Instant Advanced Meditation

In my 30 years of formal meditation practice, I discovered one thing:

Simple-sounding instructions are not so simple (or sometimes IMPOSSIBLE) to actually do.

I mean, seriously, what could be simpler than: “Just keep your attention focused on your breathing as it goes in and out,” right?

Well, it turns out, when you TRY to keep your attention focused on your breathing, it seems that building a nuclear power plant with twist ties and Gummi Bears would be easier.

I discovered there’s another way.

Instead of simple-sounding instructions, there are simple concepts that, once  we understand them, can lead to rapid changes in our mental state.

Here’s an example, that I call the Foreground/Background Confusion:

When we perceive anything there’s the foreground — the part that has caught our attention — and the background, the part that allows us to notice the foreground.

Think of the sky.

One example of foreground is the clouds. Or the sun. Those are the things we SEE, that catch our attention.

The “background” is the big, wide, open, spacious thing that the foreground items seem to move through.

The background is so familiar that we usually don’t even pay attention to it… our brains are wired to notice the foreground events (after all, when we were in the savannah hundreds of thousands of years ago, it wasn’t important to pay attention to ALL the grass that was waving in the breeze, only  to the bits that WEREN’T… because behind those blades of grass is where the saber-toothed bunny could be hiding!).

The background, it seems, is untouched by whatever appears in it. Even if the foreground items totally take over (a REALLY cloudy day, for example), we know that it just seems that way, that it’s just temporary, and that, somewhere back there, is a clear, spacious background.

The background, we could say metaphorically, doesn’t have a preference or problem with whatever shows up as the foreground.

Now what I’m about to suggest isn’t a meditation technique, per se, but it could, nonetheless, lead you to a dramatic shift in your experience.

Check out your current experience — sensations, thoughts, images, sounds, smells, feelings. Those are the foreground.

In the same way that you could shift your attention from the clouds (foreground) to the sky itself (background)… or even sense the existence of the background (sky) even when it’s totally obscured by foreground (clouds)…  do the same thing with your experience.

See if you can find the “background” of whatever you are experiencing.

See if you can notice that it’s as if there’s something (we don’t need to name it), in which the thoughts, feelings, sensations, etc. happen to arise and pass away within, like the way the sky holds the clouds.

See if, instead of trying to do something to or with the foreground of your experience, you can take a step back and rest in/as the background, the spacious, open thing that doesn’t have a problem with whatever arises in it.

I’m not asking you to hold onto this state for any specific amount of time (that would be like asking you to do something that SOUNDS simple but isn’t!)… just see if you can get a tiny taste of hanging out with the background instead of the foreground.

Let me know what you experience.

               
Tags: meditation techniques // Add Comment »

I never planned this.

But since I’m teaching meditation, and since the Internet is kind of anonymous, I get emails where people are very revealing about their personal lives with the hopes that the Instant Advanced Meditation course can help.

The other day I received an incredibly heartfelt email from a woman who described various physical and mental challenges.  And then she said, “I know that meditation can help, but even though I know that, I just can’t seem to motivate myself to meditate. What do you suggest?”

You may have a similar experience. Maybe you feel better when you meditate, but weeks can go by without you ever stopping to do it. And then you wonder why you wouldn’t do something you know that makes you feel better.

Maybe for you it’s not meditation where this happens, but exercise and diet — that was my story for a dozen years. When I was young, I was in great shape. I was an All-America gymnast and avid bike rider (I didn’t even own a car, but rode everywhere).

But after an accident that required knee surgery, I quickly put on 35 pounds. And for the next 12 years, I kept saying that I wanted to lose weight and get back into shape… but it never happened.

Between that situation in my life, and then the thousands of people I’ve talked to about meditation, I discovered some shocking things about motivation.

In a way, what I’m about to share is a “bad news, worse news, surprising news” story.

1. The bad news: You can’t fake it. Either you’re motivated or your not. End of story.  Which brings us to…
2. The worse news: You can’t create motivation, either. That is, you can’t trick yourself into being motivated. And any “techniques” you use to “motivate yourself” will eventually stop working because, again, you can’t fake it or create it.And once the techniques stop working, there are 2 typical responses: either looking for yet another motivation technique (that, guess what, won’t work in the long run either), or concluding that there’s something wrong or bad about you that you won’t do this thing that you say you want to do.

   But this isn’t really bad news, because of …

3. The surprising news: Lack of Motivation isn’t the actual problem. What people call “lack of motivation” is actually an important signal pointing to a whole different phenomenon. And once you address the REAL issue, motivation simply isn’t a problem. Let’s take a look.

