Most dictionaries define the Western (Jewish, Christian, Islamic) meaning of the word 'meditation,' but usually do not describe the Eastern (Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist) concept of meditation. The most appropriate dictionary definition I could find reads as follows. "If you meditate, you give your attention to one thing, and do not think about anything else, usually as a religious activity or as way of calming or relaxing your mind." This definition implies that meditation means thinking about something, be it religious or mystical in nature, and that a constant thought process goes on while one meditates. The purest Eastern definition of the word 'meditation' means not thinking at all, but rather focusing consciousness on the cosmic whole, "the all and the everything," as George Gurdjieff called it, without thought, judgment, or distraction.
We can define 'meditation' as the art of consciousness becoming aware of itself on the grand and cosmic scale. Meditation cannot be called a science as yet, because science requires objective testing with objectively proven methods and results. Meditation is on the road to becoming a real science, however, and not just an intuitive art veiled in mystery.Why meditate?
Meditation brings a sense of fullness and completion, and is the only permanent source of tranquility available to human beings. All other forms of serenity are temporary and dissolve into conflict and chaos over time. The euphoria of drugs quickly lead to misery and self-destruction. The wholesomeness of love, so beautiful and ethereal, is a relatively short lived and fleeting experience. As J. Krishnamurti said, meditation brings order and "That order is the order of the universe. It is irrevocable and doesn't depend on anything." Meditation is the eternal essence of nature taking on conscious form within the mortal human frame.
Meditation is an adventure of self-discovery. How can you live without knowing who or what you are? If someone asks you who you are during the day, you may state your name, as if a temporary label actually means something important. Ask yourself who you are when you are in deep sleep, unconscious, and without even a dream to prove that you exist at all. Ask yourself who you were ten months before you were born, and who you will be just one moment after your body dies. Meditation increases awareness of the natural phenomena that is actually going on behind your own eyes. Self-knowledge has intrinsic value, even without the indescribable bliss nature generously unleashes in those who practice meditation with sincerity and patience.
Sitting Meditation
Classic sitting meditation is a vital part of all meditation traditions and has taken many forms, some more effective than others. Some traditional approaches demand that the student sit motionless for hours on end, as if becoming a frozen human statue is the key to enlightenment. A more scientific approach does not make the human body our enemy, but rather works with our natural physiology to allow more intense meditation with less effort and discomfort. Masochism is not an effective path to self-realization.
Begin by finding a relatively quiet place to meditate where you will not be disturbed. All forms of classic sitting meditation should be done in silence, with no background music. You can sit cross legged Asian style on a meditation pillow on the floor, or use the Recliner Chair Method described below. Eyes may be fully open, half open, or slightly open, letting in just two small slits of light. Meditating with eyes fully closed is fine as long as the room remains brightly lit, so that enough light passes through the eyelids to keep your brain alert. I use a powerful 500 watt halogen torchiere lamp to illuminate my meditation room, and this lamp projects a pleasing yellow-orange glow on my closed eyelids.
Meditating in a darkened room presents fundamental physiological problems. When you sit quietly with your eyes closed in darkness, your brain interprets this situation as a signal to start shutting itself down for sleep. Sleep inducing hormones such as melatonin are released at the same time your heart rate and circulation are reduced due to lack of movement. You feel swept away on a sea of quiet relaxation. This pleasant experience may be light sleep state hypnosis, not meditation at all, and thus does you little more good than taking a nap. Meditation means that you are relaxed as if sleeping, but your consciousness is fully and intensely awake. Therefore, if you meditate with your eyes closed, the room must remain brightly lit, so that a significant amount of light passes through the eyelids.
The Sit-Stand Method
Another defense against sleepiness is to break up your formal meditation into three fifteen minute sessions that are easy for your body to tolerate. Sit in quiet meditation for fifteen minutes. Then stand for two minutes. Then sit for another fifteen minutes. Then stand for two minutes. Then sit for a final fifteen minute session. This forty-nine minute technique can be done once, twice, or three times a day for intense practice. You can time yourself by making a tape recording with the sound of a bell or a gong to let you known when to stand up, sit down, and begin and end meditation sessions.
The sit-stand method largely eliminates the problem of cramps, soreness, and numbness in legs often experienced by students attempting to sit for longer periods of time than the body was naturally made to sit. The standing breaks increase blood circulation which helps wakefulness. Comfort is maintained and we avoid the light sleep state hypnosis problem mentioned earlier.
