BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Buddhism Mindfulness and Meditation in Plain English

I've decided to start some ongoing threads on books, the first of which is Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhanta Gunuratana. This is a classic, one of the most straighforward and complete books for beginners on mindfulness meditation as it is taught in the Theravada tradition, and it is respected by instructors of all traditions. The 20th anniversary edition was published last year.

I'll share some of Gunuratana's insights on mindfulness and meditation in this thread, along with my own thoughts.

First I wanted to share what he calls 'The Misconceptions About Meditation':

"Misconception 1: Meditation is just a relaxation technique.

Misconception 2: Meditation Means Going Into A Trance

Misconception 3: Meditation is a mysterious practice that cannot be understood.

Misconception 4: The purpose of meditation is to become psychic.

Misconception 5: Meditation is dangerous, and a prudent person should avoid it.

Misconception 6: Meditation is for saints and sadhus, not for regular people.

Misconception 7: Meditation is running from reality.

Misconception 8: Meditation is a great way to get high.

Misconception 9: Meditation is selfish.

Misconception 10: When you meditate, you sit around thinking lofty thoughts.

Misconception 11: A couple weeks of meditation, and all my problems will go away."

I think this is a great list! He talks in more detail about each one, but I think even just reading through this list can help clear any obstacles one might have. If I had to add a twelfth, it would be something like this:

Misconception 12: Meditation is not for me.

Because I have heard many people say 'my mind is just too busy, it's just not for me', or 'I just can't meditate.' I think usually there is some expectation in the minds of these people, and when meditation doesn't meet that expectation, they decide it's not for them. But meditation is for everyone! The pulling of our mind back over and over IS the meditation, the most important part, and the part that will yield insights over time....

Any others anyone can think of?

The first sentence of the next chapter is, "Meditation is a word, and words are used in different ways by different speakers."

He goes on to talk about how this is important because most spiritual traditions have some form of what they call meditation, but the actual method is quite different in each tradition. A lot of them involve 'doing' something with the mind - concentrating on the breath, chakra, symbol, chant, etc. And while Buddhist traditions also include these, Buddhist meditation is always about the development of awareness.

I teach various forms of meditaiton, including chakra meditation which is very different from the insight form that Bhante Gunuratana teaches, but I actually think the goal of this meditation is the same - the development of awareness. It doesn't always seem like it though, because we are focusing on the chakras and the energies we feel there. But they are all different expressions of pure awareness, and ultimately, focusing on them leads us back to that.

In insight meditation, one focuses directly on awareness itself. After the concentration stages, one turns the mind back on itself to discover the seat of awareness itself.

In any case, the whole point of this chapter is that this is the common thread for him between any contemplative methods that call themselves 'meditation' - that they are meant to develop awareness. More on this next time...

This straightforward paragraph in the second chapter of this book really summarizes the Buddhist attitude towards self:

"A close inspection reveals that we have done the same thing to 'me' that we have done to all other perceptions. We have taken a flowing vortex of thought, feeling, and sensation and solidified that into a mental construct. Then we have stuck a label onto it: 'me.' Forever after, we treat it as if it were a static and enduring entity. We view it as a thing separate from all other things. We pinch ourselves off from the rest of that process of eternal change that is the universe, and then we grieve over how lonely we feel. We ignore our inherent connectedness to all other beings and decide that "I" have to get more for "me"; then we marvel at how greedy and insensitive human beings are. And on it goes. Every evil deed, every example of heartlessness in the world, stems directly from this false sense of 'me' as distinct from everything else."
- Bhante Gunuratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

I would add that all the practices of Buddhism, as well as the practices of many other spiritual traditions, is to help us reverse this - to help use see beyond 'me' in all it forms, and to reinstate our connection to the universe. When you put it that way, sounds simple, right?

Lisa -

This sounds like a wonderful book. I've ordered a copy and should have it (and the other one) on Thursday. I love Amazon Prime .

I strive to meditate every evening at 10pm. I also meditate (briefly) as part of my morning yoga routine. I find meditation helps immensely with my focus and clarity.

I love the many different forms of meditation and like experimenting with them.

Great Lisa, it's really a classic book. He has another one called Beyond Mindfulness that provides advice for those who have meditated for awhile and are looking to understand the practice more in the context of awakening/enlightenment. I may move on to that book after I finish offering commentary on this one.

