How often have we heard “It’s the thought that counts”?

For example, if we couldn’t get someone the expensive gift that we would like to have given them, we can comfort ourselves with the belief that “it’s the thought that counts!”

That’s the use of the word “thought “as in “intention.”

But believing this phrase It’s the thought that counts is also how we can get ourselves into trouble.

If you have no interest in a thought, it has no power.
You oxygenate them with your beliefs and interests – Mooji

How?When we forget that thoughts are indeed just thoughts, not reality. In other words, we create problems for ourselves when we make  our thoughts  “count.”

If you don’t know it’s a thought it becomes your reality. <Anon>

Then we go further and become fixated. Obsessed. Grasping. Attached.

We don’t attach to things; we attach to our stories [thoughts] about them – Byron Katie, author of Loving What Is

and

The root cause of suffering is identification with our thoughts, the ’stories’ that are continually running through our minds – Eckhart Tolle

This identification, clinging, attachment, leads to volitional action.

Which leads to the creation of our karma.

That’s the problem.

Now, here’s the promise! The very thing (confusing out thoughts with reality) that causes suffering is also the jump-off point  for going beyond our entrenched beliefs and habitual patterns that underlie every thought — mindfulness-awareness practice.

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If you don’t know it’s a thought it becomes your reality. <Anon>

There seems to be as many “causes” for depression as there are people who experience it.

• I’ve lost my job.
• My marriage has fallen apart.
• It’s raining.
• I’m in alot of physical pain.

Having suffered from chronic depression in the past, I finally came to a stunning realization. None of the above cause depression. It’s the way I relate to what is happening, not what happens in the world “outside” myself, that causes depression.

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” – Shakespeare

and

We don’t attach to things; we attach to our stories about them - Byron Katie, author of Loving What Is

In other words, ego is the basic cause of depression, whether chronic or otherwise!

Put very simply, habitual patterns arise from grasping at a manufactured self, ego, that doesn’t actually exist.

Supporting this habitual grasping is an ego-mind produces thoughts, discursive chit-chat and subconscious gossip and afflictive emotions of of all kinds based on its original mistake: the creation of a Self. And then, by extension, the Other. And we believe it. That’s the problem.

• “You don’t have a job. So you’re worthless and a loser.”
• “They have more than I do.”
• “I’m the best!”
• “I’m the worst!”

As a sole support mother, being without a job sometimes was especially troubling for me. I finally realized that depending on external conditions (e.g. a job; the opinions of “others,” others that ego itself creates) for my self-esteem was the problem. I had a belief, an expectation, that, to feel worthwhile, I had to have a job. When I wasn’t working in the marketplace, my ego’s expectation wasn’t met. I was attached to this expectation.

In other words, it wasn’t the fact that I was out-of-work that caused the depression.  It was my attachment to ego’s expectation that I should have a job that created the depression.

That’s what ego does to convince itself that it exists in a solid, permanent way in an “external” world.

It doesn’t. It knows that, but will not give up the struggle to prove that it exists.

This conflict — knowing it doesn’t exist and struggling every minute to prove it does — produces depressions of all kinds when it gets undercut by our daily experience in the world.

I said above that the problem is that we believe our own thoughts, our own projections.

The thoughts will keep coming, but the belief in them will stop – Mooji

If you have no interest in a thought, it has no power.
You oxygenate them with your beliefs and interests – Mooji

The good news is that it’s both the problem and the promise! We can relate in a non-ego way to our thoughts by practice.

I’m so relieved when I remind myself of this quote:

We don’t have to believe everything we think. <Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche>

After all, it’s just a thought……keep it that way so that it doesn’t become your reality.

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For me, meditation practice is like coming home.

We’re on overload today. Too much information. Coming from too many directions. Look here! No, look over there! We feel angry. Fearful. Stressed out.

We need some first aid for the mind if we are going to engage life in a clear, knowing, awake way; if we are going to change our own karmic stream. There’s an important ripple effect of which we must now become aware — by changing our own karma, we help to change the world’s karma. This makes life more uplifted for everyone. And it is here that the role of meditation practice is so vital.

