Post #54: Not Calm Enough to Meditate?

5 August 2023

One of the most common objections I hear, from those sincerely interested in meditation and not just begging off, is that they feel too inwardly restless to get into the habit. “Meditation is not for me,” they sigh with real regret: “My mind is just not calm enough.” I sympathize, as I often feel that my mind is not calm enough either, for meditation or for anything else; but the sentiment still springs from a profound misconception of what meditation is really about.

It may amuse you (or it may not) to hear how many of my students have no qualms whatsoever about announcing to me, with the greatest conviction, that they resent the unconscionable hardship of having to do any reading for my classes. (I assign only a modest ten pages per session, but I insist on them). We hate reading, they proclaim; we never do it, nor ever wish to, because we lack both the requisite patience and the attention span. (They really do say that, not quite in the same words, but very much to the same effect!) I’ve heard it so often—sign of the times—that it has lost all power to surprise me, shocking as it still sounds to my ears. I no longer take it amiss; if anything, I’m touched by how very forthright and candid these youngsters are about making their unflattering admission. If they are more aware and embarrassed than they seem by the unflattering implications of what they are telling me, they do a good job of not letting it show.

So I smile and I say that I understand their concerns very well. Not only do I hear it from people their age all the time, but even for my own part, I don’t only read for the sheer joy of it; and if I usually do enjoy it by now, then that’s the fruit of decades of practice, not something I could do from the first as a matter of course. Imagine, I say to them, that you had just opened your own gym (they are much more reliably entrepreneurial and sporty than they are bookish). What if we got talking about it, and I told you that working out was great for other people, but that I am simply not fit enough for it? They laugh at that, of course, and remind me that normal people don’t go to the gym because it’s so much fun, but because it’s good for you—and this all the more for anyone who is badly out of shape! See, I say: that’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you about your readings too! (The message even gets through on occasion, especially by the end of the term when they can see some mental muscle developing that they didn’t realize they had.)

And so it goes on the mat too. There is a terrible rumor making the rounds that meditation has something to do with possessing and maintaining a quiet mind. Why terrible? Because the meditation instruction that it naturally suggests ("just empty your mind of thoughts and keep it still”) is about the surest way I can imagine to nip any tender stirrings of meditative inclination right in the bud. If you are not in the habit of regular sitting, what you are bound to discover when you close your eyes is no inner oasis of peace and quiet, but a raging mental mess unfolding before you—a quivering and quaking pit full of snakes and scorpions and centipedes, as S.N. Goenka recalls about his own first Vipassana revelations—an unexplored wilderness where nothing stays still even for a moment as your own frantic monkey mind chases passing thoughts and momentary sensations over the storm-swept plains of your inner landscape!

And not enough with that: even if you were in the habit, and for years too, you would still discover the same thing! Not that it never gets any easier, or that the mind will not at last calm down and become quite sedate; of course it will do so eventually, at least sometimes. But such quiet moments are the hard-won laurels of the practice, best thought of as its incidental results; aim at them too directly, or worse still, make them prerequisites of your sittings, and you will only drive yourself even crazier than you already are. And that goes not just for you, but for all of us.

Think of your mind as a glass of water with muddy sediment dissolved in it and kept constantly agitated by your inner restlessness. If you leave the water alone for long enough, the murkiness will eventually clear as the heavier parts sink to the bottom. But there is no telling how long this settling will take—or whether it will happen at all on any given occasion—and even if you were to see it clearing for a while, the next storm is sure to come and stir it all up again! That is how your mind will reveal itself to you, beginner or master, and the very last thing you should tie your practice to, if you are serious about it, is the idea that a quiet, stable, focused, sharp, clear, or steady mind should be required as the precondition for effective meditation. That such an equanimous state of mind makes everything much easier and more pleasant to deal with is the very premise of the practice; that is why we subject ourselves to such a rigorous discipline, just as we go to the gym regularly or do our weekly readings. But if, instead, you approach your practice with the idea that for it to be worthwhile it should come to you easily, then you will in all likelihood never get started at all, or else give up very quickly when you hit the first bumps in the road that are inseparable from the journey.

