Stress
I am probably the calmest person you will never meet. On the other hand, most people I encounter are of a more nervous disposition. I often observe this in my professional life. For instance, quite a few people have more on their plate than they can handle, at least from time to time. More often than not, the issue is not one of having too much to do per se. Instead, the problem is two-fold. First, many people cannot prioritize effectively. Second, they cannot focus properly. The first issue can be learnt fairly easily, the second not so much. However, meditation can increase your powers of concentration significantly. You may be surprised by how much you can get done, compared to others, if you simply focus on one task at a time and give it your undivided attention.
Being able to focus also leads to greater resilience against stress. You can surely think of situations in which stress negatively affected you. Yet, whether you experience something as stressful depends on your perception. Very few of us, if any, are ever in situations where our biological fight-or-flight response is appropriate. Instead, we push paper in the office, talk to colleagues, customers, or superiors. I have found that years upon years of meditation play a significant role in being able to remain calm even in situations in which many others likely would have lost their composure. This includes genuinely dangerous situations, such as when, while visiting a town in the South of Sweden, a Middle Eastern-looking man tried to rob me in broad daylight. I think I got out of this unharmed because he realized, after deflecting his attack calmly, that I would not be an easy mark.
Most stress I have been exposed to in my life came from unhinged women. I got out of such situations alive as well. Keeping my composure also kept me out of trouble with the law. To mention one particularly grave example: I once lived, thankfully only briefly, with a woman who fed off extreme emotions. This meant that she sometimes started fights over nothing. She could appear to be perfectly calm one moment and in the other Dr. Jekyll would turn into Ms. Hyde, meaning that she would explode in my face because she thought I was not paying any attention to her, never have, never will, and did not care about her anyway. Once she even threw a heavy jar at me. Had it hit me in the head in an unfortunate way, she could have killed me, and feminist judges would have of course not found any fault in her behavior. I saw it coming from the corner of my eye, so what amounted to attempted second-degree murder with a weapon did not come to fruition.
Upon realizing how utterly bonkers her behavior was, she apologized profusely. Long story short, I left her. I eventually learnt that she had a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, but refused treatment. But why am I telling you this? Of course, she was an extreme case, but there are plenty of men out there who get into serious legal trouble because an emotionally unstable woman they were sexually involved with pushed them past their breaking point. Just imagine what an enraged guy could do to a woman in self-defense against an attack with a knife! If this does not sound crazy enough for you yet, then I should probably tell you that there are married women out there who provoke their husband into physically harming them in order to more easily get child custody and monetary compensation for the harm they indirectly inflicted on themselves by goading their husband into hitting them.
How do you think you would react in such a situation? If you think you would not be able to remain calm, then you may want to start devoting time to meditation. Your life could depend on you being able to react calmly in a dangerous situation.
Practice
Prerequisites
In this chapter, I discuss the prerequisites for meditation. There are not many, as you will see. It is more about what you do not need than what you need. First and foremost, you need a quiet place. Second, you may want to practice sitting in the lotus position for a more authentic experience. Third, you most certainly do not need to meditate in a group. Fourth, you definitely do not need to spend money on the bells and whistles that people in the New Age community hawk.
A Quiet Place
What you need more than anything else is a quiet place. As meditation is about confronting yourself with emptiness, any distraction is bad. Of course, you don't need to have a soundproof room or access to a bunker. All you need is enough space to sit down. I use a yoga mat for meditation, but you can as well just sit on a rug or even a towel.
I like to meditate in a room with white walls to look at, but that is not a necessity. After all, you can just close your eyes. Meditating with open eyes is more challenging. For that, you probably do not want to be in a room with garish wallpaper or paintings on the wall. While meditating with your eyes open is a greater challenge, there are no tangible rewards for it, so you are probably better off not bothering with it. Meditating with your eyes closed is, overall, preferable. You could say that this is a deeply democratizing aspect of meditation because it does not matter where you live, how young, tall, rich, and beautiful you are — with our eyes closed, the world looks just the same to all of us.
I will discuss it later on in detail, but let me already at this point mention that you do not need any additional equipment. Do not bother with candles, scented or not, incense sticks, or, what I consider an oxymoron, meditative music. Those are all pointless distractions that will do more harm than good. Again, a quiet room and something to sit down on is all you need. In fact, part of the beauty of meditation is that you do not need anything else to do it. It is advisable for a beginner to chose a quiet environment such as your bedroom. An advanced practitioner can easily reach a deep meditative state in a comparatively noisy environment as well. Very experienced practitioners are even able to sink into a deep meditative state quickly in almost any environment just by closing their eyes.