There are so many views today about what meditation is and what its purpose is. For example:

• The “self-help,” “self-improvement” genre: e.g. one blog post urged “Be better than yourself.” Or variations like “Be a better person.” (This genre is based on a poverty mentality about ourselves);
• Some say “Go beyond yourself;”
• Scientists who study meditation have outlined many health benefits; and
• Some think of meditation as a day at the beach.

I like to think of meditation as an exercise in focusing. We focus all day long! But on what are we focusing? It’s usually on constant stream of negativity. On our own story line.

To repeat, meditation is a form of focusing. But now we are gently focusing on our breath, and simply noticing the thoughts that arise. And then returning to gently focus on our breath. We can read about mind in myriad books and articles. But there’s only one way to actually get in touch with our own mind: through an exercise that shifts our focus. I call that shift “meditation practice.” It’s the shift that undercuts our habitual patterns, which cuts through our karmic stream.

The Great Fourteenth, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, sums up the purpose of meditation this way:

The main emphasis in Buddhism is to transform the mind, and transformation depends on meditation. In order to meditate correctly you must have knowledge, and communities, too, must be uplifted through knowledge.

Barbara Marciniak puts it this way:

Meditation is a state of communication; it is not a way to go somewhere to get lost. Meditation is a way to get informed and to go to a place that nourishes you.

Once again, meditation is another way of focusing. Actually, we focus all day long. But on what?

Today’s post will present the Shambhala Buddhist view of meditation as presented by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche via a Shambhala Online event held on Saturday, July 18, 2009, broadcast from Shambhala Meditation Centre, Colorado, 09h30 Mountain Time. It is for the most part unedited so that the reader will get the original flavour.

My own comments are put in { }.

Meditation is not removing ourselves from the world. We are engaging our heart.  This makes the practice less conceptual, more heart-felt.

In this sense, meditation is very much an art form. The Chinese people do alot of art, poetry, calligraphy. This makes the heart nimble. We can appreciate a breeze where we may not have even noticed it before.

We have set up the world in a way where we don’t have trust in ourselves. We always have the feeling that we need something. We feel depleted. We have created a materialistic world.

We have so much information coming in. It’s overload. How should we organize our mind? We do that in terms of what is important. What is important? Meditation practice. So now we can make a plan based on what is important. Making a plan creates motivation. No one will make a plan for us. We have to. Decide what is important. Prioritize. The key thing is to have a clear, knowing, awake mind. … Fear sabotages our day. So contemplate what is important. Otherwise, your day will prioritize your mind, rather than the other way around! (emphasis mine)

When practicing meditation, we practice being immediate; being in the NOW (emphasis mine), not in the future. When we are not present in the moment, there is a level of doubt. Whatever we are looking for seems to be somewhere else.

{Meditation practice can cut through anger, fear. How? Anger and fear arise when we think of something in the past, present or future. Being in the NOW cuts through fixation on\grasping at\attachment to these thoughts.}

Meditation is simply an aid. Through it, we can discover our basic confidence, strength. It’s one thing to be good. It’s another to stay good. For that we need strength. When we are present {in the now}, we have more energy.

{Rather than following our discursive thought, our subconscious gossip, and going AWOL, we are “all present and accounted for.”}

Meditation is not going into some zone. It’s about paying attention to the details in the immediate moment, the now. We tend to label the details as a “hassle.” We’re so trained to be anytime but now, that we aren’t fully where we are! Even on a vacation.

Meditation is about details. About paying attention.

{Thought arises. It dwells. It falls away. Another thought arises. We grab onto it. We space out. Then we remember to come back to — focus on —what we’re doing, i.e. following the out breathe}

Again, we have to ask “What is important?” Mind. From mind we create our world.

In Tibet they want monasteries, because they know that from the spirit will come everything else. In the West, the priority is business.  Some paradym shift is needed. We can’t just plug the holes.

As we meditate, we discover our own inherent strength. It’s not just an individual thing. It’s compassion for others. Compassion is a higher, deeper state of consciousness. We are becoming fully human. We can shine light and see others’ states of mind and act in a way that will benefit them.

