This is another extremely useful definition of meditation, and one that is very appropriate for today's super busy ''post-modern'' lifestyles. One of the basic challenges that we face today is that there is always so much that we seem to need to do. Not only that, even when there is nothing in particular to do, because we have been programmed to just ''do things'' all the time, we just invent stuff to keep ourselves busy, as the process of simply sitting down and enjoying the present moment has become an alien and uncomfortable experience for us!
It is also a great definition in the sense that it helps us to see that meditation can include a very broad range of activities, as it is the state of mind that makes an activity meditation, not the particular activity itself. For example if you are sitting in formal meditation on your meditation seat, but your mind is wondering about all that you have to do after you get up, that is not meditation. However, if you fold clothes you do so with an awareness of what you are doing, and with an appreciation of who you are as a human being, then that is a form of meditation. As has been pointed out by someone wise, we are human BEINGS not human doings, and whenever we sense an appreciation of that beingness within us, and the beingness of the Planet and other living things around us, then we are naturally moving into a meditative state of mind.
Another way of putting this is that a state of beingness focuses on the QUALITY of our subjective experience, whereas doingness focuses on the QUANTITATIVE, objectively measurable nature of what we are doing. So, what meditation can give us is in terms of our daily life is a refocusing on the depth of quality of our experiences. Meditation offers a sense of appreciation that will give us back our life in the sense of helping us to find a sense of connectedness and depth that we have lost touch with due to an over emphasis on quantitative achievement in our life.
The now classic book ''Zen and the Art of Motorcyle Maintenance'' by Robert M Pirsig is in large part an exploration of how modern culture has gradually lost its sense of appreciation of the qualitative experience of life through its obsession with quantity, efficiency, getting things done and generally ticking boxes of all descriptions. To become a meditator is to decide that ticking boxes is no longer good enough for you, and you want to reclaim the quality of life that is rightfully yours, and can be found simply by deciding to appreciate what you have right now, and cultivate your beingness. Your beingness is the natural human spirit within you that, when you are in touch with it, nothing else is necessary to feel happy, fulfilled and complete in the here and now.
Meditation on becoming a Man or Woman of no rank.
From the above we can see that, in a sense no specific technique is needed to move into a state of being. It is simply a matter of choosing to slow things down a bit for a while, and really try to appreciate the experiences you are having at any given time in your day or life. However, certain meditation forms lend themselves particularly well to the development of a deep sense of beingness, and the meditation on the man or woman of no rank is one of these.
To become a man or woman of no rank simply means to consciously chose to put down all the labels that you normally attach to your sense of self, and just become a human being. You can do it in formal meditation, or you can just practice it as you are sitting in you office chair, walking in the park or wherever. If you are a company manager, married, father, physically strong, put down all these labels that you normally put on yourself and let them go. Feel yourself to be no better or worse than anyone else, their equal. Temporarily allow yourself to be free from all the concepts of yourself that normally surround you, let yourself be in the present moment here and now, and just appreciate whatever is there.
Try it now if you like, just for a minute or two!
To read the first in this series of articles on meditation definitions click HERE.
To read the next (5th) article click HERE.
© Toby Ouvry 2009 please do not reproduce without permission.
Friday, August 14, 2009
Monday, August 3, 2009
Meditation Definitions 3 – The Development of Awareness
In this third article looking at definitions of awareness I want to relate a four point structure that I used a couple of weeks ago when giving a talk on walking meditation. I'll give the four points first, and then I'll expand a little bit on each point:
1) Meditation is any activity that leads to the sustained stimulation of the awareness reflex.
2) Sustained awareness is what is meant by meditative concentration.
3) Meditative concentration leads to the wisdom of insight, which in turn offers the potential for authentic change and transformation.
4) This change and transformation may be willed and/or expected, or it may be unforeseen, spontaneous and not previously anticipated.
The first point above is that ''meditation is any activity that leads to the sustained stimulation of the awareness reflex.''