The transitions between sitting and standing in this method are an opportunity to practice meditation in action. Normally, unless we are physically ill, our waking lives are spent in motion and activity. Meditation must not be thought of as something that is only done in a physically rigid state, far removed from the world of work and play. The goal is to become meditative continuously, so that your very being becomes cosmically conscious permanently and irrevocably. When you stand up and sit down during meditation sessions, feel the inner flow of meditation continue. Observe that your body is moving, but your basic existential identity remains the same.
The Recliner Chair Method
Sitting for long periods of time in the traditional Asian cross legged position is uncomfortable for most Western students of meditation. This physical discomfort, which does nothing in itself to aid meditation, can be entirely eliminated through the use of a recliner chair. The Recliner Chair Method is the most healthful method of sitting as it avoids blocking vital blood circulation in the legs, yet has 100% of the benefits of sitting on the floor in the full lotus position with back held rigidly straight.
Every living cell in your body produces energy, and when you increase blood flow to your legs you increase the amount of energy produced by your leg muscles. This is significant because during meditation sessions you become acutely aware that your entire physical energy output is one unified phenomena. Using this method, students who cannot comfortably sit for twenty minutes on the floor are often able to sit for one full hour or even longer without back pain, numbness, or leg cramps. I highly recommend the Recliner Chair Method as the first choice sitting method for all Western students of meditation.
Contrary to popular belief, sitting with the back held rigidly straight does nothing to aid meditation. The energy that rises up the back during meditation sessions is like water in a garden hose. If you gently bend a hose into a mild arch, the flow of water will not be affected in any perceptible way. With the Recliner Chair Method, the back is held fairly straight in relationship to itself, but rests at an off-angle in relationship to the floor rather than exactly perpendicular to the floor as in the full lotus position.
In addition to our solid physical body that has weight and form, human beings have a second body of energy created by the active energy content of the total human nervous system. The electric like energy of the second body is constantly being washed out through our hands and feet. This energy loss can be stopped by locking the hands and feet together, creating a closed loop of energy that builds up over time. This conserved energy is needed to strengthen the second energy body and push us higher into meditation. The Recliner Chair Method is more effective than the full lotus position in recycling second body energy, and is therefore the fastest acting and most powerful sitting method available.
With this method you sit in a recliner chair that is set to a medium reclined position. Shoes and socks should be removed for best results. If your feet get cold, drape a towel or light blanket over your feet to keep them warm. The bare soles of your feet should be pressed against each other and your legs relaxed, knees pointed out to the sides of the chair. Hands can be locked together, laying comfortably in your lap, or better yet, pressed against the center of your chest, one on top of the other over the center of your emotional heart. By using this technique, energy that is normally washed out through your hands is channeled directly into your heart center, which fortifies both your heart center and your hara (belly center) simultaneously, as all of your centers are connected. The exact internal wiring of your centers and their electrochemical relationships to corresponding nerve bundles in the brain are not currently understood. Fortunately, you do not have to scientifically understand the phenomena of internal psychic centers to enjoy their benefits.
The Recliner Chair Method can be used in conjunction with any of the sitting meditation techniques described on this web page, and usually eliminates the need for the sit-stand method mentioned earlier. On occasion, I have had such intense meditation sessions using this technique that I lost track of time and meditated for two hours straight without the slightest physical discomfort. At the end of the session I easily stood up, with no numbness, soreness, or physical discomfort of any kind.
What do you do while sitting?
The most basic approach to meditation is to relax, let go, and do nothing. Surrender to the moment and watch yourself as a silent witness. If thoughts come to mind, then observe the thoughts without adding to them by your active participation. Be a detached and passive observer and simply feel your most basic fundamental being. This inherently immense entity has been called "the ground of being."
The enlightened teacher J. Krishnamurti used the term "choiceless awareness" to describe his own meditation method. This means being conscious without the thought process choosing something smaller than your vast fundamental being to focus on. Consciousness is like a glass ball floating in the depth of space. Light and sensory input flows into the field of consciousness from all directions. When you think, you focus your attention on just one area of sensory input, or you create a thought from memory stored within the brain. With choiceless awareness, you are not thinking or remembering, just floating and letting sensory input flow through you from all directions without manipulating that input with the thought process. You live in the moment and become totally open. This openness attracts energy from all sides of the universe, which pushes you even higher.
