This excellent piece of advice was extracted from Mindfulness
in Plain English by Bhante Henepola Gunarantana:
All sorts of ideas are associated with the word 'meditation'.
Some of them are probably accurate and others are hogwash. Some of them pertain
more properly to other systems of meditation and have nothing to do with Vipassana
practice. …..
We are dealing exclusively with the Vipassana system of meditation,
..to watch the functioning of your own mind in a calm and detached manner
so you can gain insight into your own behavior . The goal is awareness, an
awareness so intense, concentrated and finely tuned that you will be able
to pierce the inner workings! of reality itself.
There are a number of common misconceptions about meditation. ….It is
best to deal with these things at once, because they are the sort of preconceptions
which can block your progress right from the outset. ..
Misconception #1- Meditation is just a relaxation technique
Relaxation is a key component of meditation, but Vipassana-style
meditation aims at a much loftier goal. All meditation procedures stress concentration
of the mind, bringing the mind to rest on one item or one area of! thought.
Do it strongly and thoroughly enough, and you achieve a deep and blissful
relaxation which is called Jhana. It is a state of such supreme tranquility
that it amounts to rapture. It is a form of pleasure which lies above and
beyond anything that can be experienced in the normal state of consciousness.
Most systems stop right there. That is the goal, and when you attain that,
you simply repeat the experience for the rest of your life. Not so with Vipassana
meditation. Vipassana seeks another goal--awareness. Concentration and relaxation
are considered necessary concomitants to awareness. They are required precursors,
handy tools, and beneficial byproducts. But they are not the goal. The goal
is insight. Vipassana meditation is a profound religious practice aimed at
nothing less that the purification and transformation of your everyday life.
Misconception #2- Meditation means going into a trance
Insight meditation is not a form of hypnosis. You are not
trying to black out your mind so as to become unconscious. You are not trying
to turn yourself into an emotionless vegetable. If anything, the reverse is
true. You will become more and more attuned to your own emotional changes
. You will learn to know yourself with ever- greater clarity and precision.
In learning this technique, certain states do occur which may appear trance-like
to the observer. But they are really quite the opposite. In hypnotic trance,
the subject is susceptible to control by another party, whereas in deep concentration
the meditator remains very much under his own control. The similarity is superficial,
and in any case the occurrence of these phenomena is not the point of Vipassana.
As we have said, the deep concentration of Jhana is a tool or stepping stone
on the route of heightened awareness. Vipassana by definition is the cultivation
of mindfulness or awareness . If you find that you are becoming unconscious
in meditation, then you aren't meditating, according to the definition of
the word as used in the Vipassana system.
Misconception #3- Meditation is a mysterious practice which
cannot be understood
Here again, this is almost true, but not quite. Meditation
deals with levels of consciousness which lie deeper than symbolic thought.
Therefore, some of the data about meditation just won't ! fit in! to words.
That does not mean, however, that it cannot be understood. There are deeper
ways to understand things than words. ..Meditation .. is to be experienced.
Meditation is not some mindless formula which gives automatic and predictable
results. You can never really predict exactly what will come up in any particular
session . It is an investigation and experiment and an adventure every time
. In fact, this is so true that when you do reach a feeling of predictability
and sameness in your practice, you use that as an indicator. It means that
you have gotten off the track somewhere and you are headed for stagnation.
Learning to look at each second as if it were the first and only second in
the universe is most essential in Vipassana meditation.
Misconception #4- The purpose of meditation is to become
a psychic superman
No, the purpose of meditation is to develop awareness . Learning
to read minds is not the point. Levitation is not the goal. The goal is liberation.
There is a link between psychic phenomena and meditation, but the relationship
is somewhat complex. During early stages of the meditator's career, such phenomena
may or may not arise. Some people may experience some intuitive understanding
or memories from past lives; others do not. In any case, these are not regarded
as well-developed and reliable psychic abilities. Nor should they be given
undue importance. Such phenomena are in fact fairly dangerous to new meditators
in that they are too seductiv! e. They can be an ego trap which can lure you
right off the track. Your best advice is not to place any emphasis on these
phenomena. If they come up, that's fine. If they don't, that's fine, too.
It's unlikely that they will. ….If voices and visions pop up, just notice
them and let them go. Don't get involved.
Misconception #5- Meditation is dangerous and a prudent
person should avoid it
Everything is dangerous. Walk across the street and you may
get hit by a bus. Take a shower and you could break your neck. Meditate and
you will probably dredge up various nasty-matters from your past. The suppressed
material that has been buried there for q! uite some time! can be scary. It
is also highly profitable. No activity is entirely without risk, but that
does not mean that we should wrap ourselves in some protective cocoon. That
is not living. That is premature death. The way to deal with danger is to
know approximately how much of it there is, where it is likely to be found
and how to deal with it when it arises. Vipassana is development of awareness.
That in itself is not dangerous, but just the opposite. Increased awareness
is the safeguard against danger. Properly done, meditation is a very gentle
and gradual process. Take it slow and easy, and development of your practice
will occur very naturally. Nothing should be forced. ..