I look forward to hearing more about both!

Moving on in the book, Gunaratana provides a counter list to the one above - a list of advice for cultivating the correct mental 'attitude' in meditation. Attitude is used here a little differently than we might usually think of it. It is more like an overall state of awareness and approach towards meditation, or an attitude we adopt towards ourselves and our own mind in meditation. Here is Gunaratana's list:

"1) Don't expect anything.

2) Don't strain.

3) Don't rush.

4) Don't cling to anything and don't reject anything.

5) Let go.

6) Accept everything that arises.

7) Be gentle with yourself.

8) Investigate yourself.

9) View all problems as challenges.

10) Don't ponder.

11) Don't dwell upon contrasts."

- From the chapter on Attitude in Mindfulness in Plain English

I think most of these are self-explanatory, though perhaps the last one could use a little more explanation. 'Contrast' in this sense means comparison - he's referring to the habit our mind has of constantly comparing ourselves to others, and various things we encounter to each other. We are constantly judging things good and bad. A key step to experiencing things just as they ARE in the moment is to break this habit - to not compare or judge but just observe.

Really, when one reads through this list, it is like an advice list for life too, not only meditation! And I think this is a very key point - insight meditation such as this is really training for daily life. Our sitting meditation practice aids our daily mindfulness, and the tools we learn in each helps us to respond rather than react in almost any situation in our lives.

The next chapter in Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunuratana is on the practice itself, and how to handle when the mind wanders. The practice is basic breath mindfulness meditation - watching the breath, and centering in breath awareness. Here are his suggestions for dealing with the mind wandering - these are really meant to help develop concentration, the first level of meditation. In later chapters, he delves into handling many specific kinds of distractions.

1) Count - this is a common suggestion for breath meditation, and there are various methods suggested. Count 1-10 and then start over, or count 1-10 then backwards - these are probably the 2 most prevalent. You can count breaths, or do long breaths and count within each breath.

2) Connecting - instead of pausing at the top of the breath, focus on connecting the inhale and exhale as one continuous breath.

3) Fixing - Once you have a sense of your breath as one continuous breath, fix your attention on the point at the rim of your nose where you feel it the most.

4) Focus your mind like a computer - just like a carpenter focuses 100% on the line he is cutting in a board, rather than focusing on the saw itself, or the movement, so focus 100% of your attention on the rim of your nose.

5) Make your mind like a gatekeeper - just as a gatekeeper's job is simply to record those who enter and leave, not to pass judgement on them, so the mind's attitude should be that of simply noting, not judging.

The next chapter in Mindfulness in Plain English by Bhante Gunuratana is on the practice itself, and how to handle when the mind wanders. The practice is basic breath mindfulness meditation - watching the breath, and centering in breath awareness. Here are his suggestions for dealing with the mind wandering - these are really meant to help develop concentration, the first level of meditation. In later chapters, he delves into handling many specific kinds of distractions.

1) Count - this is a common suggestion for breath meditation, and there are various methods suggested. Count 1-10 and then start over, or count 1-10 then backwards - these are probably the 2 most prevalent. You can count breaths, or do long breaths and count within each breath.

2) Connecting - instead of pausing at the top of the breath, focus on connecting the inhale and exhale as one continuous breath.

3) Fixing - Once you have a sense of your breath as one continuous breath, fix your attention on the point at the rim of your nose where you feel it the most.

4) Focus your mind like a carpenter - just like a carpenter focuses 100% on the line he is cutting in a board, rather than focusing on the saw itself, or the movement, so focus 100% of your attention on the rim of your nose.

5) Make your mind like a gatekeeper - just as a gatekeeper's job is simply to record those who enter and leave, not to pass judgement on them, so the mind's attitude should be that of simply noting, not judging.

The next chapter in Mindfulness in Plain English talks about something that often gets short shrift in meditation training, but that I have found to be extremely important, and that is posture. Our mind and body are so linked, you will often find that when your mind wanders, if you then tune into your body, your body is either slouched (if you have been feeling dreamy or sleepy) or tense somewhere, like a clenched jaw or stomach (if your mind is very busy.) Our posture is often a perfect reflection of our state of mind.

