1996 Kilburg Meditation Guide

How to Meditate:

The �Down to Earth� Person�s Guide

Don Kilburg, Ph.D.

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Congratulations! You have just won total consciousness! You have just found a way to have the �lights on� and �be at home�! Don�t pass up this opportunity! Act here now and be here now!

Well okay, you can�t actually �win� total consciousness. And you probably wouldn�t want it anyway. But wouldn�t you like to have greater control and more options in your life? Wouldn�t you like to spend less time �spaced out� and more time �in touch� with what�s going on? Wouldn�t you like to really appreciate your life? Few people realize the power of meditation. It seems like such an exotic, silly thing to a lot of people. Even if you recognize its value, it�s hard to muster up the discipline to practice. But this guide will change that. If you give it the benefit of the doubt, you will see that fundamental meditation is not so complex. At the least, after reading this guide you will be able to live more in the present in your daily life. At the most, you will be able to start a life-long pattern of structured meditation that will enhance your development as a human being.

Contents:

• How Should I Use this Guide? • What is Meditation? • Why Should I Meditate? • How Do I Meditate? • What Do I Do If�? [Trouble-Shooting] • Where Can I Look for More Information on

Meditation?

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How Should I Use this Guide? Meditation is a process skill. It�s something that you can �do�, continuously, for its own sake. Your goal is not to make a product or get some concrete end result. Meditation involves procedures, but there is a constant feedback loop in them. Instead of striving for a final product, you strive for a particular state of mind. Once you have attained this state of mind, you want to maintain it. With practice you can increase the intervals of this state of mind. The idea is to increase the level of consciousness that your brain �circuitry� can carry. There�s not much to the procedures � nor is there anything to manipulate with your hands, or even with your thoughts. So if you go straight to the instructions and work from them, you might not understand the point. You should read the entire guide from start to finish (don�t worry, it�s easy reading). That way you will have a fuller understanding. However, each section stands on its own. If you absolutely have to skip around, feel free to do so. What is Meditation? In short, meditation is about being more �conscious�. What the heck does it mean to be more conscious? Consciousness is a slippery term. We�ll define it operationally, but you still have to use your intuition. Okay, here goes. As you were reading the last sentence, were you aware of your eye-balls moving in their sockets? As you read this very sentence are you? You have probably just become aware of the sensations associated with your eyeballs moving in their sockets. We can say that you have become �conscious� of them. Hopefully now you have some idea what consciousness means. The Map is not the Territory For 1000s of years, philosophers, theologians, and lay persons have written about meditation. There are common themes running through all this literature. The biggest difference is between fantasy and reality. We human beings are part of reality, but paradoxically we can never experience reality 100% objectively. That�s because we�re always looking �through� our senses. Our experiences, the things we perceive, and our memories of them, are not the world itself, but are our creation � a kind of �waking dream�. Frog�s waking dreams are different from ours � they only see things that move. Cats, on the other hand, can see in our darkness. But some mammals can only see in black and white. Some insects, however, can see infrared radiation where we only feel warmth. Bees can even see ultraviolet light. And sharks � they can even detect electrical activity � yards away from the source. The point is that the mind forms semblances to create a reality based on sensory signals. These semblances are not reality itself, but �on-line� interpretations of the sensory signals. Meditation is about getting more on-line. It�s a way to experience reality more directly, given the nervous system you have. Be Here Now Meditation is about being awake in the present. It�s not about drifting into memories about the past, thoughts of the future, or states of imagination. Those ways of using the mind undoubtedly have their value, but not during meditation. Normal consciousness is, in a way, a trance � a consensus trance. Most people are �asleep� in their everyday lives. In fact, the �daily grind� seems to reward people for being robotic.

