I’m going to talk a little about shamatha meditation,
and I thought it would be good to try and actually do the meditation
as we go along. The actual technique is very simple. All the
great meditators of the past advised us to sit up straight
when we meditate. When we sit up straight, there is a sense
of alertness, a sense of importance—it produces the right
atmosphere. In this particular instruction, I’m going
to suggest we don’t use an external object, such as a
flower, but instead follow the standard Theravada tradition
of using our breath as the object. So we concentrate on our
breathing: we simply follow our breath in and out. That’s
it. Our mind is focused on the breathing, our posture is straight,
our eyes are open. That’s the essential technique: basically
doing nothing.
Let’s do that for a while.
Short meditation session
We simply sit straight and we watch our breathing. We are
not concerned with distractions, with all the thoughts that
occupy our mind. We just sit—alone, by ourselves, no
reference at all. Us, the breathing, and the concentration.
That’s all we have.
Short meditation session
So we sit, we concentrate on the breathing, nothing else.
Then some thoughts may come, and any number of distractions:
things you talked about yesterday, movies you watched last
week, a conversation you just had, things you need to do tomorrow,
a sudden panic—did I switch off the gas in the kitchen
this morning? All of this will come, and when it does, go back
to the breathing. This is the slogan of shamatha instruction:
just come back. Every time we notice that we’ve gotten
distracted, we remember the instruction and we come back to
the breath. Let’s do this for a while.
Short meditation session
If we have ambitions—even if our aim is enlightenment— then
there is no meditation, because we are thinking about it, craving
it, fantasizing, imagining things. That is not meditation.
This is why an important characteristic of shamatha meditation
is to let go of any goal and simply sit for the sake of sitting.
We breathe in and out, and we just watch that. Nothing else.
It doesn’t matter if we get enlightenment or not. It
doesn’t matter if our friends get enlightened faster.
Who cares? We are just breathing. We just sit straight and
watch the breath in and out. Nothing else. We let go of our
ambitions. This includes trying to do a perfect shamatha meditation.
We should get rid of even that. Just sit.
The beautiful thing about having less obsessions and ambitions—and
just sitting straight and watching the breathing—is that
nothing will disturb us. Things only disturb us when we have
an aim. When we have an aim, we become obsessed. Say our aim
is to go somewhere, but somebody parks right in front of our
car, blocking us. If something gets in the way of our aim,
it becomes a terrible thing. If we don’t have an aim,
though, it doesn’t matter.
Meditators often have a strong ambition to achieve something
with their meditation. But when meditators get distracted,
they go through all kinds of hell: they lose their confidence,
they get frustrated, they condemn themselves, they condemn
the technique. This is why, at least during the first few moments
of meditation, it doesn’t matter whether we are getting
enlightened or not, it doesn’t matter whether the hot
water is boiling in the kettle, it doesn’t matter whether
the telephone is ringing, and it doesn’t matter whether
it’s one of our friends. For a few moments, things don’t
matter.
You don’t have to meditate for the sake of attaining
enlightenment. If you are not interested in enlightenment,
you can practice shamatha to be natural—to not be so
swayed by circumstances. Most of the time we are not in control
of ourselves; our mind is always attracted to, or distracted
by, something—our enemies, our lovers, our friends, hope,
fear, jealousy, pride, attachment, aggression. In other words,
all these objects and these phenomena control our mind. Maybe
we can control it for a split second, but when we are in an
extreme emotional state, we lose it.
Letting go of ambition is a bit like the renunciation that
Buddhists talk about. The Buddha renounced his palace, his
queen, his son, and his parents, and went out in search of
enlightenment. You can say that the Buddha was trying to diminish
his ambition. At least, he was trying to see the futility of
it, and he was letting go. Letting go is quite important if
you want to become a shamatha practitioner. We do shamatha
meditation so we can achieve this power to let go.
Meditation is one of the rare occasions when we’re not
doing anything. Otherwise, we’re always doing something,
we’re always thinking something, we’re always occupied.
