In a Buddha there has never been
Anything that could be said to be there.
Just as a magician
Does not get caught up in his illusions
And therefore by his knowledge
Is not attached to magic forms,
So also the wise in Perfect Enlightenment
Know the three worlds to be like a magic show.
Liberation is merely the end of error.
~ Gampopa
(I saw this quote in the book Be Love Now by Ram Dass.)
If you’re interested in meditation and enlightenment/awakening, the book, I Am That, by Nisargadatta Maharaj, has this terrific conversation, which I have shortened slightly:
M: The Guru is concerned little with the person. His attention is on the inner watcher. It is the task of the watcher to understand and thereby eliminate the person.
Q: But the person does not want to be eliminated.
M: The person is merely the result of a misunderstanding. In reality, there is no such thing.
(later)
Q: When will this happen for me?
M: When you remove the obstacles.
Q: Which obstacles?
M: Desire for the false and fear of the true. You, the person, imagine that the Guru is interested in you as a person. Not at all. (He then clarifies what this means.)
I know that the idea of a “dream vacation” for most people is time at the beach or a beautiful place like Alaska, but once you get to a certain point in meditation, there’s nothing a person would rather do than meditate. So the dream vacation for a meditator is a peaceful, quiet place — both quiet surroundings, and not having to talk to anyone else — where they can meditate, practice yoga, make simple non-meat meals, and go for quiet walks.
Because I have lived in some sketchy places, and other places where people are constantly cutting the grass and running farm machinery, I’ll add that the location should be secure, and again quiet (or at least a place where you know that loud grass-cutting and outdoor activities happen at a certain time). At some point you need to learn to meditate with those issues, but on vacation, no thanks.
In my post on Ram Dass’s best books and other places, I use terms related to the work of Ram Dass, including terms on yoga, Hinduism, Maharaj-ji, Buddhism, meditation, mindfulness, mantras, and the different names of the man he called Maharaj-ji (aka, Maharaji, Neem Karoli Baba, Neeb Karori Baba).
To help understand that article, and the speeches, books, and other writings of Ram Dass, I have put together the following “Ram Dass glossary of terms.” Note that the definitions below come from internet research and the following books:
In The Bhagavad Gita, by Eknath Easwaran, he states in his glossary that these are Sanskrit terms. Wikipedia describes Sanskrit as, “a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages.”
Here’s the glossary of terms:
When I first started meditating in the 1990s, I often had a hard time getting into the proper meditative state when I sat down on the meditation cushion. My “monkey mind” would be jumping all over the place, and it would take me a long time to get it to settle down. Many times I couldn’t even get it to settle down before my 30-minute timer went off.
Because of that, and because I really wanted to become better at meditating, I began experimenting with different ways to get into the meditative state faster — as fast as possible.
As a result, this page is a summary of the best ways I know to help you get into a good meditation state when you take time to sit on the meditation cushion (or wherever else you sit). If you’re interested in getting into a deep state fast, these are the “best practices” I know, especially when you’re short on time.
I start off with several tips that I have labeled “All Day.” The intent of those tips is that you can use them all day to keep your mind in a great state all day. If you follow these tips, you’ll be in a great state even before you start with your formal meditation session.
After those initial tips, I get into other techniques that you can use just as you sit down on your cushion (or however else you meditate).
I just took a little time to share some old notes from my meditation practice about “The purpose of mindfulness.” Or, stated another way, instead of asking about the purposes of being mindful you might ask, “Why bother being mindful?”, or “What are the motivations for practicing mindfulness and meditation?”
In the following sections I describe the reasons/motivations for practicing both mindfulness and meditation.
I don’t know how many people know Ram Dass or have read his writings, but I updated the first motivation here based on his work, because if you really get into mindfulness and meditation, what he states is the end goal.
In general I try to avoid swearing these days, but sometimes you just need to get your point across. Meditate, let it go ... forgiveness is good for your heart, and good for your soul.*
* Forgiveness doesn’t mean you should be a carpet for others to walk on.
(Sorry, I don’t know the original source of this image.)
When I first started learning Zen I didn’t understand the quote shown in this image, and I truly was a carpet to walk on. Then I woke up and thought, “You need to run your business. You need to find the middle way between accepting ‘just this’ and what you need to do to be successful at work.”