What to do, then, if sitting down to meditate must be expected, especially at the outset, but at times for everyone, to be about as peaceful and relaxing an exercise as trying to keep in the saddle on a furiously bucking pony? Well, just as I don’t assign my students fifty pages a session, knowing that they would not and could not do them, and just as a personal trainer does not load on a hundred kilos for a first-time bench-presser or whip a novice runner through a half-marathon, so you should be gentle with yourself and set yourself an easily achievable goal in the beginning. There is nothing wrong with turning your kitchen timer to no more than five or ten minutes initially, a minor ordeal at worst that anyone can get through. All scoffing is misplaced here: the only deplorable number of minutes is zero. If you can do fifteen or twenty without straining unduly, great; but stay away from anything too effortful in the beginning, lest it become too difficult to maintain day by day. You can always raise the bar later, but at first, direct your energies not so much towards the length of your sittings as towards making them as regular as possible. Whatever happens, try to get your couple of minutes down, either in the morning or at night (or both, ideally), without fail until it feels natural to begin and end your day in that manner. Like brushing your teeth, which you would presumably find awkward to skip whether you enjoy it or not.

While you are sitting with your eyes closed, observe what is going on with as little judgment as possible, whatever may unfold before you, be it pleasant or unpleasant, welcome or unwelcome. You will need some object for your mind to focus on, so try going to the breath as to your anchor; watch it passing through your nostrils, over the upper lip, in and out, over and over, but understand from the outset that this exercise is like trying to balance on a beach ball, or sweeping a floor when there are cockroaches scurrying all over.* Even the Visuddhimagga, the greatest of all the classic commentaries on the Pali canon, the manual of manuals for a traditional Theravadan meditation practice, stresses how very demanding this seemingly simple exercise of observing the breath really is (VIII.21)—yet how fruitful and rewarding if it is only kept up with enough determination and perseverance!

The real challenge, it turns out, is not so much maintaining your balance on the ball, which you will find impossible to do for long, but keeping your spirits up as you find your mind wandering away time after time! Instead of letting yourself get disturbed or even upset by these inescapable inner turbulences, try to observe them with a patient smile, reminding yourself that the endless ripples are no more (and no less) than the reality of the moment as it is reflected in the agitated mirror of your mind. If you can watch the ephemeral flow with even a trace of dispassion, understanding that there is no need for you to like or dislike any of it, then you are meditating with the best of them.

Think of it this way: sitting down with your own mind, once it has become tranquil and tractable, is the easiest thing in the world, like trotting along on the back of a placid pony with a gentle breeze under clear skies; whoever has arrived at such serenity is a fortunate soul, no doubt, but what is so admirable is not the ease of attainment, but the long hard struggle that it took to arrive at such a state of grace. But staying in the saddle with your bucking young bronco of a mind, now that is where real Dhamma heroes are made! It is the beginners who have to move mountains with their bare hands, on weak and weary legs, and with backs ever so sore. Reserve your particular respect for the last row, right up against the wall, where the minutes are longest and the pains most acute and unbearable; the accomplished and advanced meditators towards whom admiration gravitates so naturally no longer need anyone’s encouragement; they have made it through the worst, and they will have their reward.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, says the Tao Te Ching (chapter 64). With such great distances to cover—a whole lifetime’s worth of endeavor (and maybe more)—it is not the speed that determines how far you will get, but your resolve to keep walking in the Tao and the Dhamma whatever annoyances and obstacles may get in your way. Slow down, if you must, or kick peevishly at the pebbles along the way if it makes you feel better. You may find yourself continually tripping over rocks, big or small, or stumbling into puddles and ditches. Never mind: just wipe yourself off and walk on undaunted, however humble and halting your progress may appear. Keep going whatever happens, and be it at a turtle’s or a snail’s pace! What counts in the long run is the continuity of your practice, not any episodic racing or staggering along the way.

(This one goes to Sofiane.)

* The beach ball image is from Paul Fleischman, An Ancient Path (Vipassana Research Institute 2008), p. 8; the cockroaches are from Dan Harris, 10% Happier (Dey Street 2014), p. 101. S.N. Goenka’s snakes, scorpions, and centipedes get mentioned in The Art of Living (Harper One 1987), edited by William Hart, p. 143.