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Sometimes �the lights are on but nobody�s home�. Remember the last time you drove a car a good distance and arrived at your destination surprisingly, �in no time�. You may have asked yourself, �Who was driving?� The answer is probably: your brain stem. It can do a lot of things �without� you. It�s a good thing too, or you might have wound up in a ditch. But in meditation, the goal is to be fully awake in the present when you want to be fully awake in the present. If you ask yourself throughout your day, �am I fully awake, in the present, right now?� you will be surprised how little you generally are. Just look at your mind for a few minutes. You will see that it is like a flea, constantly hopping to and fro. � Sogyal Rinpoche Nothing is permanent, except impermanence. So it makes sense that the nature of human experience is change and flow. Once you have noted something, it has passed. And the past and the future exist only in your conception of them! Your sense of self is not immune to the nature of impermanence. It consists of ideas and body sensations that rise and fall, moment by moment. Your �self� often feels like a thing because that concept is reinforced in you with almost every utterance. �I� am hungry. �I� am thirsty. People call you by your name, because you are not them. And indeed, no one feels your sensations quite like you do. But there�s undoubtedly a lot that you�re attached to that is not really you. There are lots of �false� personalities within you. These are often useful. But they�re often just mindless habits, the result of mindless conditioning. �I wear X brand clothing, I drive Y brand car, I listen to Z music. I speak like J. I think like W. What do I do? I�m an M. That�s what I do. That�s what I am. That�s WHO I am.� And if someone comes along and says, �Ms are jerks!� I�m gonna have to stand up for my Self!� It�s certainly important to stand up for yourself sometimes. But if you are not your speech or even your thoughts, who are YOU? If you were standing, all by yourself, on a deserted island, totally naked, with your head shaved, and no sign of other people or anything human-made, just who would you be? And just where is your �self�? Is it in your arm, your leg, your head� where are YOU? In meditation the idea is to get a better sense of that. You get at your core self. You consider your various identities with clarity � and you don�t �cling� to them. Why Should I Meditate? Meditation is good for you. Science has documented several things about people in meditative, fully awake states. Their EEG patterns generally show Alpha waves, their oxygen consumption drops, their energy expenditure is lowered, and they report pleasant relaxation. As a consequence, people who meditate regularly report feeling generally healthier than those in control groups (Reber, 1985, p. 428). Most people are always hurrying to the future � because that�s where you supposedly find happiness. And of course, you have to plan for your future. But the trouble is that you never truly arrive at the future if you�re always planning. When you meditate, you appreciate each passing moment. Even when you�re not engaged in an official meditation session, if you�ve been meditating regularly, the base line or base rate of your attention will increase. And your appreciation of the sensations in that spotlight of attention will generally be greater.

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Note: There is no absolute �enlightenment� threshold for attainment of a pure meditative state. Consciousness is presumed to be on a continuum. The more you meditate, the more you�ll increase your general capacity for awareness (within reason). If you meditate regularly, you will gradually change your consciousness. You will bring about a certain mode of operation of the nervous system that will bring you closer to �realness�, closer to truth than ordinary experiences. If you can get closer to reality, you will have more control over it. You will be able to deconstruct ordinary consciousness. You will break through the bonds of automatic perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes that are part of your conditioned identity. In doing so, you will have more �free will�. Your self-perception will be more realistic and, consequently, so will your relationships with other people. Your experience of life will in some ways be �quieter�, yet more intense and psychologically �cleaner�. This is not easily quantified. It�s like cleaning up your computer�s hard drive with a disk-scan, or a system "defragger." It runs more smoothly afterward. And the benefits spill over, or generalize to all tasks that your computer performs. Think about how foolish you might have been when you were a teenager. In the drama of junior high, you might have been quite absorbed with posturing and play acting. You might not have had a very good understanding of which of your beliefs and attitudes were conditioned programs and which were consciously developed. Now that you�re older, you probably don�t take yourself so seriously anymore. You�re probably more aware, more realistic. In meditation, you�ll develop this further. You won�t close yourself off. You�ll �listen� to the quieter, subtler thoughts and feelings you have access to. You�ll come to terms with the fact that you are a living, breathing, conscious form of energy, with a limited life expectancy. You�ll get the most out of your life. Fishes, asking what water was, went to a wise fish. He told them that it was all around them. Yet they still thought that they were thirsty.

Don�t expect a bolt of lightening in the sky when you meditate. The benefits of meditation are invaluable, but quite subtle. Most people think they have consciousness and free will all the time. They are therefore, at first, likely to think meditation is �hogwash�. Stick with it and you will see changes.

