Constancy is
the main technique of Praxis but there are some other techniques
that support that effort. Meditation is highly recommended,
though I prefer to call this practice Stillness.
Christians and
Moslems meditate because they want to be nearer to God or to
understand their God's will more clearly. Buddhists meditate to
achieve nirvana or to achieve a better reincarnation. People
meditate to achieve good health or to regain good health, to
overcome anxiety, to relax, to gain insight to personal problems,
to become wise, to become powerful - there are so many things
that people want from meditation. Stillness means just what it
sounds like; it is a quiet still focus for heightened Constancy.
It is called Stillness to put some distance from all the
expectations that come with the term meditation.
How to practice
Stillness.
. . . . .
Practice
once a day
In
the morning
For
ten minutes each time
Six
days a week.
After 2 months
or so, go to:
Twice
a day, (morning and evening)
Twenty
minutes
Seven
days a week
In the first
six months you do not need to do Stillness more than this, this
practice is not about duration or endurance; it is a quality, not
a quantity thing. Later, when you have consolidated your
practice, you can plan longer more intensive sessions if you feel
the need. Walk first, run later. When you are ready to do more
(or less) then your practice itself will show you what to do.
Stillness may not be about endurance but it is about persistence
- you are wasting your time if you do not practice regularly.
Sitting
Unless you are
a yoga adept, a dancer or naturally bendy, do not sit
cross-legged. Posture is very important but you do not need to
force your body into an uncomfortable position.
Find an
ordinary dining room chair, sit and then see if you knees are
slightly lower than your hips - that is, your thighs will point
downwards just a bit. Use cushions to adjust your sitting height.
Do not lean
back; your back must be unsupported.
Put your hands
on your knees, then draw them back until your arms and shoulders
feel comfortable. (If your hands are too close to your body then
your lower back will get tense; too far forward and you will
eventually slump).
Do not try to
block out or ignore any background sounds. If the phone rings,
just ignore it, don't disconnect it. If an intrusion is so great
that you practice, then try again later. If the intrusion is not
so great, then work on ignoring it. You ignore it by focusing on
the technique.
Close your
eyes. Keep them lightly closed throughout. Open them as soon as
the session ends. Do not give into temptation and linger in the
Stillness. It is very important to end cleanly and completely.
Use a timer that does not sound too harsh.
Posture
Correct posture
is vital to Stillness practice. The following is no exaggeration:
unless you can find and maintain the right posture you are
wasting your time.
Have you ever
sat in a cinema and been stirred by some powerful music and
strong emotional scene? Felt shivers run up and/or down your
back? Felt something similar when you sneezed? Ever scratched and
felt a flood of some sensation in a different part of your body?
If it is cold then shivering (semi-involuntary muscle spasms
creating mild exertion, hence warmth), shivering makes sense. But
why shiver in a cinema because you are emotionally moved? And
what is an orgasm?
These
sensations cannot be explained here, other than to say that they
are a form of energy. It is very very important that these
sensations are not blocked. Stillness will not work if
these sensations are blocked. Your practice is quite likely to
generate some or all of these sensations at some time. They
should always be ignored completely in every respect save one -
make small adjustments to your posture so the sensations can
dissipate freely. Let them come, let them go.
The better your
sitting posture the smaller the adjustment you need to make. An
experienced meditator looks like they are carved out of stone -
in fact, they regularly adjust their posture, just imperceptibly.
Beginners need to adjust their neck and shoulders a lot. Don't
wriggle, just adjust.
Breathing
Correct
breathing is also very important to Stillness practice. There are
no special techniques or procedures - in my experience,
controlling the breath can be harmful in the long term.
Nonetheless, attention must be paid to how you breathe during
Stillness.
Try and
breathe in and out through your nose only.
Lightly
place your tongue on the roof of your mouth, so the tip
of your tongue just touches the back of your top teeth.
(If you have a cold, breathe through your mouth but keep
your tongue in this position.)
Never
force the breath in or out, rather, 'allow' the breath to
come and go. This is a very fine distinction that can
take years to fully appreciate.
Breathing is
important because it is the focus for your attention whilst practicing Stillness. If you concentrate on something intensely,
you will probably block-out much of what is going on around you.
If someone is reading with great attention, you can probably go
right up and stand next to them and they will not notice. Then
again, a soldier on 'point duty', slowly walking through the
jungle, expecting an attack at any time, will be aware of every
leaf and every sound. Attention can vary. If we characterise
these two types as 'inner' (the reader) and 'outer' (the soldier
on point) Stillness is not one at the expense of the other. It is
both. Even though it is both, the attention for beginners has to
be focused somewhere. Focusing on breathing is best. This is
what you should be aiming for:
Without
controlling the breath in any way,
watch
it like a hawk, yet simultaneously,
be
aware of everything. . . . . .
This dual focus
is quite difficult but is a significant step forward when you can
do it. You will know when you can do it because, without trying,
the two forms of attention become one. When this happens, you
will know it . . . . .
The
tricky bit
No one really
knows what a mind is. From the point of view of Stillness
practice, this does not matter. A famous Zen master once said,
when a student asked what to do about his mind:
"Completely
ignore your mind"
This is very
good advice but very difficult to do. For most beginners, it is
not possible to ignore their own mind. For a beginner to ignore
their own mind might seem that they are not doing something but
actually they are "doing something", they are
attempting something. They are attempting an act of ignoring. And
who is doing the ignoring? Their own mind. Fortunately there is a
way out of this potential loop.
Rather than
ignore your mind during Stillness practice, just watch it.
(Watching in this context will always mean "with eyes shut,
being continuously aware of . . . ").
Expectations
This is hardest
thing to deal with both during and after Stillness, so it gets a
section on its own. This applies to the whole of Praxis but is
often most noticeable around Stillness practice.
Mostly,
meditation is about some kind of spiritual attainment, whatever
definition of spiritual is being used. No matter what the
definition used, there is a common theme to most practices.
Wanting something. Yet desiring some spiritual outcome can also
be an obstacle to progress. There is a powerful contradiction at
work here, or at least, an apparent contradiction. Wanting to
achieve some future state where you will not want anything is
confusing. Wanting to 'not want' something causes a problem, it
is like wanting to loose weight by eating too much food.
It is best to
try and honestly make all your wanting as clear to yourself as
possible. You may have very grand ambitions, you might want to be
a Buddha, or an angel or some transcendent master. Why not? You
may simply want peace of mind. Everyone holds some image of where
they want to go however hazy it may be. It is not the having of
such desires that matters, it is what we do with them that
counts.
This is what
meditation is really about:
It
might make you feel good, might make
you
feel peaceful and will certainly improve
your
health if done correctly but it is really
about
becoming more aware.
If you can make
your desire as clear and as honest as possible then you can
address the next question. How much do you want it?
This is an important question to
ask yourself. You might want to become free of all suffering
and pain - but how much time would you devote to the task? We
live in a market where material values reign - how much would you
pay for real peace of mind? If you are not prepared to give
away all your money and devote every minute of every day to
getting what you want, then how much do you really want it? This
is a minefield but there is an important aspect to this as far
as Stillness is concerned - try to balance your expectations in
proportion to your effort.