We have the ability to create the present. We have the steering wheel. That’s meditation. We can take hold of the steering wheel of our lives through the practice of meditation. Letting go of the stick shift is spacing out. We have to keep our hand on the stick.

{That’s how we can change our karma, our future. If we steer our mind in the direction in which it habitually goes, we not only maintain the karma we already have, but we create fresh karma.}

Sometimes we don’t like what see in meditation.

{“I dislike that person. They’re so annoying. I wish they’d just go away. It’s their fault that this bad thing has happened to me.”}

This is where gentleness and compassion to ourselves comes in. Meditation here is simple appreciation. We are naturally less aggressive, arrogant. Then there’s the possibility of a two-way communication.

{We don’t have to beat ourselves up. Just notice what is arising in our mind.}

Our mind has become two-dimensional. But our mind is like space. It is consciousness. We have the ability to look at that mind.

We are so not used to seeing, listening. Even in an environment like the mountains, we still have the speed of our lives. We are trained to “get through” something, rather than enjoy it, or relax into it.

In meditation, we can work moment-by-moment with the technique. That’s all part of the gentleness.

{Thought arises. It stays. It falls away. Thought arises. We grab onto it. We space out. Then we remember to come back to what we’re doing, i.e. following the out breathe}

We sit down to meditate, and then often just think about the next meal.

But we can shift our perspective, re-orient ourselves. In order to respect ourselves, we must engage in the practice. Meditate with your heart. That’s also where the mind is.

{It is interesting to note that the word citta in Sanskrit means both mind and heart.}

Consciousness is now being proven scientifically to be in the whole body, not just in the brain.

Everyday it’s good to ask why you are where you are. It’s you orienting your mind. Let’s take an arrow. The tip of an arrow can represent why you’re here. If you know why you are where you are, the tip of the arrow will go in that direction.

{Just like if we get in the car and we know where you are going, we take the steering wheel and guide the car in the direction that we want to go. If we get into our car, and we don’t know where we’re going, we just drive aimlessly around.}

You might say “I’m meditating to understand why I am confused.” “I’m meditating to relax.” “I’m meditating to directly touch my mind, not just read about it in books.”

In every activity, there are the outer conditions, e.g. going to the office. Then there are the inner conditions which involve the relationship between body and mind.

Why do we meditate? To strengthen and focus the mind. When the mind is focused, our strength will come out. The breathe is connected with the mind. That’s why we follow the breathe in meditation. Breathe is good for reducing the level of agitation, anger.

{We want to be in the present moment. What signifies the present moment? The breathe.}

Like all activities, if we feel that what we’re doing is useless, we give up. When you get caught up in thoughts, remember your motivation for meditating.  It’s important to read and study as well. It’s like researching a place before you take a trip there. We are taking a trip to our minds.

To sum up, meditation is beneficial because:

• it trains our minds to be in the something beyond the
  present — the NOW, the fourth moment;
• it slows our minds down so we can actually notice what is happening second-by-second. We can see our thoughts and projections as they arise;
• we see projections as projections, rather than confusing our own projections with reality;
  
• it strengthens and focuses our mind.
• we learn to handle details rather than ignoring them as a “hassle”;
• working with detail in the practice is the seed for our post meditation activity (i.e. daily life);
  • e.g. if you are washing the dishes, you might notice that your mind  is caught up in discursive thought; you can notice the thought, and then return to washing the dishes.
• we can be content, on a simple, basic level. Just be here, breathing, sitting. This bodes well for all our other post-meditation activities;
• we can get in touch with our own minds directly, rather than through books;
• we can change our future by changing our present karmic stream;
• we engage in meaningful activity — so much of our activity is involved with being entertained — especially by our own ego through its endless discursive thought; and
• it exposes our habitual patterns for what they are: bundle of thoughts and emotions strung together. This weakens the patterns so we aren’t as likely to act in terms of them when our “buttons” are pushed.
  