Krishnamurti's choiceless awareness is the same "methodless method" that Zen monks call "mindfulness." Hindu yogis sometimes call it "one pointed vision." A more accurate term might be one object vision. This means that you observe yourself, the sky, the trees, and the entire universe as one object. You no longer see the world as a multitude of parts and disconnected events. Instead, you accurately perceive the observer and the observed as exactly the same thing, with no artificial wall of separation blocking the limits of consciousness. This singular entity becomes acutely aware of itself in all its vastness. The one cosmic being, as Krishnamurti said, is "beyond time" and is "untouched by thought." The revered sage Ramana Maharshi described it as "infinite" and "bigger than the human race."
Another useful method is to lend special awareness to the breathing process felt in the belly. Just behind and below your navel (belly button) lies the hara, which is felt as an ethereal ball of energy. The hara is a natural balancing point of your consciousness which can be thought of as the center of your being. Subjectively and poetically speaking, the hara is where man and universe meet. It is the gateway where we merge and become man-universe and universe-man. No one really knows what the hara actually is, but we can use it to our full advantage. Consciously developing a powerful hara center is the most important secret of meditation.
When your consciousness is centered in the hara instead of the head, your thinking process slows down and you can relax in the expanded world of being. Trying to stop distracting thoughts through will power alone leads to more thoughts and a self-defeating inner struggle. By transferring your center of awareness to the hara, thoughts gradually disappear on their own without inner conflict. That is why you see Buddha statues with a big belly. It is an esoteric message that the hara is the key to meditation.
Sit quietly and focus on your belly as it moves in and out as you breathe. Over time the hara point will become more noticeable as your meditation grows stronger. Sudden emergencies, such as near collisions on the highway, tend to activate the hara center. We often get a "gut reaction" from sudden danger. You can nourish the feeling of the hara by simply paying passive attention to it. This relaxed concentration is very close to doing nothing, yet it is still a subtle effort. Drinking herb tea or hot water before meditation sessions relaxes the gut and facilitates awareness of the hara. Overeating and consuming cold drinks tends to make hara awareness more difficult.
If you look deeply into the photograph you can sense his hara point. Energy from all corners of the universe is flooding into his powerful hara center. Observe the look of sublime contentment on his face. One can also concentrate on the heart center or the forehead center during formal meditation sessions. The forehead center may simply be the frontal lobes of the brain, which are known to become activated by meditation. I refuse to use the corny old "third eye" label. The hara, heart, and forehead center are all somehow connected, but I suggest you maintain healthy skepticism as to the old Asian explanations of exactly how they are connected. If you activate the heart or forehead center, the hara will automatically become energized.
The forehead center can be physically stimulated by gently rubbing the fingertips on the skull at a centerline spot just above the hairline. The forehead center internally feels like it is just behind the upper forehead, but I have found its most effective finger stimulation spot to be higher into the front of the hairline. If you use the full palm of the hand instead of just the fingertips, however, then placing the palm directly on the upper forehead seems to work best. This may vary from person to person as our skulls and exact brain locations are all a little different. I therefore suggest you experiment as you gain progress. Trying to stimulate the forehead center before you feel a great deal of inner energy is probably a waste of time. It is not the physical touch that does the work. It is the energy coming off the palm and fingers that reaches the target.
Sweeping House
This easy technique is designed to quickly sweep the clutter of thoughts from your mind. It is one of my favorite techniques, and I am continually amazed at how much it helps with so little effort. It can be used at the start of formal sitting meditation sessions, or you can continue repeating the method every ten minutes during the meditation session itself.
Begin by placing both hands behind your head. Rest your hands at the point where the neck and head meet. Then quickly sweep your hands over the top of your head. Imagine that your hands are gathering up all your thoughts as they move across the top of your skull. When your hands reach just below your forehead, use a flicking motion to throw your hands away from your face. Feel as if all of your thoughts are being swept out of your head and thrown out into empty space. Repeat this rapidly between ten and thirty times as needed. While accomplishing the sweeping motion, feel that your center of consciousness is dropping down from your head to your hara center in your belly. Rest in your hara center as you continue to meditate.
Sweeping House with a Kicker
A variation of the sweeping house technique is to add a breathing stage after the sweeping stage is complete. Place your right palm (reverse hands if you are lefthanded) on your upper forehead and place your left palm on the back of the right hand. Now take four to seven deep breaths through the nose and feel as if you are drawing the air all the way down to your belly. Fully exhale in a normal and relaxed fashion after each breath. This breathing technique is not the bastrika method used in traditional yoga. It is ordinary deep breathing done with intensity and fullness. After exhaling the last breath, sit motionless for a few moments with your hands still on your upper forehead. Cooperate with any upward flow of energy you may feel. This energetic method can be done every ten minutes during an hour long sitting meditation session to create a safe and effective kundalini technique.
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