Many people get discouraged about meditation early on. They think, �Oh, is that

it?� Where�s all the mystical stuff, the clouds, the rays of light, the beautiful visions?� Quite frankly, that�s not meditation, that�s illusion. If there are any true gurus in the

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world, they most surely are not living in states of illusion. True meditation is about reality. One more thing: reading and intellectualizing about meditation is not meditation either. Meditation is about �bare� awareness � not about thinking.

How Do I Meditate? Meditation is not just an exotic import from the East. From the people of ancient Egypt to the contemporary Eskimos, almost every culture in history has practiced some form of meditation. Turkish dervishes spin in a circle. Yogis may gaze at mandalas. Buddhists may contemplate a meaningless phrase, such as �what is the sound of one hand clapping?� There are many ways to meditate. At their core, they�re all pretty simple. The problem is that it�s easy to get confused by all the fancy jargon people use. Most people have ideas of what meditation involves: getting your thoughts �together�, contacting your �inner self�, relaxing, focusing on a given object, reciting a mantra, chanting, sitting in a particular position, breathing slowly, etc. But there�s a lot of misconception. Most forms of meditation separate you from daily, ongoing activities. The point is to release you from automatic perception. You want to shift from an active, outward-oriented mode, to a receptive and quiescent mode. You want to shift from a mode of �doing� to a mode of �being�. To do this you sit alone, or with a small group, in an isolated place. You keep all external sources of stimulation to a minimum, so they don�t distract you. That�s why Yoga and Zen emphasize the lotus position. You can keep your body still if it�s balanced. Keeping your back straight will also keep you from falling asleep. But you don�t just sit there. You�re supposed to be aware. And each time you notice that your mind has drifted away, you should bring it back to a state of awareness. It�s best if you can stay in this state for about a half an hour. And ideally, you should have two of these half hour sessions every day, one in the morning before you go to work and then another in the evening some time. Just what are you supposed to be �aware� of, anyway? Well, there are three different schools. In concentrative meditation, you restrict your awareness by focusing your attention on a particular object. In distributive meditation, you �open up� your awareness, widening your attention to whatever is there. Finally, in everyday mindfulness meditation, you simply try to go through the moments of your day to day life with as much awareness as you can, given the various tasks you have to do.

There is a limit to what you can be conscious of at any one moment. Aldous Huxley called this the �reducing valve� of consciousness. Indeed, you probably wouldn�t want to be conscious beyond some optimal level. When people are conscious of too much, they cannot control their attention and it is generally dysfunctional. These kinds of states are artificially induced by certain psychoactive drugs. They also occur �naturally� in people society has labeled �schizophrenic�. (Note:

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schizophrenia is not �multiple personality disorder�, as commonly thought. This misnomer has reinforced undue discrimination against people with mental illnesses.)

Exercises

☺ For a good social exercise in staying in the present, have a 5 minute conversation with a friend where you are only allowed to use verbs in the present progressive/continuous tense (that is, �-ing�). For example, �the sun is shining�, �what are you doing?�, �I�m looking at you�, �what are you doing?�, �I�m sitting in a chair and hearing the sound of wind blowing in the background�, etc.

☺ For a good personal exercise in staying in the present, get �shifty-eyed� for a minute. That is, for a period of 60 seconds or so, continually shift your gaze by moving your head and your eyeballs around to various locations. Don�t go too fast; a �normal� rate is fine. The idea is that you�re constantly taking in new visual information, so it�s hard to �space out�.

Concentrative Meditation In concentrative meditation, you restrict your awareness to one single, unchanging source of stimulation, for 15 minutes or more. Buddhists refer to this as �one-pointedness of mind�, because you focus on one point. That one point could be any number of things, like the sight of a vase or the sound of a waterfall. But it might not even be so tangible. In Yoga, people sometimes focus on a mantram (mantra is plural). This is simply a phrase that you repeat over and over, whether out loud or just in your head. For example, there is a Sanskrit mantram that goes: �Om Tat Sat, Om Namah Shivaya� (Dass, 1978, p. 34). It means something like, �To Siva, I bow�. (Siva is a Hindu figure). There are many kinds of mantra, some longer than others. The important point is not so much what you say, so long as you stay �awake� in the present as you�re focusing on it. You typically have a vicious cycle of task-oriented (i.e. �do-ing�, not �be-ing�) thoughts in your head. �I gotta go to the store, I gotta go to class, I gotta go to work�. The point of using a mantram is to break out of that. Mandalas are like visual mantra. Instead of focusing on a sound stimulus, you focus on a visual stimulus. Mandalas are usually symmetrical designs with one focal point.