Sources:

(1) Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche on YouTube

(2) Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche in Boulder, Colorado, May 2009

(3) Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche in Shambhala Sun magazine, May 2002 – please click here

(4) Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche – Turning the Mind into An Ally

(5) Multiple sources provided by the Shambhala Sun magazine – please click here

(6) Pema Chodron – The Key to Knowing Ourselves is Meditation

(7) Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche: Meditation 101

(8) Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche – Letter

(9) Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche – series of talks 1974

(10) Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche – Meditation: Catch and Release

(11) Teachings Library:

(11) various teachers on video re meditation

(13) Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche – Turning the Mind into An Ally

(14) Sitting Quietly, Doing Something

If you find this post helpful, please share it with a friend. Then consider subscribing to the weblog. Just click on the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and follow one of the three sets of simple, step-by-step instructions. Thank you.

We’re on overload today. Too much information. Coming from too many directions. Look here! No, look over there! We need some first aid for the mind if we are going to engage life in a clear, knowing, awake way; if we are going to change our own karmic stream. There’s an important ripple effect of which we must now become aware — by changing our own karma, we help to change the world’s karma. This makes life more uplifted for everyone. And it is here that the role of meditation practice is so vital.

There are so many views today about what meditation is and what its purpose is. For example:

• The “self-help,” “self-improvement” genre: e.g. one blog post urged “Be better than yourself.” Or variations like “Be a better person.” (This genre is based on a poverty mentality about ourselves);
  
• Some say “Go beyond yourself;”
• Scientists who study meditation have outlined many health benefits; and
  
• Some think of meditation as a day at the beach.

The Great Fourteenth, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, sums up the purpose of meditation this way:

For me, meditation is a way to “come home.”

Today’s post will present the Shambhala Buddhist view of meditation as presented by Sakyong Mipham Ri npoche via a Shambhala Online event held on Saturday, July 18, 2009, broadcast from Shambhala Meditation Centre, Colorado, 09h30 Mountain Time. It is for the most part unedited so that the reader will get the original flavour. My own comments are put in { }.

Meditation is not removing ourselves from the world. We are engaging our heart.  This makes the practice less conceptual, more heart-felt.

In this sense, meditation is very much an art form. The Chinese people do alot of art, poetry, calligraphy. This makes the heart nimble. We can appreciate a breeze where we may not have even noticed it before.

We have set up the world in a way where we don’t have trust in ourselves. We always have the feeling that we need something. We feel depleted. We have created a materialistic world.

We have so much information coming in. It’s overload. How should we organize our mind? We do that in terms of what is important. What is important? Meditation practice. So now we can make a plan based on what is important. Making a plan creates motivation. No one will make a plan for us. We have to. Decide what is important. Prioritize. The key thing is to have a clear, knowing, awake mind. … Fear sabotages our day. So contemplate what is important. Otherwise, your day will prioritize your mind, rather than the other way around!

When practicing meditation, we practice being immediate; being in the now, not in the future. When we are not present in the moment, there is a level of doubt. Whatever we are looking for seems to be somewhere else.

Meditation is simply an aid. Through it, we can discover our basic confidence, strength. It’s one thing to be good. It’s another to stay good. For that we need strength. When we are present, we have more energy.

{Rather than following our discursive thought, our subconscious gossip, we are “all present and accounted for.”}

Meditation is not going into some zone. It’s about paying attention to the details in the immediate moment, the now. We tend to label the details as a “hassle.” We’re so trained to be anytime but now, that we aren’t fully where we are! Even on a vacation.

Meditation is about details. About paying attention.

{Thought arises. It stays. It falls away. Another thought arises. We grab onto it. We space out. Then we remember to come back to what we’re doing, i.e. following the out breathe}

Again, we have to ask “What is important?” Mind. From mind we create our world.

In Tibet they want monasteries, because they know that from the spirit will come everything else. In the West, the priority is business.  Some paradym shift is needed. We can’t just plug the holes.

As we meditate, we discover our own inherent strength. It’s not just an individual thing. It’s compassion for others. Compassion is a higher, deeper state of consciousness. We are becoming fully human. We can shine light and see others’ states of mind and act in a way that will benefit them.

