachings, sometimes it
simply fuels our self-hatred, and all too often we confuse these
two notions of self entirely.
Just sitting means sitting still with all of the
aspects of ourselves that we came to Buddhist practice in order to
avoid or change—our restlessness, our anxiety, our fear, our anger,
our wandering minds. Our practice is to just watch, to just feel.
We watch our minds. Minds think. There’s no problem with that;
minds just do what they do. Ordinarily we get caught up in the
content of our thoughts, but when we just sit, we observe ourselves
just thinking. Our body’s most basic activity is breathing: No
matter what else is going on, we are breathing. We sit and breathe,
and we feel the sensation of our breath in our bodies. Often there
is tension or even pain somewhere in our bodies as well. We sit and
feel that too and keep breathing. Whatever thoughts come, come.
Whatever feelings come, come. We are not sitting there to fight off
our thoughts or try to make ourselves stop thinking.
When we sit, we realize how unwilling we are to
leave anything about ourselves alone. We turn our lives into one
endless self-improvement project. All too often what we call
meditation or spirituality is simply incorporated into our
obsession with self-criticism and self-improvement. I’ve
encountered many students who have attempted to use meditation to
perform a spiritual lobotomy on themselves—trying to excise, once
and for all, their anger, their fear, their sexuality. We have to
sit with our resistance to feeling whole, to feeling all those
painful and messy parts of ourselves.
Just sitting means just that. That “just” endlessly
goes against the grain of our need to fix, transform, and improve
ourselves. The paradox of our practice is that the most effective
way of transformation is to leave ourselves alone. The more we let
everything be just what it is, the more we relax into an open,
attentive awareness of one moment after another. Just sitting
leaves everything just as it is.
May We All Be Happy...
Metta meditation
instruction from author and teacher Gil Fronsdal
May all beings be happy.
May they live in safety and joy.
All living beings,
Whether weak or strong,
Tall, stout, average, or short,
Seen or unseen, near or distant,
Born or to be born,
May they all be happy.
—From the Metta Sutta, Sutta Nipata I.8
Metta, or lovingkindness, is one of the most
important Buddhist practices. Simply stated, metta is the heartfelt
wish for the well-being of oneself and others. When describing
metta, the Buddha used the analogy of the care a mother gives her
only child. Lovingkindness is also understood as the innate
friendliness of an open heart. Its close connection to friendship
is reflected in its similarity to the Pali word for friend,
mitta. However, metta is more than conventional
friendship, for it includes being openhearted even toward one’s
enemies, developed from insight into our shared
humanity.
Metta practice is the cultivation of our capacity
for lovingkindness. It does not involve either positive thinking or
the imposition of an artificial positive attitude. There is no need
to feel loving or kind during metta practice. Rather, we meditate
on our good intentions, however weak or strong they may be, and
water the seeds of these intentions. When we water wholesome
intentions instead of expressing unwholesome ones, we develop those
wholesome tendencies within us. If these seeds are never watered,
they won’t grow. When watered by regular practice, they grow,
sometimes in unexpected fashions. We may find that lovingkindness
becomes the operating motivation in a situation that previously
triggered anger or fear.
To practice lovingkindness meditation, sit in a
comfortable and relaxed manner. Take two or three deep breaths with
slow, long, and complete exhalations. Let go of any concerns or
preoccupations. For a few minutes, feel or imagine the breath
moving through the center of your chest in the area of your
heart.
Metta is first practiced toward oneself, since we
often have difficulty loving others without first loving ourselves.
Sitting quietly, mentally repeat, slowly and steadily, the
following or similar phrases: May I be happy. May I be well.
May I be safe. May I be peaceful and at ease.
While you say these phrases, allow yourself to sink
into the intentions they express. Lovingkindness meditation
consists primarily of connecting to the intention of wishing
ourselves or others happiness. However, if feelings of warmth,
friendliness, or love arise in the body or mind, connect to them,
allowing them to grow as you repeat the phrases. As an aid to the
meditation, you might hold an image of yourself in your mind’s eye.