Revisiting the Lotus Position
Central to meditation as it is traditionally taught is the lotus position. It is easy to describe but not necessarily easy to sit in: sit down, put your left foot on your right knee, and then, while keeping the left foot on the right knee, put the right foot on the left knee. (You have seen an illustration earlier in this book, but I'm inserting it a second time below for your convenience.) You are welcome to swap the order by starting with putting your right foot on your left knee and so on. Please do not panic if you cannot sit in the lotus position. It is quite difficult to do so. Hardly anybody can do it right off the bat. There are alternatives, including some that you should be able to perform no matter how stiff you are. Even if you are among the more flexible among your peers, it may require significant practice to be able to sit in the lotus position, so please do not feel discouraged.
Figure 0.2: The Lotus Position
Some people are unable to sit in the lotus position due to their physiology. For instance, if you have very strong, muscular legs the lotus position is probably out of reach. Obese people may face the same problem. In the former case you probably want to keep your muscles, but in the latter you may want to consider shedding your excess weight, and not just because it will make it easier to meditate.
Rest your hands in your lap, one on top of the other, with your palms facing upwards. This is the traditional way of resting your hands. Alternatively, drop your arms in front of you, put one hand on top of the other, with your palms facing down. I find the latter more convenient and thus more natural than the traditional variant. Some gurus insist that you should put your hands on your knees, palms facing up, followed by the tip of the thumb and the tip of the index finger touching, forming a circle, and the remaining fingers stretched out. I consider this a highly artificial pose with no practical benefits whatsoever.
There are a few reasons why the lotus position is preferred among serious practitioners. The main reason is stability. You are firmly planted on the ground and you need to maintain some muscle tone to keep the position, which will keep you alert. A key aspect of the lotus position is keeping your spine straight. Personally, I view it as optional to keep your neck straight. In fact, when I meditate for a particularly long stretch of time I lower my chin.
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re also reasons often mentioned in support of the lotus position that are at best secondary. Let me go through them one by one. One, it is the most traditional way of meditating, therefore it presumably feels more serious to do so. Two, it adds an element of physical discomfort to meditation, further adding to any perceived seriousness. Three, there are clear practical benefits of the lotus position when meditating in a serious group. The third point largely applies to people who meditate in monasteries, as the monk assigned with watching over the group can more easily detect if you fall asleep and whack you on the shoulder with a paddle to jolt you out of that state.
The three secondary reasons I mentioned may not be very convincing to you. Quite frankly, you can meditate quite seriously without all that seriousness that is often peddled. The only convincing reason is stability, which makes the lotus position more comfortable than many other ways of sitting without support for your back. However, this is a moot point if you do not intend to meditate for long stretches of time. For a session lasting fifteen or thirty minutes, the lotus position is hardly required.
While I will discuss alternatives to the lotus position further down, I still think that people should experience dealing with both physical and psychological discomfort and learn to at least partly overcome both. The former is due to the lotus position itself, the latter is due to the realization that your mind may be very active when left to its own devices and bring up all kinds of unwelcome memories or negative thoughts, which you have not yet dealt with but instead normally suppress.
Let me encourage you to try sitting in the lotus position. You may find it easy to do so, but it is more likely that you won't. My suggested progress plan, which I outline later on, starts with very brief meditation sessions. Surely, you will be able to deal with minor physical discomfort for the duration of those sessions. Furthermore, you may be surprised how flexible you are if you push yourself a little bit. So, just try it! If you can, do it right now: First, put your left foot on your right thigh. If this worked well enough, bring your right foot to rest on your left thigh. If you are not flexible enough, this position may be difficult to maintain. This will make it difficult to meditate for a longer stretch of time, which is another reason why we will confine ourselves to very brief meditation sessions at first. Only after you can sit somewhat comfortable and without pain will we extend the duration of the sittings to five minutes.
It may be superfluous to mention, but let me state it anyway: if you feel pain or numbness at any point while meditating, then please stop immediately. Stretch or shake your legs for a little bit until you feel better. Slight discomfort is unproblematic. In fact, it is part of meditative practice to get used to such discomfort. Eventually, you should experience very little, if any, discomfort when meditating.
If the Lotus Position is too Demanding
Starting from the lotus position is of course ideal. However, if you do not exercise a lot, you may find it impossible to sit in it. The situation will be even worse if you are overweight. The remedy is to work on your body and change your eating habits, which will both have many more positive benefits. It would be perfect if you managed to regularly attend a yoga class, preferably a dynamic one like Ashtanga yoga, as this will help you tremendously with improving your flexibility and building some strength, too.
Meanwhile, as you are busy losing weight and gaining strength with the exercise regime of your choice, a number of alternatives to the lotus position are available. None of those is ideal. They should only ever be considered an interim solution if you intend to meditate more seriously. Otherwise, pick whatever position is most comfortable for you. If you can't quite sit in the lotus position, then feel free to sit cross-legged. This position is a bit less stable. You will furthermore have a problem with the foot your other knee is resting on, as you will invariably get the feeling of pins and needles. Thus, your meditation sessions will probably not last as long as they otherwise could.
