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Reference: A Scientific Approach to Meditation

As stated earlier, the first step in meditation is to stop interfering with the mind so that all turmoil may settle down into a quiet state. It is like stop stirring the water to let the mud settle down. This is an interesting step to carry out because it is amazingly difficult to not do anything that interferes with the mind.

When you sit down to meditate you become acutely aware of the turmoil going on in the mind. Some may not acknowledge it but confusion about something is always there. There is nothing to distract you from it unless you flat out deny it. In meditation, you are not supposed to avoid, resist, deny or suppress. You have to face that confusion head on. How do you face it?

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Breathing

To handle any confusion you first need a stable datum. That stable datum used in meditation is breathing.

You start by observing your breathing while also being aware of all the commotion going on in the mind. Breathing should be used as a stabilizing factor rather than a distraction. If attention gets lost during meditation, then you simply bring it back to your breathing and continue to observe the mind without interfering. The idea is to BE there and not do anything else but BE there. Breathing should stay natural during this process.

Breathing acts as a stabilizing point as you face the commotion in the mind.

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Reactions

As you stay aware of the confusion in the mind from the stable point of breathing, the commotion starts to settle down. But this settling down process is full of reactions, such as, tiredness, boredom, drowsiness, etc. How do you handle these reactions?

For example, suppose you start to feel drowsy. If you fight it then you’ll be interfering with the mind and stirring it up. All you can do is let that condition pass and run itself out. The body may fall asleep, but it would eventually wake up. You simply experience the whole cycle of falling asleep and waking up. Once this reaction is out of system, you will feel more alert than when you started the meditation.

To fully perceive drowsiness, you must experience it without resisting.

Some may feel that if you fall asleep you are not meditating. Well, at the first step of meditation you are settling the mind down. The real meditation starts on the second step (see Introduction to Meditation).

Part of settling the mind is running out all reactions. You do this by fully perceiving and experiencing the reactions without avoiding, resisting, denying or suppressing them.

Fully perceive and experience all reactions in meditation without interfering with them.

This is mindfulness in meditation. It applies to all reactions and not just to sleep.

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Mental Chatter

When your mind is chattering away, it is trying to put some information together. It cannot, however, do so because it is missing a part of that information. This information is, most likely, suppressed being painful, and the mind is not stable enough to face it.

But, as the mind runs out the various reactions, as described in the previous section, it settles down and becomes more stable. It feels strong enough to let the painful information emerge out in the open.  This is the past suppression unwinding at last. This is nearing the end of the first stage of meditation.

As the mind unwinds and lets the past suppressed painful information through, the mental chatter also subsides.

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Summary

Meditation is the subject of confronting the painful contents of one’s mind and facing all confusions. Many good pointers on this subject may be found in the writings of Hubbard.

Hubbard based his philosophy of Scientology on Buddhism. He says ¹.

Amazing reactions occur when conscious effort is made to do this. Dullness, perception trouble, fogginess, sleep and even pains, emotions and convulsions can occur when one knowingly sets out to BE THERE AND COMFORTABLY PERCEIVE with the various parts of a subject.

These reactions discharge and vanish as one perseveres (continues) and at last, sometimes soon, sometimes after a long while, one can be there and perceive the component.

A reaction, when confronted patiently, discharges and vanishes.

Hubbard goes on to warn in the same bulletin ¹:

People have mental tricks they use to get around actual confronting—to be disinterested, to realize it’s not important, to be sort of half dead, etc.—but these discharge (run out) as well eventually and at last they can just be there and comfortably perceive.

We see this in people, who are running away from life, instead of living it. The same mindset shows up in meditation.

The solution is to practice mindfulness both in meditation and in life.

It is just letting the mud settle down. You may practice mindfulness even between the meditation sessions.

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¹HCO Bulletin of 2 June 1971, Issue I, CONFRONTING

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Buddha achieved enlightenment in a very short time once he started to practice mindfulness meditation.

The words the Buddha uttered involuntarily at this time are recorded variously in the Buddhist scriptures. According to the Kegon sutra, at the moment of enlightenment he spontaneously cried out ¹: 

“Wonder of wonders! Intrinsically all living beings are Buddhas, endowed with wisdom and virtue, but because men’s minds have become inverted through delusive thinking they fail to perceive this.”

The original word for enlightened is Bodhi, which means “awakened”. Zen Buddhism uses the word satori ² to describe Buddha’s enlightenment as 

“Self-realization, opening the Mind’s eye, awakening to one’s True-nature and hence of the nature of all existence.” 

This provides a scientific definition of enlightenment as follows.

Enlightenment is the realization of the laws underlying our spiritual nature.

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The Spiritual Nature

Oxford dictionaries, however, define enlightenment as “The action or state of attaining or having attained spiritual knowledge or insight, in particular (in Buddhism) that awareness which frees a person from the cycle of rebirth.” This definition imparts a sense of mystery.

Enlightenment is not some vague spiritual awareness of one’s identity linked to some mysterious cycle of rebirth. Instead, enlightenment is the understanding of the laws that underlie our spiritual nature. These laws determine wisdom and virtue. They also explain how our minds become inverted and deluded.

A human being, whether clever or stupid, male or female, ugly or beautiful, is capable of being awakened to the laws of spiritual nature. There is no perfection other than this state of being awakened. This is the enlightenment that Buddha sought and attained. 

Therefore, you meditate until you directly perceive the laws underlying your spiritual nature.

When you practice meditation its immediate effect is to reduce the turbulence in your mind so you can become more aware. The following chapters guide you step by step on the path to enlightenment through mindfulness meditation.

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¹ Three Pillars of Zen, by Philip Kapleau, See Yasutani-Roshi’s Introductory Lecture 1.

² Ibid., Chapter X, Definition of satori

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Reference: A Scientific Approach to Meditation

I recently accompanied my wife to a Yoga center in Ocala, Florida, where I chanced upon a book, The Surrender Experiment, by Michael A. Singer. This book is about the author’s journey into life’s perfection through the practice of meditation. He desperately wanted to get rid of the voice that chatted incessantly inside his head.

I was fascinated by how this author was able to establish himself into deep meditation quickly and comfortably. He had no teacher. He had only the book, Three Pillars of Zen, by Philip Kapleau to guide him. This book answered his real questions, like “Who am I that watches that voice talk?” It guided him simply to sit down in a quiet spot, watch his breath go in and out, and mentally repeat the sound Mu with his focus centered below his belly button. This simple formula worked like a charm.

This surprised me because not many people get such results so quickly in meditation. Even the book, Three Pillars of Zen, describes the practice of meditation in monasteries to be arduous, and monks taking years to reach enlightenment. An instance of a person making rapid progress through meditation is unheard of. I was curious to know about the example that Buddha set.

Buddha left home in search of self-realization when he was twenty-nine. By the time he attained enlightenment he was thirty-five. It may seem that it took him six years to attain enlightenment, but Buddha spent most of those years practicing asceticism, which almost killed him. Once Buddha realized the middle way of mindfulness (seeing things as they are), he abandoned asceticism. It was then a matter of months before he attained enlightenment.

This book is written on the premise that when meditation is practiced correctly, it takes months, and not years, to reach enlightenment.

This book therefore focuses first on defining the terms meditation and enlightenment so they are understood correctly. Second, it provides a number of simple exercises that guide one smoothly through the gradients of meditation.

Many of us have dreamed of a grass-root movement of spiritual awakening spreading throughout the world like wild fire. May this book provide the spark, which makes this dream become a reality.

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