Much of the literature on meditation practice is concerned with the application of certain methods of meditation and how they achieve beneficial results. An accepted meditation method is often held as beyond reproach, as if it is somehow perfect, and yet each and every meditation practice that has ever been devised has its blind spots, its inconsistencies, its superstitions and rules, its unfounded metaphysical beliefs and theories. However, because it is said to achieve certain results, or changes in people, these other aspects may go unexamined.
People are introduced to methods of meditation in a variety of ways, including books, articles, talks, workshops, retreats, and conversations with friends. Sometimes people make up their own methods, but usually the method of meditation one uses for an extended period of time comes from teachers of authority within various traditions.
When one walks into a meditation class, one is most likely going to be introduced to a method of meditation, which these days is almost always a practice of being aware of the breath. The environment is supportive of one doing the meditation method that is being advocated. Generally in such situations people are polite and compliant, though they may have some doubts and judgments flash through their minds on occasion. They feel it is a time to try something new, something that would be good for one to do, and it is not a time to be disagreeable and resistant.
The meditation sitting begins and everyone in the room is supposedly following the same instruction. But are they doing it the same way? Some people are trying to hold their attention on the breath and pushing away their thoughts. Others are getting caught up in thoughts and are constantly reminding themselves to return to the breath. Others are changing the way they breathe so as to make it easier to be aware of the breath, while others are too acutely aware of each breath and are in a state of panic about how their breathing is going. There are several other scenarios that I could mention, but I think you get the picture. Each individual is having her own experience of doing that particular instruction.
People having different experiences following the same type of instruction is not a novel understanding of what goes on in meditation, and many experienced meditation teachers do take that into account. What is generally not taken into account is how individuals apply the same method differently. What needs to be called into question here is the assumption that because everyone got the same instruction they are all essentially doing the same thing
An individual sits down to meditate. What is she going to do? Most likely she will use a method she has heard from a teacher or read in a book. The instruction is followed in the way she understands it. On the surface it appears that she is sitting doing a meditation practice by following a particular instruction. So, say for example, she is trying to follow her breath at her nostrils, noting each inhalation and exhalation. Observing her breath at the nostrils and noticing it in that way is the method. The assumption would then be that what is going on in her meditation is that she is observing her breath because she is following that instruction.
This assumes that what goes on in meditation is the meditation practice one has intended to do. Why would that be the case? There is no reason to assume that just by having the intention to notice her breath that she would then sit and only notice her breath. Knowing the human mind, it would make more sense to assume that she would not be aware of her breath much of the time and would be thinking about all sorts of things during her meditation sitting. Her meditation sitting would mostly be made up of her individual thoughts, feelings, desires, tendencies, memories, etc. and not about the method of meditation she has adopted for the time being. In fact, the chosen method of meditation would have to yield to her individual temperament and inclinations, and would, by necessity, be tempered and altered by how she does it. For instance, she might find that being aware of the breath at the nostrils is too hard to feel, and so she may shift her attention to being aware of her lungs filling with air and expelling it, or her diaphragm moving up and down as she breathes. Someone with a different temperament might also find that the whole process of trying to observe her breath produces too much anxiety or frustration and so gives up on the idea; and still another might find that it is easy to stay with the breath, but still thoughts keep taking her attention from it.
The most one could say then about the relationship of one's chosen method of meditation and one's experience of doing it is that it is customized. It may change from one sitting to another, or from one period of time to another, but not because the method changes, but rather because each of us adapts any given method to our own temperaments and moods. In strict schools of meditation practice, such natural adaptation is frowned upon, for there is a belief in a pure method; and in those schools of practice, the students tend to believe that there is an absolutely right way of doing that particular meditation practice and that any other way is wrong. In this respect, the separation of a method from the person doing it is, by its very definition, an abstraction. A pure method is thus an ideal far removed from what is found in actual experience.
How do people take in meditation instructions? What are some of the different ways in which people use such instructions?
Let's start with one common way people take in instructions. First, there are those who try to follow them as stated, but also want to excel at following them. The attitude of following instructions to the letter and getting the most out of them is prevalent among many meditation practitioners. Such individuals will most likely push themselves to stick with the instruction and get it right at all costs, no matter how long it takes, or how much effort it involves. And when they feel they are doing it right, they are often filled with doubt; are they really doing it right? What if their teacher says they are not doing it right?
Another way some people take in instructions is to believe that they can't possibly get the instruction right, but will try anyhow. The instruction to “just be aware of the breath” sounds like an impossible feat for them, though they can perhaps imagine it happening. They follow the instruction with a pending sense of failure, convinced that they are not up to the task. So while that is their meditation method, they are in fact not using that method, but doing something else all together.
In addition, there are those who may find themselves somewhere in between these two extremes, who follow an instruction exclusively and faithfully at times, while at other times decide to do something else, and so may not feel compelled to succeed or destined to fail at any one method. Thus there is a provisional way that such people may take in instructions, where when first introduced they wholeheartedly try to follow the instruction, but then, after a while, they include that instruction in their repertoire of meditation practices.
For a beginning student of meditation, recollective awareness meditation is taught as a method, though it is a flexible method. The initial instruction is to be aware of the external contact of the touch of the hands, one on top of the other in one's lap, or the contact of one's feet, legs, or rear touching the seat or cushion, while allowing one's thoughts and feelings to be as they are. In the course of a meditation sitting, it is all right to be caught up in thoughts, feelings, memories, plans, or anything that draws one's attention. At times one can gently bring one's attention back to the contact of one's hands or of one's body sitting on the cushion, but one need not keep one's attention there, rather one can allow one's mind to be drawn back into thoughts if that is what is happening. So, in contrast to standard meditation practices of, say, observing the breath, one does not try to keep one's attention in one place, nor does one stop one's thoughts.
