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 by Steven Sashen
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