A Big Story

We can create stories from our thoughts. Now from what happened to S. this morning, being locked in the toilet, she could have created a big story. She had one hour to create a big story. She could have started by saying it is someone who doesn’t like my yoga who did this to me, and for one hour she could have been imagining who the person might be who did this to her. Then she might have thought: Maybe it is that person; the way that person looks at me, it seems that person doesn’t like me. It is possible that she did it. We are laughing, but this is exactly how we create our stories.

We can use our thoughts in a very destructive way in creating such stories. Most of our suffering comes from this kind of imagination, using thoughts to create stories. And what is unfortunate is that we take the stories as real. It is funny how we give reality to something unreal and then we become victims of the stories that we create ourselves. And with such a story S. could have had anger. Or she could have had fear. Or anxiety that whenever she goes to the toilet someone is going to lock the door on her! So in this way she could have had all these emotions: anger, fear, insecurity, perhaps sadness. Do you see how the story and these emotions are related? Do you realise how important it is for us to be aware and to understand the nature of thoughts?

Thought Creates Emotion

It is because of thoughts that we have suffering. From morning, from the time we wake up, to the time we go to sleep we have thoughts going through our mind continuously. So we should learn how to use our thoughts. We should learn to make discoveries about our thoughts. We should learn the important connection, relationship, between thoughts and emotions, because it is mostly a thought that creates an emotion. And when the emotion is there it is again the thought that makes it worse. Sometimes these negative thoughts can be a very strong habit with some people. I know meditators who have this strong habit to give themselves minuses, and they give minuses to others also. So one can create a hell where only minuses exist.

Unpleasant Emotions

I think we are all familiar with unpleasant emotions. There is no one who has not experienced them, including myself. It might be helpful to discover, to reflect and find out which unpleasant emotion really affects you most or bothers you most. So it might be sometimes helpful, useful, to work with that particular emotion or those emotions that bother you in everyday life.

When unpleasant emotions arise learn to be friendly to them. By hating them, by disliking them, we give them more power. And in hating and disliking them we might also be pushing them away, repressing them, which is also not very good because they can come up in the most unexpected situations. So here again is the importance of awareness, just to know them, just to feel them with awareness.

Another very important tool related to this is that we have to learn not to give these unpleasant emotions minuses. So if they arise please give yourself a big plus, because you are learning to work with them, so you deserve a big plus. If you can give them a plus and then make them the object of meditation, this can be a very powerful tool.

Another tool is learning about them, finding out about them, discovering about them as I have been emphasising. If you hate them and if you want to get rid of them, how can you learn about them? And if you are prepared to learn about them and if you are open to them, then you wait until they arise. What do you think will happen when you really wait for them to arise?

When you fear them and you don’t want them to come then they come. And if you are prepared for them, invite them, are open to them, they don’t come. So I hope you will really experience that.

Experience Joy

Let me say something very briefly about meditation of loving-kindness. Here I would say one important aspect of meditation of loving-kindness is that it helps us to experience joy.

In the Buddhist model of meditation, first we work with what are called the hindrances or the obstacles. We can see them as unpleasant emotions. Then the next stage is working with them using loving-kindness or even using focusing on breathing. Then we can sometimes experience jhanas or the absorptions when these hindrances or unpleasant emotions are absent. So these absorptions or jhanas can be seen as positive emotions. And the next stage of meditation is that when there is joy, to remember not to identify with the joy but see that also as changing, as impermanent, and realise that we don’t really own this positive state of mind. So this in simple terms is one way of understanding the Buddhist model of meditation.

There is Thinking

I would like to share with you a meditation technique that has been discovered in Burma. Here when you have thoughts you just note them, you just label them: “thinking” or “thoughts”. The technique is that you don’t get involved in the individual thoughts, what you are thinking, but just realise that there is thinking. So you note it and then come back to the breath. When you hear a sound, you don’t say it is an aeroplane or it is someone speaking but you just say “sounds”. And whatever you experience in the body, you just see it as a sensation. So you note it, label it as just “sensation” or “feeling” and come back to the breath.

More Suffering

The idea of Buddhist meditation is to free ourselves from suffering but sometimes the way we practise this technique creates more suffering. When we practise this simple way we can experience the absence of suffering right at that moment. So when thoughts come you don’t suffer, you just know it. When you hear sound you don’t suffer, you know that you hear it. When there is physical pain you don’t suffer, you just know that there is pain. When the mind is not calm you don’t suffer, but you realise that the mind is not calm. When you realise that you are not with the breath but somewhere else, you don’t suffer as a result of it, you realise that you have not had awareness, so you re-establish awareness and come back to the breath.

Just Know

When we practise awareness of breathing, we think that we should not have thoughts, that we should not have other sensations, that we should not hear sounds, so we try to exclude them and only be with the breath, and that can create lots of tension and lots of suffering. I would suggest instead that we do it in this way: just knowing, just having awareness of what is happening and then allowing calm to come naturally. You can never get it by force, you can never get it by trying. This is maybe why in the text it is said that when there is loving-kindness the mind becomes calm naturally. So rather than hating things, rather than fighting things, resisting things, controlling things, you just know what is happening, then let calm arise naturally.

Concentration

Awareness of the breath is a very simple technique – but somehow we manage to complicate it in many ways. And sometimes I think one problem might be with the word “concentration”. The word “concentration”, what does it mean, what is the picture that comes to your mind when the word “concentration” is used?

It’s interesting that you have to try very hard, so that effort is very much emphasised in that word, in it’s meaning. And maybe another meaning is ignoring and excluding things. So this is why by using the word concentration in this sense, the technique seems difficult.

But you must see what the technique really means: essentially the meaning is simply awareness in relation to the in-breath and the out-breath. So the whole emphasis is on just knowing what is happening. This is referred to in one of the texts which says that when we practise this technique, then we experience the four foundations of awareness or mindfulness. What it means is: you become aware of the body, you become aware of the sensations, you become aware of the thoughts, you become aware of the state of mind.

Focus

Try to use awareness to focus on one object at a time. The object can be the breathing when we are meditating. When we are eating, the object would be what we are eating. When we are walking and standing, the object is walking and standing. When we are in nature, we will use awareness to see some objects or hear things very sharply, with a very focused mind.

Drowsiness

Drowsiness can have different causes depending on the type of person. One is the quality of that person’s sleep in the night. Sometimes you might have slept for long hours but if the sleep is not deep and relaxing, during the day you can feel sleepy as a result.

Another reason for feeling drowsy in meditation is the quantity of food that you have eaten. Sometimes if you have eaten too much or too little it is also possible that you might feel drowsy.

Another reason which I have discovered while working with meditators is that sometimes they don’t want to see what is arising in meditation. So sometimes sleepiness can be used as an excuse not to look at unpleasant things that are arising. It’s an interesting reason. And sometimes when we feel relaxed while we are meditating, then also sleepiness comes.

So whatever the reasons are, one thing that can be attempted is to change the posture. This is one of the recommendations of the Buddha also. So if you are sitting, you can do some walking meditation, you can do some very quick walking meditation, or you can try to walk backwards. The idea is just to induce more energy using walking meditation.

Another thing that can be attempted, and this is where awareness is important, is to sharpen your awareness so that when signs of sleepiness are coming, you’ll be able to catch it and then do something about it, either open your eyes or stand up or start walking.

The third thing is that sometimes when your effort is too weak, you can feel sleepy. So then you can make more effort to sustain awareness, you can try a little harder.