Unlearning Meditation by Jason Siff

Author:Jason Siff [Siff, Jason]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780834823143
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

13

Effortless Calm

The process of getting into a calm state is fairly straightforward. It happens in meditation practice through watching the breath, using a mantra, or following a guided meditation. If you do any of these practices, your mind will eventually calm down and the disturbing, distracting thoughts will go away. What is there to unlearn here?

I didn’t consider that there was anything to unlearn about calm states until I began questioning the whole notion of applying effort to become calm. When I was most agitated, anxious, or restless and I needed my mind to settle down, the effort to bring my attention to my breath would tend to have a frantic, pressured, and even desperate quality. It then came to me that the mind that was agitated was the same mind that was applying effort, so no wonder my attempts to hold awareness of the breath were forced and aggressive. That is how I act when agitated. I get impatient, and when I do something, I do it aggressively, not slowly or calmly as I would when more settled.

It’s paradoxical to act slowly, calmly, and kindly when you’re feeling restless, anxious, and impatient. For most people beginning meditation, a guided meditation that plants the ideas of “letting go of thoughts,” “sinking into the body,” “moving with the flow of the breath,” relayed in a gentle, soothing voice seems to be the most direct way of cutting through the tension at the outset of a meditation sitting. Getting calm on your own by a bare, silent noticing of the breath may not be as easy as being led to the breath by a relaxed and reliable guide, though you may at times be your own guide, speaking to yourself in a way that helps you relax into the breath. Following the breath can in itself be quite relaxing, even hypnotic.

Many of the meditation practices people do for the purpose of calming the mind bear such a close resemblance to hypnosis that I wonder what the actual differences are. Certainly, a guided meditation meant to induce a trance state is not all that different from a verbal hypnotic induction, except for the fact that it lacks posthypnotic suggestions, but what about being aware of the breath at the nostrils or abdomen? Is that a hypnotic way of inducing a calm state?

The answer depends on the technique you use, how you use it, and what you experience.

Counting breaths, or noting them using labels like “breathing in” and “breathing out,” is akin to hypnosis. You are adding words to the experience of breathing, often turning the breathing into something regular and rhythmic. You are also following the words just as much as you’re following the breath, which fills and draws your attention more than just staying with the breath without using words or numbers. If you do this enough, you find your mind gets habituated to this procedure of calming. And generally, the calm state you experience is much the same each time. This

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.