So, meditation can be any activity that stimulates your awareness. Awareness is a faculty that you use when, rather than being completely involved and identified with an aspect of your experience or identity, sensory, mental, emotional etc... you are instead detached enough to observe it in a reflective and considered manner. To give a simple example lets take a person who has become annoyed by the comments of a colleague at work. If that person lacks awareness he or she will very quickly find herself identifying with the feelings of irritation and reacting impulsively to the provocation, without reflecting effectively on what may be the best course of action to take. If the person has awareness in the situation, although he may still feel the anger, he will feel detached and reflective enough to consider how best to respond in a way that is going to represent both his own best interests, and the best interests of the group within which the situation is playing out. From this example we can see that what awareness gives us is the PRESENCE OF MIND to respond freely to any aspect of our being or situation, rather than just reacting blindly and non-reflectively because we are totally involved and identified with the ''mechanisms'' of what is happening.
ANY activity that stimulates our ability to reflect on our experience in an aware way is meditation. So, one of the first things that this definition of meditation will help you to do is to see that there may be several activities that you are doing in your life already that are meditation! If you regularly go for a walk in the evening and watch the sunset or moon rise, and this helps you to step back from your life, process difficult emotions and reach a point of inner stability and peace, then that walk functions as a form of meditation. This definition of meditation allows you to look at the meditative activities that you are already doing, and to place them in a context where you can appreciate and grow these activities so as to facilitate the development of your overall meditative awareness.
The next thing that this definition tells you is that whether an activity can be considered meditative or not depends upon the QUALITY with which you are doing it, rather than the nature of the activity in itself. Any activity that helps you to develop your awareness can be considered a form of meditation. There are certain formal methods that different schools of meditation teach, but these are techniques of meditation, rather than being meditation in and of themselves.
The second point above is that ''sustained awareness is what is meant by meditative concentration''.
This points out the difference between meditative concentration and ordinary mental concentration. Our day to day mental concentration allows us to focus on one thing at a time without getting distracted, which in turn enables us to be effective in accomplishing things in our lives. Many meditation techniques also include this initial form of mental focus (for example learning to meditate on the breathing without distraction, or to focus on a feeling of love to the exclusion of other emotions). However, all of these techniques are merely DEVICES that are designed to lead the meditator to an experience of sustained self awareness that takes in the WHOLE of your experience in the present moment, rather than just one singles aspect of it. To give an analogy, if you are staring at a landscape, mental focus is like examining very closely one blade of grass or one tree to the exclusion of all other aspects of the landscape. Meditative awareness is aware of the whole landscape, and sustained awareness provides a context within which our perception of the landscape is experienced.
Moving onto point three: ''meditative concentration leads to the wisdom of insight, which in turn offers the potential for authentic change and transformation''.
This third point indicates that one of the main purposes of meditative awareness, and the process of mediation in general is to help us to see clearly what is going on in our life and in our consciousness, and to effect change in a way that is conscious and considered. I would say that the process of meditation is catalytic, that is to say that when we start to meditate, it tends to encourage different levels of our experience to come more fully into focus, and place us in a situation whereby if we do NOT change, things can become a little challenging! Meditation provides a space whereby our consciousness can start to HEAL ITSELF, and when it does this, what we see or experience may not always be pretty, or fun. In the long term however we can be confident that it will always be taking us in a direction that leads to an experience of greater holism, integrity, happiness and harmony.
This brings us to the fourth aspect of the original statement: ''This change and transformation may be willed and/or expected, or it may be unforeseen, spontaneous and not previously anticipated''.
This final point indicates to is that meditative awareness acts as a forum or environment where change and transformation can take place within our subjective experience of ourself and the world that we interact with. Sometimes this change may have been something that we may have been consciously working towards and using our willpower to bring about. At other times the change that we find ourself undergoing may be entirely unforeseen, taking us well beyond the paradigms or models of consciousness that we may have previously had as our points of reference. Our present awareness is generally very limited, and so it is quite natural that as our awareness expands we should find ourselves moving into inner territory that we could not have predicted. In this sense every time we sit down to meditate there should be a sense of adventure and a willingness for our previous sense of limitations and impediments to be shifting according to what we may experience in the sitting session. Ideally meditation should be both a space where we are able to rest, relax and recuperate/regenerate, whilst AT THE SAME time move into an entirely creative and spontaneous space where anything may become possible.