Conversely, attending to our posture can become a meditation itself, and shift our mind. Just by focusing on a straight, alert spine, pulling upward but without straining or tension, we will find our mind becomes more alert and centered. So I often advise people to do exactly this as their meditation - simply try to find and maintain the perfect posture. You don't have to be in lotus position, or even cross-legged to do this, just sitting in a chair is fine. But focus on your spine, and on aligning it, one vertebrae on top of another, to the best of your ability. And try to simply maintain that. You will quickly discover the link between your mind and posture and/or muscular tension.

Moving away from the book for a moment, I wanted to share some thoughts I had while reading a book about a women's struggle with addiction to prescription pain relievers. It struck me that much of what she struggles with in rehab is similar to what we all go through on the spiritual journey. She has to learn how to sit with feelings that are not comfortable for her, in her case, most particularly stress and sadness. She had self-medicated with first alcohol then pills whenever either of these two arose.

Through therapy she was able to trace back the roots of how this began in her childhood, to see how her parents shared the same pattern, but that wasn't enough to break the addiction. For that she has to go one day at a time, vowing each day to try and simply be with the feelings when they arise, rather than moving away from them through pills. It strikes her that she is actually truly in her life for the first time, able to be present with what is occurring. And she discovers that even though the pain of being alive at times feels unbearable to her (as her marriage crumbles, and she struggles to rebuild her relationship with her daughter), there are so many moments of joy and beauty that she had often been missing, because her only model for happiness and pleasure was when she was high.

Most of us do not medicate through substances but through other means, both external and internal. External might be anything from tv to socializing to being online all of the time. Internal is the emotional patterns we've created in response to emotions we don't like feeling, whether fear or sadness or stress. Those patterns might be daydreaming, or getting angry, or being busy. They may be pleasurable or they many not (as in the case of the habit of anger, of lashing out - it may allow us to feel vindicated, or 'in the right', and that feeling may be what we are addicted to.) But whatever our demons are, they are a way of self-medicating us away from the present, and from whatever is arising.

Meditation and mindfulness are practices for bringing us back to ourselves, to being fully present in our lives, even when what is arising is difficult for us to feel. It is our practice for breaking our addiction to the internal patterns we usually use to self-medicate, so that we can truly be in our lives completely. The transition often happens slowly, but it does happen.

Today I wanted to look at the following quote from Mindfulness in Plain English, as it has so much wisdom:

“Buddhism advises you not to implant feelings that you don’t really have or avoid feelings that you do have. If you are miserable you are miserable; that is the reality, that is what is happening, so confront that. Look it square in the eye without flinching. When you are having a bad time, examine that experience, observe it mindfully, study the phenomenon and learn its mechanics. The way out of a trap is to study the trap itself, learn how it is built. You do this by taking the thing apart piece by piece. The trap can’t trap you if it has been taken to pieces. The result is freedom.”
- BH Gunuratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

One of the 'traps' of meditation that is sometimes spoken of in teachings is of using it to escape negative emotions, rather than to use it to mindfully observe and even study them, as Gunuratana describes here. So much of our activity in life, including our emotional habits, are attempts to escape that which we find painful (or of course to seek that which we find pleasurable, the other side of the coin.) But when our emotions, thoughts, and actions are driven by the desire to escape, our happiness is still dependent upon this. Whereas if we 'study the trap' as Gunuratana describes here, we can come to realize a level of our awareness not bound by this. It's easy to imitate this in meditation though, rather than to really look the suffering in the face. I think this is one of the most useful fruit of practice - that we truly accustom ourselves to do this, and to stop seeking to escape.

I wanted to start getting into some of the ways Gunuratana advises that we deal with problems in meditation in Mindfulness in Plain English. Of course, everyone is different, and different meditation traditions offer a lot of different ways of dealing with the issues that arise for us.

The first problem he deals with in his chapter on this is physical pain - if we are actually in physical pain due to our meditation posture, or experiencing any other kind of distracting pain - headache, stomachache, or an ongoing pain that we have. He advises us approaching this in 2 steps: 1) get rid of the pain, and 2) if that doesn't work, use the pain as your focus in meditation.

Re: #1, some meditation traditions encourage people to meditate through pain in their meditation posture. The idea is that you will build up the muscles you need to hold the posture, and learn to detach from the arising pain, and therefore, gain valuable insight into the nature of pain itself, which is seated in the mind. However, he (and I) don't believe in sitting through pain that can be avoided by moving. While working towards a good meditation posture can be tremendously beneficial (see my post above on meditation posture), you can do that gradually.

