I recently read Ruling Your World by Sakyong Mipham, and I judged it a bad book because it could only be understood by someone born and raised as a Buddhist in Tibet, despite its being written with English words. I was surprised a little later when my cognitive therapist -- yes, I need one, just as you suspected -- recommended that I read Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression. A New Approach to Preventing Relapse, by Zindel V. Segal, J. Mark G. Williams and John D. Teasdale. It was largely the same stuff, but this time written by English-speaking professional psychologists. Gone were all the symbols drawn from Tibetan culture. There was no windhorse and there were no "laws of karma". But the essential exercises of meditation were just the same.
So, being enthusiastic about preventing relapse, I gave it a shot. What's required is to sit still for a while, "focusing on the breath", i.e., paying attention to one's own breathing, while merely noting or "acknowledging" sensations, thoughts and feelings that occur. For the first few seconds, this is pretty easy: Air comes in. Air goes out. Air goes in. Air goes out. Why am I doing this? Doesn't it seem pretty silly for a grownup occidental to pay attention to his breath? What's really interesting is getting all the access switches on the 9th floor patched redundantly to the central distribution switch. But that's hard because ... Whoa! What am I doing? That's a thought, and it was sweeping me away from my focus on the breath. OK. I acknowledge it. Nice thought. We'll think about it later. For now, air goes in ....
Of course we can't help having thoughts creep in. It's how minds work. But after a little practice, we can catch the thoughts before they've taken us on a long side trip, and more importantly, we can notice the feelings that are associated with the thoughts. The thought, the feeling, the sensations and the breath are all part of the present moment, and that's where we're trying to learn to live. The theory is that focusing on the breath and living in the present moment will let us calmly and dispassionately recognize the negative feelings associated with some of our thoughts, so that we can stop them before we get swept along in a raging torrent of increasingly depressing thoughts.
What's wrong with this picture?
Wait. Don't answer. I'll tell you. The problem is that we can't focus on the breath and think at the same time. What we're thinking just is what we're focused on. There can only be one focus. We can meditate or we can think, but not both at once. For Buddhist monks, meditation can occupy the whole day, but as for the rest of us, we've got thinking to do.
And yet, ... it works! I've actually had the experience, while thinking about network switches, of noticing that I was getting anxious and upset by the feelings associated with my thoughts -- not while I was focusing on my breath and living in the present moment, but while I was wondering how much traffic a particular switch could handle. Having noticed my agitation, I was able to withdraw from the subject for a little while and take a minute to relax. That's exactly what's supposed to happen. The question is: How?
I think the answer is that meditation isn't really intended to focus on anything. On the contrary, it's intended to obliterate focus and allow the peripheral mental events -- the ones on which we don't focus -- to be noticed in their context. With a little practice, we begin to develop something akin to the peripheral vision that allows a gazelle to notice an odd movement in the tall grass even though she's focused on grazing; it's barely noticeable, but it's enough to shift her focus for a moment to make sure it's just the wind. Those of us who aren't monks can work at occupations that demand our sharply focused and undivided attention, but with our newly panoramic vision, we're primed to notice little things we aren't paying attention to, such as frustration, cheetahs, resentment or little bits of joy, any one of which might make a big difference to our day, depending whether we shift our gaze or not.
So when we "focus on the breath", what we really do is cross our mind's eyes so that they can't focus on anything at all, but are still sensitive to anything that passes. If we cross our eyes often enough, contrary to what our mothers said, our vision may improve.
Of course we can't help having thoughts creep in. It's how minds work. But after a little practice, we can catch the thoughts before they've taken us on a long side trip, and more importantly, we can notice the feelings that are associated with the thoughts. The thought, the feeling, the sensations and the breath are all part of the present moment, and that's where we're trying to learn to live. The theory is that focusing on the breath and living in the present moment will let us calmly and dispassionately recognize the negative feelings associated with some of our thoughts, so that we can stop them before we get swept along in a raging torrent of increasingly depressing thoughts.
What's wrong with this picture?
Wait. Don't answer. I'll tell you. The problem is that we can't focus on the breath and think at the same time. What we're thinking just is what we're focused on. There can only be one focus. We can meditate or we can think, but not both at once. For Buddhist monks, meditation can occupy the whole day, but as for the rest of us, we've got thinking to do.
And yet, ... it works! I've actually had the experience, while thinking about network switches, of noticing that I was getting anxious and upset by the feelings associated with my thoughts -- not while I was focusing on my breath and living in the present moment, but while I was wondering how much traffic a particular switch could handle. Having noticed my agitation, I was able to withdraw from the subject for a little while and take a minute to relax. That's exactly what's supposed to happen. The question is: How?
I think the answer is that meditation isn't really intended to focus on anything. On the contrary, it's intended to obliterate focus and allow the peripheral mental events -- the ones on which we don't focus -- to be noticed in their context. With a little practice, we begin to develop something akin to the peripheral vision that allows a gazelle to notice an odd movement in the tall grass even though she's focused on grazing; it's barely noticeable, but it's enough to shift her focus for a moment to make sure it's just the wind. Those of us who aren't monks can work at occupations that demand our sharply focused and undivided attention, but with our newly panoramic vision, we're primed to notice little things we aren't paying attention to, such as frustration, cheetahs, resentment or little bits of joy, any one of which might make a big difference to our day, depending whether we shift our gaze or not.
So when we "focus on the breath", what we really do is cross our mind's eyes so that they can't focus on anything at all, but are still sensitive to anything that passes. If we cross our eyes often enough, contrary to what our mothers said, our vision may improve.