For some people, even sitting cross-legged on the floor is an issue. If this is the case with you, then you may seriously want to consider exercising more frequently. However, using a couple of cushions which you place underneath your buttocks (but not your legs), you may be able to sit cross-legged as well. This is a compromise, albeit not an especially good one as you may find it difficult to sit completely still. A better workaround is getting one or two yoga blocks, putting them on the floor with their largest side facing up and placing a thick blanket on top. This elevates your behind and provides sufficient support for the weight of your body. This way, keeping a balanced position will not be an issue, unlike when sitting on top of a stack of cushions.
If you have avoided doing any exercise for the last decade and prefer fast food over anything else, then you may be in the very unfortunate position that you have to resort to using a chair. If this applies to you, then please heed the warning because you are in a rather bad shape. Your lifestyle choices are slicing years off your life expectancy and negatively affect your well-being. In all honesty, if you have to sit in a chair to meditate, then I would recommend you get in shape first as this should be a much higher priority than learning how to meditate.
More on the Benefits of the Lotus Position
At first, the lotus position might be difficult to sit in. However, it has some benefits the various alternative positions do not provide. One of its benefits is that it is difficult to sit in that position. You can keep your balance in any other position too, but the lotus position requires greater effort, in particular compared to sitting on a chair with a backrest. Now you may wonder why that is supposed to be good. It's simply that sitting in a chair with backrest does not require you to focus on your pose, which is one of the reasons why beginners are prone to let their thoughts drift off all too quickly. Thus, the lotus position can be a helpful crutch.
Again, meditation is supposed to feel uncomfortable at first. However, this is not supposed to appeal to your machismo or masochistic nature. The level of discomfort you feel will diminish over time, even if some slight discomfort may always be part of meditation for you. Eventually, you will learn to tolerate it, which is one way of measuring your progress. As a side note, monks in Zen temples meditate for many hours every day and in much greater discomfort than you will ever experience in the comfort of your living room, so do not even think of complaining.
Keeping your back straight is only one part of the lotus position. The other aspect, namely resting your feet on your thighs, has an important benefit as this prevents your feet from going numb. This probably will not happen if you meditate for half an hour or less.
Especially once you start pushing your limits, you will realize that the lotus position is unparalleled. Use a chair, and the backrest will become uncomfortable after a while; sit with your legs crossed, and notice that one of your feet will go numb due to the weight of the other leg that is resting on it. In the lotus position, none of this will happen.
Meditation can be seen as a means of training both mind and body. You will learn to suppress your mind's tendency to drift off, which will eventually enable you to focus much better on any task. You will also learn to endure discomfort more easily, which may make you appreciate the comforts we enjoy in our pampered age. Thus, the discomfort you experience from sitting in the lotus position might pay unexpected dividends in your daily life.
Alternatives to the Lotus Position
For serious practitioners there is no alternative to the lotus position. No other position comes even remotely close. However, I want to expand further on some alternatives. These are sufficient for giving you some exposure to the benefits of meditation, but they will severely hamper your progress in the long run. That being said, most of you probably do not intend to meditate for hours, even after years of practice.
The best alternative to the lotus position is sitting cross-legged with a straight spine. If needed, use a pillow to support your buttocks. The main downside is that this position gets uncomfortable quickly, due to a feeling o
f numbness developing in the lower leg. A further downside is that the foot on which the thigh of your upper leg rests on puts you slightly off-center. For starting out, sitting cross-legged is viable, but more ambitious practitioners probably will want to move on to the lotus position as soon as possible.
If you cannot sit cross-legged, I suggest you lie down on your back. The benefit is that no matter how decrepit you are, you likely can lie down easily. However, the problem with lying down is that it is very easy to fall asleep. Thus, you should only meditate in that position while you are still fully awake.
It may happen that you find it very difficult not to fall asleep while lying on your back. In that case, get a stool. This will force you to keep your spine straight, which has the added benefit that it will keep you focused. Falling asleep while sitting like that should be difficult to achieve.
The worst position to meditate in is sitting on a chair with backrest or even an easy chair. Those may be more comfortable than a stool at the beginning, but that won't last long. On the other hand, an easy chair makes it very easy to drift off and fall asleep. Only resort to these options if there is a good reason why you cannot just lie down on the floor.
In all those alternative positions, place your hands in whatever way you find convenient and comfortable. If you sit cross-legged, I suggest you place your hands the same way I recommend for the lotus position. In case you prefer any of the other alternatives, just rest your hands on your thighs, with your palms facing downwards.
Meditation Without Bullshit Page 3