However, if you have a pain you can't get rid of, a headache or jointache etc., you can gain amazing insight by actually focusing on the pain. Here's how Gunuratana describes it:

"You will discover that there are 2 things present. The first is the simple sensation - pain itself. Second is your resistance to that sensation...You are clamping down mentally on the sensation of pain, trying to screen it out and reject it from consciousness. The rejection is a wordless 'I don't like this feeling' or 'go away' attitude. It is very subtle. But it is there, and you can find it if you really look." - from Mindfulness in Plain English

He goes on to advising consciously trying to relax on each level. First work to relax the muscles in and around the physical pain, by breathing into them. Then focus on relaxing the sense of mental tension, the pushing away or down feeling.

This is subtle work, but it really opens up amazing insight into the relationship between mind and body, and to our mind's tendency to immediately judge every sensation, and everything we encounter in terms of 'good' and 'bad'. Of course, this doesn't mean induce pain or put up with pain that you can avoid, but when you cannot avoid pain (and of course it's a basic Buddhist premise that we cannot, that is the nature of having a human body), this is a wonderful way to work with it, in or out of formal meditation.

Gunaratana also addresses one of the most common issues people ask me about - drowsiness. He points out that as we become comfortable with meditation, we become more calm and relaxed, which is exactly what is supposed to happen. But of course, many of us are only used to experiencing this when we are falling asleep, so our mind and body starts to go there as soon as we are relaxed. In modern society, it often feels like we just have an 'on' and an 'off' switch - hyper or asleep, and we can't seem to settle into states in between (or sometimes we feel as if we can't even induce these 2 states when we want, feeling sleepy when we want to be alert, or not being able to sleep when we want to sleep.)

In Mindfulness in Plain English, Gunaratana includes the classic advice to drowsy meditators - apply mindful inquiry to the sensation of drowsiness itself:

"...Drowsiness has certain definite characteristics. It does certain things to your thought process. Find out what. It has certain bodily feelings associated with it. Locate those."

"This inquisitive awareness is the exact opposite of drowsiness, and will evaporate it. If it does not, then you should suspect a physical cause of your drowsiness. Search that out and handle it...Stay awake and mindful, for sleep and meditative concentration are two diametrically opposed experiences...If you are very sleepy, then take a deep breath and hold it as long as you can. Then breathe out slowly. Take another deep breath again, hold it as long as you can, and breathe out slowly. Repeat this exercise until your body warms up and sleepiness fades away..."
- Bhante Gunuratana, Mindfulness in Plain English

The next meditation challenge that Bhante Gunuratana addresses in his Mindfulness in Plain English is inability to concentrate. He first offers a reminder about how impressionable our mind is - if we mediate after reading a book or watching TV, our mind will likely be filled with images from those. If we meditate just after a social occasion, our mind will likely still be flitting amongst those we spoke to. This is part of the reason that meditating first thing in the morning is often advised - your mind has settled somewhat overnight (even with dream activity) so there is less residual activity.

Of course other things that contribute is what is going on in our life - if we have some crises or are anxious about something coming up, our mind will return to this over and over. We can only do our best with this. Sometimes, if you have a busy day coming up, it's best to organize that before you meditate, i.e. make a list, etc, so that you can then feel as if things are enough under control that you can relax a bit during your meditation. This is something to experiment with.

I would add my own note about energetics here - the way that our mindstate is influenced by the energies of places we have been to and people we have been in contact with. You can easily see this if you run a little experiment: Go to a busy mall or other location and then go home and try meditating. The next day go for a walk in a peaceful nature location and then go home and try meditating. In both cases, don't interact with anyone, so that you can clearly see how your mind was impacted by the environment and stimulation around it, apart from any personal interactions. Most likely, you will see a vast difference between the two meditations, and your mind will be much busier after the mall visit.

When our mind is busy, Gunuratana reminds us:

"Vipassana meditation is primarily an exercise in awareness. Emptying the mind is not as important as being mindful of what the mind is doing. If you are frantic and you can't do a thing to stop it, just observe. It is all you. The result will be one more step forward in your journey to self-exploration. Above all, don't get frustrated over the nonstop chatter of your mind. That babble is just one more thing to be mindful of."