What I’ve found is that “lack of motivation” is really pointing to one of a few other issues:

• That the benefits we get from meditating simply aren’t compelling enough. Can you remember a time where you really, really needed to take some action — maybe to get rent money, or save a relationship, or get help for yourself or someone who was injured? The imagined future (where you got rent money, or salvaged a relationship, or found help) was compelling enough to make you take action without having to think about motivation. In fact, you may not have thought much at all, just acted.
• That the technique itself isn’t interesting/compelling enough to do it for its own sake (regardless of any benefits). Think about something you really enjoy doing (and, hey, watching TV or going to the movies is a fine thing to use for this example). Do you need to motivate yourself to do it? Of course not. You like doing it, so you do it. Simple.
• And here’s the one that’s most interesting to me: That our motivation is often based on the painful idea that there’s something wrong with ourselves that needs to be fixed.

  See, if you think that something is wrong with you, or that some imagined future is salvation, then whatever technique you’re using to fix yourself or find salvation will reminds you that something is wrong with you… and that’s a supremely stressful thought/feeling to have!

  By the way, the belief  “something is wrong with me” is not stressful because it’s true! If you imagined sucking on a lemon, you get sour “lemon-sucking” feelings. If you imagine that something is wrong with you, you get stressful “something is wrong with me” feelings. That’s it.

  When I believed that meditation would fix what was wrong with me, it’s not surprising that I wanted to avoid meditation, because meditating would remind me of the painful belief/experience that there was something wrong.

  In this case, “lack of motivation” is really a healthy desire to avoid doing something unpleasant, namely, reminding myself that there’s something wrong with me.

So, what’s the solution?

Bypass the whole motivation issue entirely.

For me what happened was that I lost the ability to believe there was something wrong with me. That led to stopping my long-time meditation practice (why meditate in order to fix myself if I didn’t think I needed to be fixed?). But after that, I was still curious about the mind and happiness. And from my continued investigation, I ended up developing these unusual meditation techniques that bypassed the first two issues, above.

The practices themselves were fun and interesting enough to do for their own sake.

And the benefits were compelling enough to make me want to do them.

And, more than that, the practices could be done anywhere, any time, and generate results in just minutes. I’d find that, quite spontaneously, I’d simply get the urge to do one of these meditations. Sometimes just for a few moments while I was waiting for a traffic light to change. Sometimes I’d just feel like it was time to to go enjoy one of the practices for 20 or 30 minutes.

More importantly, now that hundreds of people have experienced these techniques, they report the same thing (it wouldn’t be meaningful if it was just me! ) — that they don’t worry about motivation, but simply find themselves getting the urge to do one of the practices wherever they happen to be. And they can reliably experience deep meditative states without having to change their daily schedule, or escape into a corner for 20-60 minutes.

And many of them have found they no longer think of themselves as “self-improvement projects.”

What do you think? Leave your comment, below.

               
Tags: meditation // 7 Comments »

The key to relaxing instantly (or becoming focused, or concentrated, or compassionate, or finding mystical states in moments), is simple, really:

Have a technique that reliably (as in, almost EVERY TIME), gets you into the state you want.

If you are able to do that, after a while, you simply won’t need the technique. You’ll be able to “find” that state inside of you, in the same way you can “find” balance on a bicycle because you’ve become so familiar with balancing a bike.

One technique that’s effective for finding light states of relaxation, is easy: remember, as vividly as you can, a time when you were relaxed.

Maybe it’s at the beach, or floating on a boat, resting in bed… whatever memory you have. Feel into that memory with as much detail as you can and you’ll probably relax by 20% in a minute.

Or, here’s another technique; one that takes advantage of the brain’s love of physical metaphors — let your fingertips brush gently and slowly over some smooth object (I use my laminate desk).

Because the mind associates “smooth” with relaxation and ease, if you do that for 10-20 seconds, your mind/body will probably relax as well.

What do you experience with these  simple “tips?”

               
Tags: relaxation // 1 Comment »

What are the biggest challenges, or obstacles, problems or questions you have when it comes to meditation? (or with finding a way to relax, de-stress, expand awareness, etc.)

Leave a comment with your answer and, in a few days, I’ll post not only the top 3 problems/questions (I’ve asked this question to thousands of people), I’ll also post the solution and answers according to the Path of Recognition.

               
Tags: meditation // 41 Comments »

Okay, so here’s the story.

I’m at a workshop with my friend, Yeshe (I’ve changed his name to protect him… you’ll see why in a moment).

Yeshe is a high-ranking Tibetan monk. You might even recognize him if you saw him.

Anyway, the workshop leader asked Yeshe to teach the group a Tibetan meditation practice. And, so, he did.

It was a basic meditation technique from what I call “The Path of Purification,” where you follow your breath in and out, but with a Tibetan twist, of visualizing colored light in your body as you breath in and out.

After about 10 minutes of meditating, we ring a Tibetan bowl, everyone opens their eyes, and Yeshe asks for comments.

