Post #2: The Mat and I

29 April 2023

Even when my interest in the bigger picture of the Dhamma wanes and recedes—or drops away altogether for a while, at least so far as surface appearances go—I find myself getting pulled back to the mat. It’s not a matter of enjoyment; the innocents who marvel at how much I must like meditation (let alone ten-day silent retreats), or why else would I keep going, don’t much know what they are talking about, bless their hearts.

No, it’s not a question of having fun; more like brushing one’s teeth, or even the dentist’s chair. I keep doing it, even on a reluctant day, because it’s better than the cavities and corresponding tooth aches that are inevitable when I slack off too much. (Mind you, the aches come anyway, but they also go more quickly and they are a little less racking while they stick around. Every bit counts, as beggars say—a theme I will return to.)

So does that mean I always stick to the prescribed full hour in the morning and at night? Hardly. It happens, mind you, and sometimes I’ve been able to keep it up for longer stretches—weeks, months, years even, once upon a time. But eventually, in my experience at least, the chain breaks and I go back to a more irregular practice again. Anicca.

Does it bother me that I cannot, it seems, be more adamantly regular without forcing things unduly? I recognize, after all, from years and years of experimenting with every conceivable meditation regimen, that sticking to the tried and tested two hours really does work best, if only one can manage it somehow. The regularity makes all the difference, and while I never did find that it got easy exactly, it is quite possible to do the seemingly impossible and keep it up if one is determined (or desperate) enough. Which raises a troubling question for another day, namely why one can sometimes muster it and sometimes not? Who is the responsible agent here, if the self is not substantial? And if there is no such agent, whom am I trying to reach with my calls for a more sustained practice?

How much effort should one be making is something that has caused me plenty of unease over the years, even anguish at times, because I am, let me admit it, prone to feeling bad about not being a “better” meditator. I’ve been comforted, sometimes, by a story told in the Pali scriptures about one of the Buddha’s early monks, previously a rich fellow and a lute-player, Sona, whose feet were so delicate from his days as a spoiled young man, and his determination to break his old habits so fierce (something I will take up in the next post, I think), that he left a bloody trail on the patch where he did his relentless rounds of walking meditation. Despite his great efforts, however, he felt that he was not progressing much, and he was bothered enough to consider returning to lay life.

The Buddha reminded him of what he had known so well when he was still a musician: while the strings on your instrument must be kept taut enough to be playable and not sound flat, tightening them just one turn too much will end the music altogether. Finding the delicate balance between making enough of an effort and over-exerting oneself is a challenge in all dimensions of life, and the mat is no exception. If you go too easy, you cannot get very far, but if you overdo things, you will find yourself going nowhere at all, or backwards even. It is by balanced effort, as the Buddha put it, neither halting nor straining, that we may cross over to the other shore (Anguttara Nikaya 6:55).

Just what kind of meditation routine such a balanced effort will mean for you is something you need to discover for yourself. Sure, you may be able simply to stick to the formula, and good for you if you can! But if you cannot manage to be quite so regular, never mind. I have a meditator’s mantra that I keep for a rainy day: ten minutes are better than five, five are better than one, and even one is better than none at all. Avoid meditorture, if possible (even if it cannot always be avoided); try beditation instead when the going gets too rough. Lie down in the aptly-named savasana (or corpse) posture, back flat, with your palms turned up, and watch the calming sensations there for a few minutes. It can work wonders when fighting it out on the mat would only get you more wound up. Then again, if you are the warrior type and you thrive on such battles, do what suits you best. You are your own master, it says in the Dhammapada.

Speaking of what works, a confession: I track my hours. I keep a little log where they get recorded, one by one, and I know fairly accurately how many I have clocked, going all the way to the beginning, or very nearly so. Not that I believe it matters much: as a hard-boiled Indian teacher-type once scoffed at me, what are a few thousand hours on such a long Path? Righty ho, and I don’t imagine that even the vaunted ten thousand will bring me any great change in this dimension. Certainly not liberation, though I would welcome it. I think.

I count the grains of sand that are slowly accumulating on my little pile because doing so leaves me feeling a little more reassured even when I cannot point to any very impressive results. It helps me to keep going, and that is no small thing. “Good” meditators would not need to resort to such petty contrivances, I presume, but then as I pointed out above, I don’t feel that I am one of them. All I am doing is to put one foot in front of the other on an uncertain path and to set apart a bit of time every day to survey the inner landscape as best I can—and this not because I am so sure that what I am able to do amounts to much, but because I need it so much. And not only I.

May all be happy.

Reading: Samyutta Nikaya 3:25 (on Sona the lute-player)