Will Yoga & Meditation Really Change My Life? by Stephen Cope

Author:Stephen Cope
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Storey Publishing
Published: 2003-03-25T16:00:00+00:00

Q. What are your primary practices these days?

A. In 1983 I began studying Vipassana meditation. I’ve been a committed practitioner ever since. I’ve also been a longtime student of yoga. These two traditions — yoga and Buddhism — have an enormous amount in common, of course, and even today I continue to have teachers from both Hindu lineages and Buddhist lineages. The teachings of Patanjali and the Buddha are more similar, I think, than most people realize.

In any event, it’s been important for me to continue to study within both traditions, just as a number of teachers in the Buddhist world study with teachers from various Buddhist lineages. This ecumenical approach has been a fact of life throughout the history of Buddhism, and I deeply hope that it’s one of the things that continue in the West.

These days my primary practice is meditation. Almost every day I do a metta, or lovingkindness, practice that varies in length. I’ve probably not missed four days of metta in five years. I also do Vipassana almost every day. Then, depending on all sorts of things, I either do a formal hatha yoga practice or some other practice as many days in the week as I can. Mostly, though, I am concentrated on actually living the dharma. I try to make each moment of my life a moment of practice rather than have practice be something that I go off to do.

It’s interesting for me to look back on the way my metta practice evolved. I was a person who had natural ease with samadhi practice. I had wonderful bliss states with samadhi, so when I first encountered Vipassana and was asked to give up those delightful altered states, it was difficult.

Then another surrender was required. No sooner had I started opening to Vipassana — the practice of choiceless awareness where there is no one object but you open to whatever is arising — than my teacher introduced to me the idea of metta meditation. Another practice??!! I was very resistant, to say the least. I thought metta practice was sentimental. It seemed to be trying to promote a kind of happiness that sounded, well, artificial.

My first response was simply not to go into the hall when metta was being practiced. When metta started I would just leave. After a few days of getting more and more uncomfortable with myself over that, I thought, “Well, if I’m going to have such a strong negative opinion about this practice that is ‘breaking up the wonderful Vipassana work,’ at least I ought to go see what it is.”

It was a great moment when I said that. I went in and the experience of the metta practice was deep and rich. If you tell someone about metta practice, it can seem hokey, but the actual experience is really wonderful because you’re engaging the heart in basic relatedness to life.

In our modern time what’s rewarded in our society is not so much a relatedness to life but a manipulation of life.

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