Lots of people expressed their gratitude, their happiness that Yeshe had shared this with them, their wishes that he was staying around so they could do more. The few people who commented on their actual experience were mostly lost in daydreams. Some had a relaxing time, but that seemed as much from just sitting quietly for 10 minutes as anything else.

Then one woman at the back of the room nearly exploded.

“I’m sorry, I have to say this…”

Every head swiveled to her. Yeshe and I sat up a bit straighter. I think we both knew what was coming, though.

“This just didn’t work for me at all. I’ve tried meditating, and I just can’t do it. I can’t concentrate, I can’t sit still, my mind wanders. I didn’t really feel anything.”

There was almost a collective gasp, as if admitting meditation didn’t work — especially in a New Age workshop — wasn’t, well… you just didn’t do that!

Then Yeshe said something that floored me. Not because I didn’t know it, but because he, an important Tibetan lama, was the one saying it… in public.

“You know,” he started, in his raspy voice, “The monks at the monastery who practice for many hours each day… when they leave the monastery and come down into the city, into shopping malls, they have the same trouble, too.”

My eyes must have opened an extra inch. I’d never heard anyone admit in public that meditation practices from The Path of Purification are NOT EASY, even for the professionals… especially when they’re not alone on the mountaintop with no distractions from a normal life.

(As an aside: A few years earlier, I’d seen a letter written by the head of a different meditation lineage that also uses techniques from The Path of Purification, complaining that none of his thousands of students were attaining the levels of meditation he expected, and he didn’t know why. I wasn’t supposed to have seen the letter and, as far as I can tell, it has since disappeared.)

The woman was kinda relieved to hear that this wasn’t just HER problem, but she was still grasping for something… “What do I do?” she asked.

“Practice more,” Yeshe said.

“WHAT?!” I shouted… well, I only shouted in my head, since I didn’t want to make a scene. But later I confronted Yeshe.

“First you said that even the monks who practice for hours and hours every day would have the same difficulties if they were in a householder’s life… and then you say the solution is ‘practice more’? How will sitting for 20 or 30 minutes per day be the answer, when hours and hours without distraction isn’t the answer?”

“Oh…” Yeshe said, realizing the logical problem with his answer.

As I’d seen in other meditation lineages that use techniques from The Path of Purification, “practice more” is always the answer, no matter what the question.

It was after 30 years of “practicing more” and, like the woman at the workshop, not getting the results I expected, that I gave up the Path of Purification. Then, much to my surprise, discovered the Path of Recognition and a series of techniques that actually DID work, reliably, consistently, easily, quickly… and instead of having to worry about “losing it” if you have a real life, you can do these practices in the middle of a busy life. Even in the middle of a busy street.

               
Tags: meditation // 10 Comments »

Is it for personal growth?
Stress-relief?
Spiritual reasons?
Improved performance or creativity?

Or something else…

In my 30 years as a “meditation failure” I had lots of reasons to meditate. And I found that some of my reasons were simply unreasonable — meditation wouldn’t give me what I wanted. Some of my other reasons actually got in the way of being able to meditate at all.

And some of my reasons were unnecessary — I had already attained the goal I wanted, but I hadn’t even noticed.

What are your reasons for meditating?

Until you know where you’re starting, it’s hard to plan the trip to your destination.

               
Tags: meditation // 40 Comments »

The one year anniversary of the Instant Advanced Meditation Course is coming up and I’d love to hear from those of you who’ve been exploring the I AM practices, the “thought experiments, the Chit Chat calls, the Teleclasses and the personal attention you can get during them.

What do you like about the I AM Course, the practices, etc.?

Thanks,
Steven

               
Tags: meditation, spiritual growth // 21 Comments »

Remember “This Old House,” the first home-improvement show, with Bob Villa?

After 30 years of meditation, I noticed that I could have been the house on that show.

I had spent most of my life, from the time I was 8, treating myself like an improvement project — a self-improvement project.

And the reason was simple: If I fixed me up just right — an addition here, removing a wall there, some new paint — I’d finally be truly happy.

“Happy” was shorthand for a lot of ideas of what I thought I wanted — calm, imperturbable, wise, admired, loved-by-all, etc.

And then I realized that I only believed certain things needed fixing was because of the idea of this imagined, improved, future.

In other words, it was my lack of self-acceptance that motivated a practice that says you should accept things as they are!

Or, better, I was trying to accept things as they were… so that things would CHANGE!

Am I the only one?

Once I got hip to this twisted motivation — and it was SUBTLE — I had to stop practicing.

Of course the obsessive interest I had with the workings of the mind didn’t go away (my parents got a note from the principal of my elementary school, saying, “Please ask Steven to stop hypnotizing the 5th grade class.”). And that’s what led to I AM… but more about that later.

What would your life be like if you couldn’t conceive of yourself as an improvement project?

               
Tags: spiritual growth // 14 Comments »