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You
follow the breathing, very simply. Particularly pay attention to the
outbreath. Go along with it. Don’t particularly try to feel the
temperature of the breath in your nostrils or anything like that. Just
breathe out, and as your breath goes out, you go out with your natural
breath, very simply, extremely simply.
In
terms of the staircase you are building, it requires enormous precision
and enormous subtlety to build these steps. That is related to working
with the out-breath. There’s a general sense that you’re there. You are
not trying to become frigid or rigid and solemn about the whole
practice. You are simply being there. When you sit, you actually sit.
There’s no room for speculation. You sit. You actually sit. You actually
do breathe. The sense of simplicity is almost to the level of naivete.
You do things completely, wholeheartedly. You do things as they are. You
actually get into things as they are, completely, correctly.
Your
breath goes out and dissolves into the atmosphere, the space around
you. Don’t try to follow it out too far. Let it be. Then, there’s a gap,
some uncertainty maybe, and your breath comes in automatically, as a
natural physiological function. At that point, don’t try to bring your
attention back into your lungs and your body particularly. Just let it
be, let it drop. So your attention is dropped, your breath is coming
into your lungs, and then another breath goes out and you go out with it
again. It’s very simple. There should be a sense of simplicity to the
whole thing.
While
you’re meditating, all kinds of thoughts arise: thoughts about your
life, your future plans, conversations with your friends and your
relatives. All kinds of things come through the mind. Let them come
through. Let them just come through. Don’t try to say whether they are
bad or for that matter whether they are particularly good. Just let them
come through, as simply as you can. By letting them come through, you
find that there’s a sense of openness. You don’t find your thoughts
threatening or particularly helpful. They just become the general
gossip, the traffic of your thoughts. If you live in a city, you hear
the traffic coming through your windows: there goes a motorcycle, there
goes a truck. There goes a car, and then there’s somebody shouting. At
the beginning, you might get involved in or distracted by the noise, but
then you begin to think, so what? Similarly, the traffic of your
thoughts and the verbosity of your mind are just part of the basic
chatter than goes on in the universe. Just let it go through.
Whether
you sit and practice alone or in a group situation doesn’t make any
difference. If you find it difficult to meditate and want to stand up
and walk out of meditation, the group situation does help you not to
chicken out. It also provides a sense of fellowship.
At
the same time, whether you are sitting in a group or physically alone,
you are always sitting alone. You might have been told that even if you
don’t have a solid commitment to meditation, the good vibrations in the
room will pick you up. The energy will uplift you in any case. But
that’s not possible. The sanity that one person experiences in the
sitting practice of meditation is not transferable. That kind of cosmic
hitchhiking doesn’t exist. Everybody’s in their own little vehicle,
which is called a body. There’s no room for anybody else in that
particular body. Everybody has their own car, their own body, so that in
fact you can’t hitchhike. You need to acknowledge that, and the sooner,
the better, because then you won’t have unrealistic expectations. You
will realize that you have to pull yourself together, rather than
waiting for somebody to rescue you.
Sitting
practice is independent and individual and a very lonely journey.
Aloneness is the basic point. Whether you sit in a group or individual
situation, there is a sense of loneliness. Sometimes you might feel
completely isolated and cut off in your experience. But sometimes you
might experience this aloneness as the basis of heroism. In the positive
sense, you are making a journey, and nobody’s telling you to make this
journey. You are making the journey alone. The only help that somebody
can give you is to tell you that others have made this lonely journey
and that you could do so as well, in the same way.
This
might seem like a very severe process, very strict. But it is very
cheerful, because there’s a sense of conviction that you aren’t going to
hitchhike; you are going to do this yourself. There is a powerful sense
of celebration in this, which is the heart of the practice of
meditation. The sitting practice of meditation is the expression of
celebration, rather than falling into a trap or imprisonment. You no
longer have to go through exaggerated sociological, psychological, or
bureaucratic trips that we create for ourselves. You could get into the
practice simply and directly, starting with the breath. Get into it,
simply go along with it, and work with it. That’s the basic point of
shamatha.
Having
done that deliberate practice of relating with one’s awareness, simply
and directly, without question, then you begin to relate to sound,
smell, sight, and every experience that you have in the sensorial world
with exactly the same awareness. You see things simply and directly.
You’re with them and with your breathing. You’re simply there, very
simply and very directly there. There are no interpretations: Is this
going to be good enough? Am I making mistakes? No such questions arise
if you are being simple enough. The questions come from looking,
questioning, lying back, analyzing, trying to make sure. Questions only
arise on the basis of how to secure your basic ground as ego. If there
is no ego-oriented question, there are no other questions. Instead, your
practice is a statement, somewhat. It is extremely direct and
deliberate. The basic point of shamatha is this sense of deliberateness.
You are actually doing something. You are getting into this particular
process, without making sure that what you’re doing is okay. Things are
actually taking place almost of their own accord, very simply and
directly. That is meditation.
Photo courtesy of Shambhala Archives.
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