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For example:

In Rinzai Zen, you concentrate on a koan. This is a riddle with no logical answer � for example: �show me your face before your mother and father.� You don�t really sit and think about a koan for a long time. There�s nothing to reason or problem solve about. The koan is simply supposed to force you to focus intense concentration on one single thought, to remove �blindness� and give you a fresh perspective. There are books available with lists of koans. In plain old �generic� Zen, you count your breaths from 1 to 10. When you get to 10, you start all over. You should start with a 15 minute session and then gradually work your way up until you can do this, ideally, for 2 half-hour sessions a day. If you get tired of counting, don�t do it. Just make sure you keep focused on your breath. It will act as an �anchor�, keeping you in the �here and now�. In fact, this is probably the most accessible form of meditation. Everyone knows how to focus on his or her breathing. You don�t have to be engaged in an official meditation session to �grab a hold� of it. You can get in touch with your breathing any time and any place. And remember, you don�t have to take deep breaths or try to change your breathing, just focus on what it�s naturally doing. If you never formally meditate a day in your life, at least know that your breath is �there for you� whenever you need it. In sum, when you �do� concentrative meditation, the point of focus can be internal or external and imaginary or natural. The main thing is that you don�t want to become a �zombie�. You want to stay �with� the stimulus � in the present.

True meditation is not a competitive activity. If you read some of the literature on meditation, you will see that some people have a �holier-than-thou� attitude about it. If you�re boasting about all the meditation you�re doing, chances are you�re not doing it right. Indeed, many schools of meditation argue that a true meditator should cultivate �ego-loss� and compassion for others as part of his or her practice.

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Flow Chart for Breathing Meditation Just below this section, you will see a flow chart for breathing meditation. You shouldn�t hold on to this flow chart � it�s just a general outline to give you a sense of things (ultimately, you don�t want to be thinking about anything). Read it a few times and then put it down and �do� what it says. But before you �enter� the flow chart, go to a quiet place where you can be alone � a place where you will not be disturbed. Get into a comfortable, but erect and dignified posture. Sit on the floor, a cushion, or even in a straight back chair. You don�t have to cross your legs, but it helps. Just sit still and don�t try to do anything or get anywhere. The main thing is to set aside �doing� and switch to a mode of �being� � in this case, being aware of your breathing. And as you�re meditating, your mind will inevitably wander � when it does, don�t �beat yourself up�, simply escort your mind back to your breathing and start over. One more thing: notice that the flow chart is a complete circuit. Start at the top and go clockwise. And remember, you want to stay in that circuit for 15 minutes to start. Then after practice, you can work your way up. Breathing Meditation Flow Chart follows�

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Flow Chart for Basic Breathing Meditation

(1)

Attend to Breathing

(2) Focus on movement

of breathing (without changing

it)

(7)

Be in the present with each breath

(3) Did you change your breathing?

(6) Did your mind �go off� on a tangent?

(5) Feel breathing in

belly as it expands and contracts

(4) Continuously feel

sensations of breathing in and out

Yes

No

Yes

No

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Many Yoga practitioners try to consciously regulate involuntary physiological processes, for example: blood flow, heart rate, digestive and muscular activity, breathing, etc. Folklore has it that some Yoga masters have walked barefoot on hot coals. Others have even been buried alive for long periods of time, stopping their blood flow. In a laboratory study, Anand et al. found that some Yogis could reduce oxygen consumption levels to far below normal (cited in Ornstein, 1986, p.194). Distributive Meditation In distributive meditation, you still want to meditate in sessions of 15 or more minutes. But instead of focusing in on something, you �open up� your awareness, widening your attention to whatever is there. You want to have full sensitivity to whatever is happening to you. You want to be a conscious observer of all your sensations, without getting caught up in your reactions to them. Remember, thinking about experiencing is not experiencing. By the time you have become a veteran automobile driver, you no longer notice the aesthetic quality of a red light. You think �red means stop�. Then ultimately, you don�t even think about the color, you just react. And of course this is a good thing, because it prevents accidents. But in other aspects of life, you don�t want to be so numb to the inherent quality of things. You want to cut through all the thoughts and reactions and just have raw experience. In Pali, an ancient Indian language, this is called �Vipassana�, or �bare attention�. In Vipassana, you want to take in all sensations, feelings, thoughts, and reactions. As the Beatles sang, �Let it be�. Notice anything and everything that is happening to you. Don�t reject anything as unworthy of your attention. But don�t welcome anything as more worthy of your attention. Even if your mind wanders off on a thought tangent and you forget you�re even meditating, don�t �fight� that, just keep your attention on it.