This helps reinforce the intentions expressed in the
phrases.
After a period of directing lovingkindness toward
yourself, bring to mind a friend or someone in your life who has
deeply cared for you. Then slowly repeat phrases of lovingkindness
toward them: May you be happy. May you be well. May you be
safe. May you be peaceful and at ease.
As you say these phrases, again sink into their
intention or heartfelt meaning. And again, if any feelings of
lovingkindness arise, connect the feelings with the phrases so that
the feelings may become stronger as you repeat the
words.
As you continue the meditation, you can bring to
mind other friends, neighbors, acquaintances, strangers, animals,
and finally people with whom you have difficulty. You can either
use the same phrases, repeating them again and again, or make up
phrases that better represent the lovingkindness you feel toward
these beings.
Sometimes during lovingkindness meditation,
seemingly opposite feelings such as anger, grief, or sadness may
arise. Take these to be signs that your heart is softening,
revealing what is held there. You can either shift to mindfulness
practice or you can—with whatever patience, acceptance, and
kindness you can muster for such feelings—direct lovingkindness
toward them. Above all, remember that there is no need to judge
yourself for having these feelings.
As you become familiar with lovingkindness practice
during meditation, you can also begin to use it in your daily life.
While in your car, or at work, or in public, privately practice
metta toward those around you. There can be a great delight in
establishing a heartfelt connection to everyone we encounter,
friends and strangers alike.
Wisdom Arising
Sri Lankan monk Bhante
Henepola Gunaratana on training the mind’s eye with Vipassana
meditation
Vipassana, or Insight meditation, is a way of
training the mind to see things in a very special way as they
happen. Seeing without using eyes is a special way of seeing. We
train the mind to use our innate wisdom without using words,
concepts, logic, or interpretation. In this training, concentration
and mindfulness are united. Then wisdom arises and disintegrates
what appears to be integrated. Our wisdom eye registers the
constant flux of events that is taking place in every moment in our
lives. Although this unbroken flux of events is what life is, one
cannot be fully aware of this truth without paying attention to
what is happening to one’s mind and body every waking moment. With
developed insight, our mind can be fully aware of the evolving,
processing, and dissolving of everything that happens to
us.
So we train the mind to see things as they happen,
neither before nor after. And we don’t cling to the past, the
future, or even to the present. We participate in what is happening
and at the same time observe it without clinging to the events of
the past, the future, or the present. We experience our ego or self
arising, dissolving, and evaporating without leaving a trace of it.
We see how our greed, anger, and ignorance vanish as we see the
reality in life. Mindfully we watch the body, feelings, sensations,
perceptions, and consciousness and experience their dynamic
nature.
Watching impartially opens the mind to realize that
there is no way that we can stop this flux even for a fraction of a
second. We experience the freshness of life. Every moment is a new
moment. Every breath is a fresh breath. Every tiny little thing is
living and dying every fraction of a second. There is no way that
we can see these momentary existences with our eyes. Only when the
mind is sharp and clear, without the clouds of craving, hatred, and
confusion can our mind be fully aware of this phenomenon. When we
don’t try to cling to these experiences, we experience great joy,
happiness, and peace. The moment we try to cling to any part of our
experience—however pleasant or peaceful—joy, peace, and happiness
disappear. The very purpose of Vipassana meditation is to liberate
the mind from psychic irritation and enjoy the peace and happiness
of liberation. Nevertheless, if we cling to peace or happiness,
that instant that very peace and happiness vanish. This is a very
delicate balance that we should maintain through the wisdom that
arises from Vipassana meditation.
Awakening, Step by Step
Insight Meditation
teacher Peter Doobinin introduces walking meditation.
Walking meditation is a practice through which we
develop concentration and mindfulness. We learn to cultivate
mindfulness of the body while the body is moving. We learn to be
awake. Walking meditation is a particularly important practice in
that it enables us to make the transition from sitting meditation
to being awake in our daily lives, in our work, and in our
relationships. In the end, that’s what it’s all about.