We have the ability to create the present. We have the steering wheel. That’s meditation. We can take hold of the steering wheel of our lives through the practice of meditation. Letting go of the stick shift is spacing out. We have to keep our hand on the stick.

{That’s how we can change our karma, our future. If we steer our mind in the direction in which it habitually goes, we not only maintain the karma we already have, but we create fresh karma.}

Sometimes we don’t like what see in meditation.

{“I dislike that person. They’re so annoying. I wish they’d just go away. It’s their fault that this has happened to me.”}

This is where gentleness and compassion to ourselves comes in. Meditation here is simple appreciation. We are naturally less aggressive, arrogant. Then there’s the possibility of a two-way communication.

{We don’t have to beat ourselves up. Just notice what is arising in our mind.}

Our mind has become two-dimensional. But our mind is like space. It is consciousness. We have the ability to look at that mind.

We are so not used to seeing, listening. Even in an environment like the mountains, we still have the speed of our lives. We are trained to “get through” something, rather than enjoy it, or relax into it.

In meditation, we can work moment-by-moment with the technique. That’s all part of the gentleness.

{Thought arises. It stays. It falls away. Thought arises. We grab onto it. We space out. Then we remember to come back to what we’re doing, i.e. following the out breathe}

We sit down to meditate, and then often just think about the next meal.

But we can shift our perspective, re-orient ourselves. In order to respect ourselves, we must engage in the practice. Meditate with your heart. That’s also where the mind is.

{It is interesting to note that the word citta in Sanskrit means both mind and heart.}

Consciousness is now being proven scientifically to be in the whole body, not just in the brain.

Everyday it’s good to ask why you are where you are. It’s you orienting your mind. Let’s take an arrow. The tip of an arrow can represent why you’re here. If you know why you are where you are, the tip of the arrow will go in that direction.

{Just like if we get in the car and we know where you are going, we take the steering wheel and guide the car in the direction that we want to go. If we get into our car, and we don’t know where we’re going, we just drive aimlessly around.}

You might say “I’m meditating to understand why I am confused.” “I’m meditating to relax.” “I’m meditating to directly touch my mind, not just read about it in books.”

In every activity, there are the outer conditions, e.g. going to the office. Then there are the inner conditions which involve the relationship between body and mind.

Why do we meditate? To strengthen and focus the mind. When the mind is focused, our strength will come out. The breathe is connected with the mind. That’s why we follow the breathe in meditation. Breathe is good for reducing the level of agitation, anger.

{We want to be in the present moment. What signifies the present moment? The breathe.}

Like all activities, if we feel that what we’re doing is useless, we give up. When you get caught up in thoughts, remember your motivation for meditating.  It’s important to read and study as well. It’s like researching a place before you take a trip there. We are taking a trip to our minds.

To sum up, meditation is beneficial because:

• it trains our minds to be in the present moment;
• it strengthens and focuses our mind.
• we learn to handle details rather than ignoring them as a “hassle”;
• working with detail in the practice is the seed for your post meditation activity (i.e. daily life);
  • e.g. if you are washing the dishes, you might notice that your mind  is caught up in discursive thought; you can notice the thought, and then return to washing the dishes
• we can be content, on a simple, basic level. Just be here, breathing, sitting. This bodes well for all our other post-meditation activities;
• we can get in touch with our own minds directly, rather than through books.
• we can change our future by changing our present karmic stream
• we engage in meaningful activity — so much of our activity is involved with
  being entertained — especially by our own egos through its endless discursive thought
  

Sources:

(1) √Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche on YouTube

(2) various teachers on video re meditation

(3) Turning the Mind into An Ally

If you found this post helpful, please tell a friend. Then consider subscribing to the weblog. Just click on the Subscribe button in the navigation bar and follow one of the three sets of simple, step-by-step instructions. Thank you.

© The New Yorker Collection 2000 David Sipress from cartoonbank.com. All Rights Reserved.