Misconception #6- Meditation is for saints and holy men,
not for regular people
You find this attitude very prevalent in Asia, where monks
and holy men are accorded an enormous amount of ritualized reverence. ..Such
people are stereotyped, made larger than life, and saddled with all sort of
characteristics that few human beings can ever live up to. ..A little personal
contact with such people will quickly dispel this illusion. They usually prove
to be people of enormous energy and gusto, people who live their lives with
amazing vigor. It is true, of course, that most holy men meditate, but they
don't meditate because they are holy men. That is backward. They are holy
men because they meditate. Meditation is how they got there. And they started
meditating before they became holy. This is an important point. A sizable
number of students seems to feel that a person should be completely moral
before he begins meditation. It is an unworkable strategy. M! ! orality requires
a certain degree of mental control. It's a prerequisite. You can't follow
any set of moral precepts without at least a little self-control, and if your
mind is perpetually spinning like a fruit cylinder in a one- armed bandit,
self-control is highly unlikely. So mental culture has to come first.
There are three integral factors in Buddhist meditation--
morality, concentration and wisdom. Those three factors grow together as your
practice deepens. Each one influences the other, so you cultivate the three
of them together, not one at a time. When you have the wisdom to truly understand
a situation, compassion towards all the parties involved is automatic, and
compassion means that you automatically restrain yourself from any thought,
word or deed that might harm yourself or others. Thus your behavior is automatically
moral. It is only when you! ! don't understand things deeply that you create
problems. If you fail to see the consequences of your own action, you will
blunder. The fellow who waits to become totally moral before he begins to
meditate is waiting for a 'but' that will never come. ..
Meditation is certainly not some irrelevant practice strictly for ascetics
and hermits. It is a practical skill that focuses on everyday events and has
immediate application in everybody's life. Meditation is not otherworldly.
Misconception #7- Meditation is running away from reality
Incorrect. Meditation is running into reality . It does not
insulate you from the pain of life. It allows you to delve so deeply into
life and all its aspects that you pierce the pain barrier and you go beyond
suffering. Vipassana is a practice done with the specific intention of facing
reality, to fully experience life just as it is and to cope with exactly what
you find. It allows you to blow aside the illusions and to free yourself from
all those polite little lies you tell yourself all the time. What is there
is there. You are who you are, and lying to yourself about your own weaknesses
and motivations only binds you tighter to the wh! ! eel of illusion. Vipassana
meditation is not an attempt to forget yourself or to cover up your troubles.
It is learning to look at yourself exactly as you are. See what is there,
accept it fully. Only then can you change it.
Misconception #8- Meditation is a great way to get high
Well, yes and no. Meditation does produce lovely blissful
feelings sometimes. But they are not the purpose, and they don't always occur.
Furthermore , if you do meditation with that purpose in mind, they are less
likely to occur than if you just meditate for the actual purpose of meditation,
which is increased awareness. Bliss results from relaxation, and relaxation
results from r! ! elease of tension. Seeking bliss from meditation introduces
tension into the process, which blows the whole chain of events. It is a Catch-22.
You can only have bliss if you don't chase it. .. Euphoria is not the purpose
of meditation. It will often arise, but is to be regarded as a by-product.
Still, it is a very pleasant side-effect, and it becomes more and more frequent
the longer you meditate. ..
Misconception #9- Meditation is selfish
It certainly looks that way. There sits the meditator parked
on his little cushion. Why is he doing this? His intention is to purge his
own mind of anger, prejudice and ill-will. He is actively engaged in the process
of getting rid of greed, tension and insensitivity. Those are the very items
which obstruct his compassion for others. Until they are gone, any good works
that he does are likely to be just an extension of his own ego and of no real
help in the long run. ..Through meditation we become aware of ourselves exactly
as we are, by waking up to the numerous subtle ways that we manifest our own
selfishness. Then we truly begin to be genuinely selfless. Cleansing yourself
of selfishness is not a selfish activity.
Misconception #10- When you meditate, you sit around thinking
lofty thoughts
Wrong again. There are certain systems of contemplation in
which this sort of thing is done. But that is not Vipassana. Vipassana is
the practice of awareness. Awareness of whatever is there, be it supreme truth
or crummy trash. What is there is there. Of course, lofty aesthetic thoughts
may arise during your practice. They are certainly not to be avoided. Neither
are they to be sought. They are just pleasant side-effects. Vipassana is a
simple practice. It consists of experiencing your own life events directly,
without preference and without mental images pasted to them. Vipassana is
seeing your life unfold from moment to moment without biases. What comes up
comes up.
Misconception #11- A couple of weeks of meditation and all
my problems will go away
Sorry, meditation is not a quick cure-all. You will start
seeing changes right away, but really profound effects are years down the
line. That is just the way the universe is constructed. Nothing worthwhile
is achieved overnight. Meditation is tough in some respects. It requires a
long discipline and sometimes a painful process of practice. At each sitting
you gain some results, but those results are often very subtle. They occur
deep within the mind, only to manifest much later. And if you are sitting
there constantly looking for some huge instantaneous cha! ! nges, you will
miss the subtle shifts altogether. You will get discouraged, give up and swear
that no such changes will ever occur. Patience is the key. Patience. If you
learn nothing else from meditation, you will learn patience. And that is the
most valuable lesson available.