Walking meditation is a simple practice. You choose
a straight path—indoors or outdoors—roughly fifteen or twenty steps
long. You walk from one end of the path to the other, turn around,
and walk back. You continue in this fashion, walking back and
forth, focusing your attention on your feet. Your posture is
upright, alert, and relaxed. You can hold your hands at your sides,
or clasped in front or behind. Keep your eyes open, cast down, and
slightly ahead. You can experiment with your pace, perhaps walking
quite slowly or at a more regular speed, in an effort to find the
pace at which you’re most present. As you walk, direct your
attention to the sensations in the feet, to the bare experience of
walking. Try to feel one step at time. Be fully, wholeheartedly
aware of the physical sensations involved in taking each step. Feel
your foot as it lifts, moves through the air, places down against
the ground. In particular, pay attention to the touching down of
the foot, the sensations of contact, and pressure. Remember that
you’re feeling each step, you’re not thinking about the foot, or
visualizing it.
You’ll find, of course, that it isn’t always easy to
stay focused on the meditation object, the sensations in the feet.
The mind wanders, drifts. Your job is to notice when you’ve
strayed, when you’re lost in thought. Be aware that you’ve
wandered. And return gently to the physical sensations, the
lifting, moving, placing of the foot. Just keep bringing your
attention back.
As you walk, cultivate a sense of ease. There’s no
hurry to get anywhere, no destination to reach. You’re just
walking. This is a good instruction: just walk.
As you walk, as you let go of the desire to get
somewhere, you begin to sense the joy in simply walking, in being
in the present moment. You begin to comprehend the preciousness of
each step. It’s an extraordinarily precious experience to walk on
this earth.
You can start by practicing walking meditation for
ten minutes a day. Gradually, you can expand the amount of time you
spend on this formal walking meditation.
In addition to this kind of formal practice, you’ll
want to practice walking meditation in “real life” situations. You
can practice “informally” just about anywhere, walking along a city
sidewalk, down the aisle in the supermarket, or across the
backyard. As always, the objective is to pay attention. Pay
attention to your feet. Or pay attention to your whole body—the
felt experience of your body as it’s moving. In this informal
context, you’re aware, to some extent, of what’s going on around
you, but your focus is on your walking. Practicing in this way, you
begin to live more mindfully. This is when meditation practice
takes hold and assumes a new relevancy. Being awake is no longer
reserved for the times you spend in formal sitting meditation; it
is the way you live.
Hot and Heavy, Cool and Light
Naropa
University’s Judith Simmer-Brown on the Tibetan Buddhist practice
of tonglen
Tonglen, literally “giving and taking,” is a Tibetan
practice for cultivating compassion, the Mahayana path of the
bodhisattva. The great master Atisha brought Tibetans this practice
from India in the eleventh century. Tonglen reverses the pattern of
self-cherishing that is the knot of our personal suffering. Using
breathing as the basis, tonglen opens our hearts to those things we
would rather avoid and encourages us to share what we would rather
keep for ourselves. The practice shows that there are no real
boundaries between living beings—we are all
interdependent.
We begin tonglen by taking our seats in meditation
with good posture, very simply and naturally. We ask, why would we
want to do this practice? Fundamentally it is vast and choiceless.
We recognize that the purpose of our human life is huge, to grow
larger hearts and open minds, and we celebrate that we can do this
in this moment. We are ready for transformation. Glimpsing this
motivation begins the practice.
Then we become aware of our breathing, in and out,
and establish the flow of the practice. On the in-breath, we
breathe in thinking, “heavy, thick, hot,” and on the out-breath, we
breathe out thinking, “light, bright, cool.” At first it seems only
like words, but it is good to develop a literal sense of this. My
teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, suggested that we think of
ourselves as air conditioners. We breathe in the stale, smoky,
fetid air of the room around us, and we breathe out fresh, clean,
cool air. We gradually purify the room. When we breathe, we are
breathing with every pore of our bodies, in with “heavy, thick,
hot,” and out with “light, bright, cool.” Do this for roughly
one-third of the twenty-minute session, or until the texture is
established.