Exercise A guy named G.I.Gurdjieff came up with a good Vipassana-style exercise. It�s

called �the Witness� and it�s really simple. For a good solid 5 minutes, �witness� yourself. That is, refer to yourself in the third person (he or she) and give a running description (not a commentary) of what is going on with you. This includes ANYTHING you notice. For example: �she�s reading the paper, she just stopped and looked at her watch, she had a feeling that she was hungry, she had a thought that she should go to the vending machines, she saw a mental image of a candy bar, she just realized that her leg is getting sore, she just shifted her weight in her chair, etc., etc.� The point of this is to �self-remember�. If you try this, you will notice you can stay conscious in the present so

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long as you don�t lose track and let your mind wander. It�s a little cumbersome, but a good exercise. Everyday Mindfulness Meditation Finally, in everyday mindfulness meditation, you simply try to go through the moments of your day to day life with as much awareness as you can, given the various tasks you have to do. As we said before, ordinary life is mind-numbing. You�d like to be more conscious in your life, but let�s face it � you�ve got work to do. We can�t all be

monks. We wouldn�t all want to be monks even if we could be. Most people like their �regular� lives. Once you get into meditation, setting aside a measly half hour a day to do it is really not a big deal. But if you just can�t find the time (and even if you can), it�s always good to bring simple mindfulness into your routine. Your breath is always there as your trusty mindfulness �anchor�. But there are also the sensations in your arms and legs.

Shift your attention to your feet right now. You might have some sensations of how your feet feel with your shoes on them. You might be able to feel the uniqueness of each toe, or the sensation of socks covering them. Shift your attention to your arms. Even without looking down at them, you probably have some sense of the positions they�re in. Hopefully, you at least have some basic feelings that they�re there. As you�re walking around in your life and participating in your various meetings and events, you can keep yourself as close to the present reality as possible by using your legs and arms as anchors. There�s also looking and listening. Break the gaze you have locked onto this paper right now. Give a brief scan of your visual surroundings. Notice that you are in the �here and now�. Listen to all the various sounds that you�ve been non-consciously tuning out for the past however long. There may be a breeze blowing outside, a subtle noise from the heating or air conditioning, people�s voices off in the distance, or the hum of a computer right in front of you. Hopefully these noises are not too intruding. Ideally, they are there for you to contact as a way to jar yourself from the robotic stream of the day. No one has to know you�re trying to be mindful during your day. It�s pretty easy to tell when someone is spaced out, or completely absorbed in something. But you can practice everyday life meditation �in the privacy of your own consciousness�. The really practical benefit is that you�ll find that you won�t make so many �stupid� mistakes � like locking your keys in your car, because you weren�t paying attention. Your mind and your body will be better calibrated and consequently you�ll be more �on target� in all that you do. Consciousness probably can�t be classically or operantly conditioned (sorry B.F. Skinner!). But you can build �arrows� to it � into the patterns of your daily routine. A refrigerator is often a non-conscious �arrow�, or stimulus, pointing you toward a food supply when you aren�t even hungry (�open me!�). In the same way, you can build cues into your audio-visual environments that will remind you to �come back�, to appreciate the �spaciousness� of your reality, and to be fully conscious in the present. Of course, you can always make an appointment for yourself, on your calendar, to remind yourself to meditate. Some people even post little reminders