We get lost in millions of obsessions or fixations. But by
meditating—by not doing anything—all these fixations
are revealed. Beginners might find this a little frightening,
but slowly they will gain inner confidence, and these fixations
will automatically lessen. The classical meditationinstruction
texts say our obsessions will undo themselves like a snake
uncoiling itself.
Short meditation session
Thoughts are coming and I’m telling you to go back to
the breathing. You automatically interpret this as “We
should stop the thoughts.” This is not what I mean. I’m
not saying you should stop thinking. All I’m saying is,
concentrate on the breathing. When thoughts come, don’t
stop them, don’t increase them, don’t encourage
them, don’t discourage them. Your job is to concentrate
on the breathing. That’s it. Stopping the thoughts is
not your job. It’s important to understand the difference:
thoughts are going to come; all you do is just concentrate
on the breathing. That’s it.
Short meditation session
Lord Maitreya has some really good advice for shamatha practice:
When we are doing shamatha and the mind gets distracted, it
is important that we remember the antidote. The antidote here
is very simply to go back to the breath. We call this “Applying
the antidote.” But sometimes we apply the antidote too
much, which can cause both dullness and agitation. You got
that? If you keep applying the antidote—antidote, antidote,
antidote—it’s like applying the antidote when there’s
no poison. That becomes a problem.
Short meditation session
Always do short but frequent shamatha sessions. I’m
talking especially to beginners. If you’re going to meditate
for fifteen minutes, start fresh at least thirty times. Over
time we can start doing longer sessions—in a fifteenminute
session, we can do it fifteen times with a break in between.
And when you take a break, take a real break— walk, stand
up, do something else. Don’t just linger there half meditating,
half not meditating. After a while, you can practice seven
times within fifteen minutes.
Keeping it short is important because if you do too much at
the beginning, you’ll get fed up with the technique.
We are human beings—we don’t like to get bored.
We like to change what we eat, we like changing our clothes.
We like change.
Likewise, the spiritual path is a long process, and we need
a lot of patience. We need to like the path, so keep the meditation
short and precise and frequent. That way we develop strong
habits. Later on, it becomes part of us. It’s like drinking
alcohol: when we first start drinking, we drink a little; we
don’t drink two or three bottles at one time. If we did,
we’d get so sick we’d never touch it again. So
practice shamatha for a short time but many times. That way
you’ll get habituated. This is necessary. Shamatha should
become part of your life.
And during the off sessions, also, if it’s possible,
remember you are breathing. We always forget that we are breathing.
Also, you should not limit your meditation to only in the
morning or only in the evening: you should do it any time,
all the time. Practice time is always now—it’s
never in the future. Don’t ever leave your shamatha thinking, “I’m
going to do it next weekend, next month, or next year.” Do
it now. Anyway, you’re only doing it for about forty-five
seconds, if you’re a beginner. It’s easy. You can
do it anywhere. It only requires this: to sit straight.
Short meditation session
As we meditate, we simply sit straight and watch the breath.
So what does that do? It creates space. In fact, the technique
itself is just a trick. The main point is to recognize all
these thoughts and distractions that are constantly bombarding
us. We still get angry, but we know that we are angry—this
kind of anger has so much humor. We can actually drive it in
certain directions—we have more control.
The frustrating thing about our life is that there is no control
over these emotions. That’s why there’s no fun.
The whole purpose of Buddhism is to have fun, isn’t it?
And in order to have fun you have to have control. If someone
else has control over you, that’s it: there’s no
fun.
Short meditation session
Shamatha involves a lot of discipline. Lamas often advise
us to do meditation in a group, because when we are doing meditation
in a group, we want to be the best, the fastest; we have so
much pride and ego, and we’re so competitive—why
not use this competitiveness as a tool on the path? It’s
like working out—if you buy the machines and bring them
home, you do three or four days and the machines end up in
the garage. But if you go to a gym, you see the other people
who are diligently doing it, and all the other beautiful bodies,
and it gives you inspiration. What a wrong motivation! But
at least it will lead you somewhere.
Keep it simple, don’t make it complicated. Concentrate
on the breathing, sit straight—that’s all. Every
day, do a few minutes, and, on top of that, do it spontaneously
in different places—not just in front of the shrine,
but everywhere. There’s so much merit in just sitting
there.
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