An example of an awareness exercise:
The below meditation is a simple breathing exercise that I use in the Trans personal Coaching Program to help students to develop awareness of their relationship to their physical body. It helps the mediator to see their current relationship to their body AS IT IS, and also encourages them to consider new ways in which they can establish a positive relationship to their experience and awareness of their body. Once you are familiar with it, you can make up your own ''poem'' that integrates all of the essential aspects of awareness that you wish to develop with regards to your body.
Poem of Care for the Physical Body
Breathing in I am aware of my physical body,
Breathing out I calm and care for my physical body,
Breathing in I am thankful to my physical body,
Breathing out I feed my physical body love and gratitude,
Breathing in I am aware of psychological tensions I hold within my physical body,
Breathing out I release this tension,
Breathing in I am aware of the still point within my physical body,
Breathing out I move deeper into that still point,
Breathing in I see and experience my physical body in perfect radiant health,
Breathing out I see and feel that health in every cell and atom of my physical body,
Breathing in I align my physical body with my other bodies,
Breathing out I feel all my bodies as one, balanced and aligned,
Breathing in I feel energy flowing into my body from above and below,
Breathing out I feel that energy expanding and increasing.
Breathing in I feel at home in my physical body,
Breathing out I rest within that homely space.
To read the first in this series of articles on meditation definitions click HERE.
To read the next (4th) in this series of articles click HERE.
© Toby Ouvry 2009 Please do not reproduce without permission.
1) Meditation is any activity that leads to the sustained stimulation of the awareness reflex.
2) Sustained awareness is what is meant by meditative concentration.
3) Meditative concentration leads to the wisdom of insight, which in turn offers the potential for authentic change and transformation.
4) This change and transformation may be willed and/or expected, or it may be unforeseen, spontaneous and not previously anticipated.
The first point above is that ''meditation is any activity that leads to the sustained stimulation of the awareness reflex.''
So, meditation can be any activity that stimulates your awareness. Awareness is a faculty that you use when, rather than being completely involved and identified with an aspect of your experience or identity, sensory, mental, emotional etc... you are instead detached enough to observe it in a reflective and considered manner. To give a simple example lets take a person who has become annoyed by the comments of a colleague at work. If that person lacks awareness he or she will very quickly find herself identifying with the feelings of irritation and reacting impulsively to the provocation, without reflecting effectively on what may be the best course of action to take. If the person has awareness in the situation, although he may still feel the anger, he will feel detached and reflective enough to consider how best to respond in a way that is going to represent both his own best interests, and the best interests of the group within which the situation is playing out. From this example we can see that what awareness gives us is the PRESENCE OF MIND to respond freely to any aspect of our being or situation, rather than just reacting blindly and non-reflectively because we are totally involved and identified with the ''mechanisms'' of what is happening.
ANY activity that stimulates our ability to reflect on our experience in an aware way is meditation. So, one of the first things that this definition of meditation will help you to do is to see that there may be several activities that you are doing in your life already that are meditation! If you regularly go for a walk in the evening and watch the sunset or moon rise, and this helps you to step back from your life, process difficult emotions and reach a point of inner stability and peace, then that walk functions as a form of meditation. This definition of meditation allows you to look at the meditative activities that you are already doing, and to place them in a context where you can appreciate and grow these activities so as to facilitate the development of your overall meditative awareness.
The next thing that this definition tells you is that whether an activity can be considered meditative or not depends upon the QUALITY with which you are doing it, rather than the nature of the activity in itself. Any activity that helps you to develop your awareness can be considered a form of meditation. There are certain formal methods that different schools of meditation teach, but these are techniques of meditation, rather than being meditation in and of themselves.
The second point above is that ''sustained awareness is what is meant by meditative concentration''.