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in various places. Such postings might say: �be here now�, �wherever you go, there you are�, �remember to remember when you remember�, or just plain �are you awake?� (the problem is that you get desensitized to them after awhile). You could have the timer on your watch go off every so often. There are other behaviorist techniques for eliciting the antecedents of a fuller consciousness. Study skills advisors tell you to have a special place for studying and only for studying. That�s because you want to build a specific stimulus-response chain (i.e. every time you walk into the study zone, you will be inclined to study). If you have a special place to meditate, a place where you can go and do just that, your practice will benefit. You might have a particular spot in your home. You might have a special meditation cushion, some candles, etc. It�s really a personal preference issue. You don�t want to spend all your time fussing over the details, but you want to build a place for meditation in your life. What Do I Do If�? [Trouble-Shooting] Unfortunately (actually rather fortunately), the mind is not a machine. Therefore, there aren�t any panacea solutions for trouble-shooting meditation problems. When you first start meditating, you�re likely to get bored and you�ll probably fall asleep. Sometimes you�ll be distracted by some annoying cramp in your leg and you won�t be able to sit still. Other times your head will be so �full of thoughts� that you won�t be able to stop going off on mental tangents when you�re trying to stay focused. The best thing you can do is just keep at it. You might want to try a different position or a different form of meditation. You might want to meditate with another person or a group of people. You might even permit yourself to just �throw in the towel� for the day. The important thing is that on the whole you keep practicing. Meditation is a skill, a lot like playing the piano or riding a bike (although you don�t want it to become non-conscious, like some skills). If you genuinely practice, you will get better. Where Can I Look for More Information on Meditation? It�s amazing that with all our technology in the West, we�ve generally neglected to promote institutionalized forms of consciousness development. Everyone has their own �super-computer� that they take with them wherever they go, yet most of them don�t know what all it can do. Fortunately, these days there are a growing number of sources in which to find information on meditation. It�s becoming more common and acceptable as people realize its usefulness in life. There are books, magazines, cassette tapes, and even organizations with classes and retreats.

There are even Internet sites on meditation. For example:

http://www.meditationcenter.com/ http://www.meditationsociety.com/

http://www.dhamma.org/

For particularly good introductions to meditation check out Wherever You Go, There You Are, by Jon Kabat-Zinn and Living the Mindful Life, by Charles Tart. Keep in

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mind that there are many different kinds of books on meditation. A lot of these consider meditation in the context of religion. At a minimum, a good book on meditation should explain how to be mindful, or awake in the present. The important thing is to find one that you�re personally comfortable with. Lastly, you should know that there are many meditation techniques that don�t fit so clearly into the boundaries of this guide. There are many ancient and highly sophisticated activities that promote meditation. For people who have a particularly hard time sitting still to do meditation, Yoga and martial arts can be especially good. Martial Arts are not all about fighting. For example, Tai Chi and Aikido are peaceful martial arts that have been tried and tested as invaluable techniques of consciousness development and mind-body health. Whatever path(s) you choose, best wishes to you!

Yoga Tai Chi Aikido

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What follows is a list of sources that were used in writing this guide.

Anand, B., China, G., and Singh, B. (1961). Some aspects of electroencephalographic studies in Yogis. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 13: 452-456. Reprinted in C.T.Tart, et., Altered States of Consciousness.

Dass, B.R. (1978). Be Here Now. New York: Crown Publishing.

James, W. (1970). The Principles of Psychology. New York: Dover. (Original work published in 1890).

Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever You Go There You Are. New York: Hyperion.

Langer, E.J. (1989). Mindfulness. New York: Addison-Wesley.

Ornstein, R. (1986). The Psychology of Consciousness. New York: Penguin Books.

Ornstein, R. (1991). The Evolution of Consciousness. New York: Prentice Hall Press.

Ouspensky, P.D. (1981). The Psychology of Man�s Possible Evolution. New York: Random House.

Reber, A.S. (1985). Dictionary of Psychology. New York: Penguin Books.

Rinpoche, S. (1994). The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, Inc.

Tart, C.T. (1983). States of Consciousness. El Cerrito: Psychological Processes, Inc.

Tart, C.T. (1994). Living the Mindful Life. Boston: Shambhala Publications.

Timmons, B., and Kanellakos, D. (1974). The Psychology and Physiology of Meditation and Related Phenomena: Bibliography II. J. Transpersonal Psychology, 6, 32-38.

Young, S. (1994). Purpose and Method of Vipassana Meditation. The Humanistic Psychologist, 22: 53-61. [This guide was originally written in 1996 and re-edited in 2001. All rights reserved.]