Since thinking is included in the meditation sitting, meditating with thoughts is acceptable. This makes a big difference as to how someone will experience the method. There will be less concern about whether one is doing it right or wrong, as it is not clear what success or failure is in this method. What will come up more frequently are doubts as to whether this is meditation. But that is OK, and even desirable, as from the outset the method one is using is up for critical examination. So even at the beginning of learning this form of meditation, the student is not required to be compliant and only follow the instructions given. In fact, a student can ignore the beginning instructions altogether and do some other kind of practice and still benefit from this approach.
The reason for this benefit is the next step in this approach, which is to recollect what happens in each meditation sitting; hence the name. The instruction is to recollect the sitting after it is over. After the sitting ends, the student takes a couple of minutes to reflect back over the sitting and see what she remembers about it. This need not be done sequentially, but rather beginning with what one remembers best about the sitting. From remembering a few things that happened in the sitting, it follows that some more of the meditation sitting will come to mind. One does not need to force oneself to remember most of what went on in the meditation sitting; whatever one remembers is enough to begin two additional steps in this approach: the reporting or journaling process.
Journaling or reporting one's meditation sitting to another is optional after each sitting, but at some time a student of this approach will have to talk to a teacher and/or keep a journal of her meditation sittings. There are several reasons for this, but the main one is that the teaching of meditation is done through what the student experiences and through bringing what goes on in meditation more clearly into the student's awareness, rather than giving the student meditation instructions. The only meditation instructions in this approach are the initial instructions. Thereafter, all guidance comes out of the student's recollections, and thus is highly individualized and contextualized within the student's ongoing self-exploration and practice of the Dharma.
In this approach to meditation, students walk into a meditation class and receive the initial instruction given earlier, as well as instruction for those who already have a meditation practice or have done different types of meditation. For people who have meditated before, the opening instruction is to do the practice one has been doing. No one is required to change his or her way of meditating, though everyone is asked to be willing and open to explore their current meditation practice. People are given permission not to do that practice, and invited to try the beginning instructions or do some other meditation practice that they have wanted to try. So, basically, it comes down to people being able to do whatever they like during their meditation sittings with the condition that they will recollect and perhaps then notice things about their meditation practice.
They are given three additional suggestions. One is to be gentle with their experience, whatever they are experiencing. The second is to allow thinking into their meditation sittings. Lastly, they are encouraged to let their minds drift towards sleep and are permitted to fall asleep during the meditation period.
Many people trying out this method encounter more thinking at the beginning of the sitting, and often wonder if this is meditation. But because thinking is being allowed, there is less conflict about it, less self-judgment over having thoughts, and fewer attempts to stop thinking or slow it down or divert it. The thinking usually quiets down on its own after awhile when accepted in this way, and, if it doesn't, it is not a failure, but rather something that one could become interested in. For instance, instead of being merely swept along in what one is planning to do after the meditation class, one might find one's attention shifting to becoming interested in how such plans pull one along, and what it is that is so engrossing about them.
As in any meditation method, one may think one is not doing it right even though there is no single right way to do it. In this approach one would then become more aware of one's need to find a right way to do things. In a similar vein, if one feels unable to do this form of meditation, then that obstruction to meditating, being one's feelings of inadequacy, becomes something one experiences and brings into greater awareness through the meditation practice. Thus instead of defining one's self as someone who cannot do this practice, as could happen with methods that have a definite set of instructions to follow all the time, one is doing this practice by experiencing and looking into the thoughts and feelings of not being able to do this practice.
To clearly define this approach to meditation, at some point or another a student may be instructed to be completely receptive to their experience in meditation and not to do anything to change it. It will then seem as though the right way of meditating is to be completely passive and accepting of all experience, and that whenever one decides to direct one's attention or do a particular practice, one is no longer following this approach. It is just as easy to become rigid about this approach as any other.
But this approach is extremely flexible. One can do most any of the various meditation practices, but not as a technique. Instead of deciding to be aware of the breath in a certain manner, which would be a technique, one becomes aware of the breath when one's attention is naturally drawn to it. Thus one is first aware of the breath before deciding to fix one's attention on it, which makes it easier to stay with the breath, since one's attention is most likely not being pulled away from it by thoughts. One's attention may only stay with the breath for a short while before moving onto something else, but in that short while one would have effortlessly been with the breath and would have experienced what it is like to be with the breath. In doing so, one would experience the benefits of observing the breath without using a technique of constantly bringing one's attention back to it.
As I mentioned earlier, one aspect of this approach is the opportunity to report one’s sitting. Therefore meditation students who practice this approach sometimes feel as though they have to remember their sittings in detail. So one side-effect of this approach is going over one's sitting during the sitting, trying to recall each and every little thing that happened. In going over the sitting, one might begin telling the teacher or a friend about what one was experiencing. If this happens on occasion, it is not a problem, and may even be useful; but if it happens to excess, it might be best to stop reporting or journaling afterwards and see if that cuts down the amount of time spent retelling one's experiences during the sitting.
All meditation methods produce benefits, as well as problems and side effects. The fact that a meditation practice is beneficial for a period of time or creates problems for one does not mean that it is the right or wrong practice for someone. The way one meditates may undergo several changes over the course of many years of practice, and part of the skill in meditating is recognizing when a particular technique or style of meditation is no longer working the way it once did. These methods are merely helping us become aware, wise, and compassionate, and we may go through many of them on our journey towards liberation of mind.