This points out the difference between meditative concentration and ordinary mental concentration. Our day to day mental concentration allows us to focus on one thing at a time without getting distracted, which in turn enables us to be effective in accomplishing things in our lives. Many meditation techniques also include this initial form of mental focus (for example learning to meditate on the breathing without distraction, or to focus on a feeling of love to the exclusion of other emotions). However, all of these techniques are merely DEVICES that are designed to lead the meditator to an experience of sustained self awareness that takes in the WHOLE of your experience in the present moment, rather than just one singles aspect of it. To give an analogy, if you are staring at a landscape, mental focus is like examining very closely one blade of grass or one tree to the exclusion of all other aspects of the landscape. Meditative awareness is aware of the whole landscape, and sustained awareness provides a context within which our perception of the landscape is experienced.
Moving onto point three: ''meditative concentration leads to the wisdom of insight, which in turn offers the potential for authentic change and transformation''.
This third point indicates that one of the main purposes of meditative awareness, and the process of mediation in general is to help us to see clearly what is going on in our life and in our consciousness, and to effect change in a way that is conscious and considered. I would say that the process of meditation is catalytic, that is to say that when we start to meditate, it tends to encourage different levels of our experience to come more fully into focus, and place us in a situation whereby if we do NOT change, things can become a little challenging! Meditation provides a space whereby our consciousness can start to HEAL ITSELF, and when it does this, what we see or experience may not always be pretty, or fun. In the long term however we can be confident that it will always be taking us in a direction that leads to an experience of greater holism, integrity, happiness and harmony.
This brings us to the fourth aspect of the original statement: ''This change and transformation may be willed and/or expected, or it may be unforeseen, spontaneous and not previously anticipated''.
This final point indicates to is that meditative awareness acts as a forum or environment where change and transformation can take place within our subjective experience of ourself and the world that we interact with. Sometimes this change may have been something that we may have been consciously working towards and using our willpower to bring about. At other times the change that we find ourself undergoing may be entirely unforeseen, taking us well beyond the paradigms or models of consciousness that we may have previously had as our points of reference. Our present awareness is generally very limited, and so it is quite natural that as our awareness expands we should find ourselves moving into inner territory that we could not have predicted. In this sense every time we sit down to meditate there should be a sense of adventure and a willingness for our previous sense of limitations and impediments to be shifting according to what we may experience in the sitting session. Ideally meditation should be both a space where we are able to rest, relax and recuperate/regenerate, whilst AT THE SAME time move into an entirely creative and spontaneous space where anything may become possible.
An example of an awareness exercise:
The below meditation is a simple breathing exercise that I use in the Trans personal Coaching Program to help students to develop awareness of their relationship to their physical body. It helps the mediator to see their current relationship to their body AS IT IS, and also encourages them to consider new ways in which they can establish a positive relationship to their experience and awareness of their body. Once you are familiar with it, you can make up your own ''poem'' that integrates all of the essential aspects of awareness that you wish to develop with regards to your body.
Poem of Care for the Physical Body
Breathing in I am aware of my physical body,
Breathing out I calm and care for my physical body,
Breathing in I am thankful to my physical body,
Breathing out I feed my physical body love and gratitude,
Breathing in I am aware of psychological tensions I hold within my physical body,
Breathing out I release this tension,
Breathing in I am aware of the still point within my physical body,
Breathing out I move deeper into that still point,
Breathing in I see and experience my physical body in perfect radiant health,
Breathing out I see and feel that health in every cell and atom of my physical body,
Breathing in I align my physical body with my other bodies,
Breathing out I feel all my bodies as one, balanced and aligned,
Breathing in I feel energy flowing into my body from above and below,
Breathing out I feel that energy expanding and increasing.
Breathing in I feel at home in my physical body,
Breathing out I rest within that homely space.
To read the first in this series of articles on meditation definitions click HERE.
To read the next (4th) in this series of articles click HERE.
© Toby Ouvry 2009 Please do not reproduce without permission.
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