It would have been helpful if I had seen this quote then, but the book, Making Zen Your Own, wasn’t available then.
“As a general principle, any positive state that you experience within the context of silent sitting practice (when you reach the state of samadhi), you must try to attain in the midst of ordinary life.”
~ Shinzen Young’s teacher
In my experience, some “judgy” people will make up their own opinion about you — about what you should do or shouldn’t do — when they don’t know all the facts. I use the word judgy, because if you’re a Christian, Jesus was very clear on this point:
“Judge not, that ye not be judged.”
To wit, sometimes you just have to let people be wrong about you. (From this tweet by TinyBuddha.)
For many years I struggled with how to combine two of my main interests, Zen and work. I had read that the Zen mind is the mind before thinking, so it seems like Zen and work must be totally unrelated, because you need your mind to work. And then over time I came to understand phrases like, when working, just work; in computer parlance, become single-threaded.
This article contains a collection of quotes that have been helpful to me in understanding the relationship between Zen and work. Please note that I don’t wrap each quote in double quotes, and I also try to attribute each quote to the correct author/speaker. If you’re interested in how to combine Zen and work, I hope you’ll find them helpful.
My meditation tip of the day: If you really, really, really can’t take time out to meditate, the best thing you can do is pay ruthless attention to the present moment during your daily activities. And the best way to do that is through mantras or noting practices.
“Noting Gone may lead to a spontaneous spirit of love and service (bodhicitta). As I’ve said, where sensory events go to is where sensory events arise from. Gone points to the source of your own consciousness ... so Noting Gone can lead to a spontaneous sense of oneness with — and commitment to — all beings.”
From the book, The Science of Enlightenment: How Meditation Works by Shinzen Young.
(I don’t remember where he stated it, but I also remember that Shinzen Young said that if he could only teach one meditation technique, it would be noting gone.)
These “metta meditation” instructions come from this story on LionsRoar.com.
FWIW, when I practice metta meditation I always start by thinking about the best dog ever. :)
“Meditation practice brings our neuroses to the surface rather than hiding them at the bottom of our minds. It enables us to related to our lives as something workable.”
~ Chogyam Trungpa
The CliffsNotes of my favorite meditation instruction for beginners is:
Sit as usual, and then approximately every 4 seconds say either “hear” or “calm,” depending on whether you hear thoughts in your mind, or not. Just keep doing this for as long as you meditate, whether that’s one minute, two minutes, five minutes, etc.
IMHO, it’s a terrific technique for people who are just getting started with meditation. I still use it a few times a year if I can’t calm down or something like that.
That comes from Core 1, Lesson 8 of the Brightmind app.
On a drive back to Colorado in 2017 I listened to Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. In the book, The Lady Chablis talked about how much the estrogen shots affected her, mentally and physically — her thoughts, such as who she was attracted to, as well as her physical attributes.
I’ve often thought about how our thoughts and behavior are affected by our hormones (estrogen, testosterone, etc.). That’s one reason I like meditation: The farther you get away from the physical body and chemically-influenced brain, the more you can figure out who you are.
“You can meditate while talking to someone, while washing the dishes, while driving. As your experience grows, you eventually come to a point where you are so present that there is a kind of merging of inside and outside. When that happens, ‘focus’ becomes more than an extremely interesting and pleasant experience; it becomes a transformative experience.”
“Eventually a delicious figure-ground reversal takes place. In the beginning, meditation is something that happens within your day. Eventually, the day becomes something that happens within your meditation.”
I haven’t decided yet if I like the book, Demystifying Awakening: A Buddhist Path of Realization, Embodiment, and Freedom, by Stephen Snyder, but one thing I do like is the concept of an “80/20 rule” that he learned about for when we are interacting with other people.
The idea is that even when you’re talking and interacting with other people, 80% of your concentration should still be on yourself and your inner processes, and 20% should be on who you are interacting with.
This is consistent with my own thoughts on the subject, and what Ram Dass said about Maharaji, that Maharaji could always be seen mouthing “Ram ... Ram ... Ram,” even when he was listening to others. Ram Dass himself also spoke of this in his own practice, and is almost always seen working a mala in public speeches.
“Bring your mind to one point and wait for grace.”
~ from one of my favorite Ram Dass books, Polishing the Mirror, this is something that Maharaji told Ram Dass