Next, we breathe with a continuing sense of the
texture we have established. But now we open our thoughts and
emotions to all of our personal material. It is good to start with
those who spontaneously arouse our compassion. Is there someone we
know who is sick or in emotional turmoil? We begin with that
person’s face before us and breathe in their heavy, thick, and hot
suffering, sharing with them our own light, bright, and cool
energy. Be quite tangible with the texture. Whatever suffering we
see in them, we breathe it in; whatever sanity and kindness we see
in ourselves, we breathe it out to them. When we are ready, extend
beyond our loved ones to more difficult people. Are there people we
see as threatening or as problematic in our lives? We allow their
faces to come to us and then breathe in their suffering and extend
to them our sanity and kindness. We are practicing embracing what
we would normally avoid, and sharing what we would normally hoard.
Do this part of the practice for seven to ten minutes.
We conclude the practice by extending it out beyond
our familiar world. One way to do this is to move geographically.
We begin in our immediate neighborhood, with the family next door
with the two babies, to the college student on the other side who
takes terrible care of her lawn, to the elderly woman across the
street who recently lost her husband. We move to those people we
encounter on our daily routines—our coworkers and our boss; the
grocery checker and stock boy; the employees at the cleaners, the
gas station, and the video store. Then we extend through our
community, to the hospital, the shelter, the jail, the nursing
home, including everyone suffering there. And we extend to our
state, region, country, and world, our minds going to the painful
situations there that are described in the newspaper—the wars,
famines, epidemics. We also include the CEOs, the political
leaders, and the people of privilege. We extend this practice until
the twenty-minute session is over. Then we conclude with a simple
session of meditation again.
Body as Path: The Buddha’s instructions on the practice of
mindfulness meditation
I have heard that on one occasion the Blessed One
was staying in the Kuru country. Now there is a town of the Kurus
called Kammasadhamma. There the Blessed One addressed the monks,
“Monks.”
“Lord,” the monks replied.
The Blessed One said this: “This is the direct path
for the purification of beings, for the overcoming of sorrow and
lamentation, for the disappearance of pain and distress, for the
attainment of the right method, and for the realization of
nirvana....
“There is the case where a monk remains focused on
the body in, and of itself—ardent, alert, and mindful—putting aside
greed and distress with reference to the world. He remains focused
on feelings...mind...mental qualities in and of themselves—ardent,
alert, and mindful—putting aside greed and distress with reference
to the world.
“And how does a monk remain focused on the body in
and of itself?
“There is the case where a monk—having gone to the
wilderness, to the shade of a tree, or to an empty building—sits
down, folding his legs crosswise, holding his body erect and
setting mindfulness to the fore. Always mindful, he breathes in;
mindful, he breathes out.
“Breathing in long, he discerns that he is breathing
in long; or breathing out long, he discerns that he is breathing
out long. Or breathing in short, he discerns that he is breathing
in short; or breathing out short, he discerns that he is breathing
out short. He trains himself to breathe in sensitive to the entire
body and to breathe out sensitive to the entire body. He trains
himself to breathe in calming bodily fabrication and to breathe out
calming bodily fabrication. Just as a skilled gymnast or his
apprentice, when making a long turn, discerns that he is making a
long turn, or when making a short turn discerns that he is making a
short turn; in the same way the monk, when breathing in long,
discerns that he is breathing in long; or breathing out short, he
discerns that he is breathing out short... He trains himself to
breathe in calming bodily fabrication, and to breathe out calming
bodily fabrication.
“In this way he remains focused internally on the
body in and of itself, or externally on the body in and of itself,
or both internally and externally on the body in and of itself. Or
he remains focused on the phenomenon of origination with regard to
the body, on the phenomenon of passing away with regard to the
body, or on the phenomenon of origination and passing away with
regard to the body. Or his mindfulness that 'There is a body’ is
maintained to the extent of knowledge and remembrance. And he
remains independent, unsustained by [not clinging to] anything in
the world. This is how a monk remains focused on the body in and of
itself.”
From the Satipatthana Sutta, translated by Thanissaro
Bhikkhu
Tanah Merah (001/002)