Meditation is no longer a strange word. Scientists have done many studies to show the benefits of meditation on our health, both physical and mental.

This post is, however, not directly about the health benefits. It is about the misconceptions around meditation. It is necessary to deal with this because meditation is one of the tools that can help us to change the course of our lives, our karma. And if we are operating on misconceptions, then we cannot make proper use of this valuable tool.

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche provides the context for this post

“If we follow thoughts back, we can see that they stem from an embedded karmic situation that has gone on for a very long time.”

“The point of buddhism is that we are creating future actions. We can change the course. We are not stuck in our karma.”  (Classes 4 and 5)

By meditating, we see how the mind that created our karma is the same mind that can cut the creation and maintenance of that karma.

Before we get into details about how meditation can cut karma and allow us to control our lives, I want to first dispel some common misconceptions:(1) Meditation is a religious, spiritual, buddhist, activity.

Meditation is fitness for the mind. It is a very practical activity. “It seems we all agree that training the body through exercise, diet and relaxation is a good idea, but why don’t we think about training our minds?” <source: Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche: Ruling Your World>

and

“Tibetans are very practical people. They have passed these teachings down because they work.” <source:  Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche: Ruling Your World>

and

“…..[meditation] is not purely a Buddhist practice; it’s a practice that anyone can do. It doesn’t tie in with a particular spiritual tradition. If we want to undo bewilderment, we’re going to have to be responsible for learning what our own mind is and how it works, no matter what beliefs we hold.” <source:  Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche: Shambhala Sun magazine, May 2002 article>

(2) To truly benefit from meditation, I’d have to drop out of my regular life and become a hermit.

“(Meditation) is just simply creating a space, a space in which we can unlearn and undo our subconscious gossip, our hidden fears and hidden hopes, and begin to bring them out. Meditation is simply providing space through the discipline of sitting down and doing nothing. Doing nothing is extremely difficult.” <source: Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, Friends of the Buddhadharma, 1978>

(3) Meditation practice is only for special people like His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.

- Meditation is an activity that you can add to your daily schedule like any other activity.

- “One misconception is that people think meditation is about being a recluse. But in meditation, ideally, you’re training your mind and getting to know yourself. That gives you the strength and potency to actually see the suffering of others and then benefit them.” <source: interview with Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche>

(4) To be a successful meditator, you have to learn difficult, advanced techniques.

Meditation is for anyone who wants to get directly in touch with their own mind so that they can control their mind rather than being controlled by it. Looking into the nature of our mind takes courage!

(5) The purpose of meditation is to get into a trance.

The meditation with which I am familiar involves a very simple technique that includes proper posture and using the breathe as the focus of meditation.

(7) Meditation is an exotic, “New Agey,” impractical activity.

Meditation is very ordinary, just like physical fitness. But this is fitness for the mind. It’s actually a very practical activity. Like every activity, it’s an ongoing process. What is “exotic” and impractical is to get so caught up in the busyness and speed of our lives that we don’t make time to touch in with our minds and make them our own.

(8) You can only be a successful meditator if you move out of the city.

You can practice meditation in any location.

(9) Only introverted people would meditate.

Meditation isn’t about being cut off from your world. On the contrary, you bring whatever your experience is to your practice.

(10) You could go mad from meditating.

This is the last, desperate trick of ego to keep us from learning about our real nature. Not surprising, as it knows that we’ll discover that ego is only a manufactured entity with no substance.

(11) I can read or attend classes or seminars about how my mind works. I don’t have to meditate to do that.

If you want to learn about a country, you can read books about that country. Or go directly to it. Likewise, books talk about the mind. Only meditation can get you directly in touch with your mind.

(12) You just get “blissed out” when you meditate. You can get the same effect from recreational drugs or alcohol.

Meditation wakes us up to who we actually are. It grounds us. Stabilizied our minds and emtions. Recreational drugs or alcohol can have the opposite effect.

If you like this post, please share it with a friend. Then consider subscribing to the weblog by clicking on the Subscribe button in the navigation bar. Just follow one of three sets of simple, step-by-step instructions. Thank you.