Meditation Without Bullshit

by Aaron S Elias

  Meditating in Groups

  You now know what you need to know in order to meditate: a quiet room and something to sit on. Everything else is superfluous. Thus, let me continue by discussing what you absolutely do not need. First and foremost, you do not need other people if you want to meditate. I have tried meditating in groups, over and over. What I have learnt thus was that the average level of the practitioners was relatively modest. I have even had encounters in which the person running the group session was only able to sit cross-legged with some effort. That was a Christian group that had adopted Zen spiritualism into their practice and hoped to gain new members that way. When I sat down in the lotus position, the Christian Zen guru leading that group, incidentally a priest in real life, looked at me in utter disbelief. He experienced visible discomfort at the sight of having a newbie join who seemed to have come much further than he had during his alleged decade of experience in meditation and his forty years of adhering to the Christian faith.

  Other notable memories include an alleged master running a guided meditation workshop. He tried to discourage me from sitting in the lotus position as it was supposedly uncomfortable and couldn't possibly be good for me. Needless to say, in his group nobody, not even that guru himself, sat in the lotus position, and they did not even bother to try. In another group I briefly attended they followed some Indian guru. They were big on chanting mantras in a language they did not understand. I guess that was an example of different strokes for different folks. Of course, not all meditation groups are like that, but you better remind yourself that professional guidance does not necessarily imply professionalism.

  I found it particularly bothersome that some meditation groups were hardly more than a pretense for people with an interest in spirituality to gather and get drunk together. Such was my impression when I attended a meeting at a Vajrayana Buddhism temple. I was quite taken aback when, after forty-five minutes of meditation, which included copious use of mantras, gongs, and incense, the master said, “And now let's all go downstairs and have some beers!” The rest of the evening was similar to what you can encounter in any students' bar, except that the people were a bit older and that the women presumably justified their promiscuity by believing that it improved their karma. In my opinion, such behavior completely contradicts the purpose of meditation, which is to reduce the amount of chaos in your life, not to add to it. If you want to socialize, get drunk, or get laid, then pursue those activities straight away. Meditating is by its very nature not a social activity. Especially after you have reached a deep meditative state, you will have neither the need nor the motivation to socialize afterwards because you will feel at peace with yourself and the world. It is incongruent to socialize right after meditating.

  One particular aspect of group meditation will either prevent you from reaching mastery or make it much more difficult, namely the fact that group sessions are timed. In my experience, sessions lasted anywhere from fifteen to forty-five minutes. In rare cases, it may be a sixty-minute session, but in those, there is a strong tendency of the organizer to attempt spiritual indoctrination and tell you about how you are supposed to “open your chakras,” “let your aura grow,” or “open the third eye.” You may also be pestered to donate money or buy overpriced worthless trinkets. After sampling every group I could find, I cherished meditating on my own in an undisturbed manner even more.

  The issue with group meditation sessions is not only that the time may not be used effectively. The biggest problem is that you have to follow someone else's schedule. Maybe you don't feel like taking a thirty-minute ride during rush hour to reach the downtown Buddhist temple. You could just spend those thirty minutes meditating instead of driving. Furthermore, just like our education system hardly ever allows you to experience “flow” and continue doing something in the rare case you really enjoy it, so too do group sessions force you to stop meditating after a set amount of time. Like little Jimmy in elementary school who would like to draw for two more hours or spend additional time on trying to figure out a problem in mathematics but cannot do so because it is now time for a different subject, you too will be told that it is now time to move on. This may have a debilitating effect on your motivation.

  You may now object that in Zen temples, as I wrote earlier, monks meditate in groups. However, in those settings, the role of the master is much different from what I have experienced in the West. Instead of focusing on a guru, those monks meditate on their own and just so happen to be sitting in the same room. The master walks around and whacks with a wooden plank any monk who is on the brink of falling asleep. Meditation as it is taught in the New Age industry could not be any more different from that.

  Bells and Whistles

  In addition to groups, there is something else you do not need: all those ludicrous bells and whistles that seem to be part and parcel of meditation in the West. That's all just based on people wanting to profit off the uncritical New Age herd. I'll briefly go through a few examples and elaborate on why you do not need them.

  First, forget about meditative music or guided meditation. The latter is particularly bad as the narration of those recordings will prevent you from facing your own thoughts. The point of meditation is to give your mind the opportunity to confront you with largely unresolved issues, which will emerge as thoughts while meditating. If you listen to someone else's voice, this will be infinitely harder to achieve. Likewise, meditative music is at best a distraction, for the very same reason. It is less harmful than guided meditation, but that does not mean that there is any benefit to it.

  Particularly among women have I noticed a preference for incense sticks and candles, especially scented ones. Unscented candles are a visual distraction, scented candles are also an olfactive distraction, and so are incense sticks. By the way, incense sticks are bad for your health, worse even than smoking cigarettes. No, meditation is not some kind of lifestyle, which is the preferred excuse of New Age acolytes for their frivolous spending. I view meditation as mental hygiene instead of a welcome pretense for buying useless clutter.

  Next, there is the despicable tendency of meditation practitioners to buy trinkets such as Buddha statues or decorative pillows. There normally is no shortage of any kind of symbolism either. I think this is likewise just to appeal to women, which are overrepresented in New Age circles. Gongs might have a practical use to signify the end of a meditative session, but this is only a ceremonial gesture and completely superfluous. You may argue that a gong is needed for authenticity, but then you may want to recall the title of this book. If you meditate on your own, a regular alarm will do or — I know, it is a revolutionary concept! — you just meditate for however long you feel like meditating.

  Lastly, some schools advocate the use of mantras. It would be less ridiculous if they were in a language those people are actually able to understand. Instead, they repeat a few phrases or just syllables. Again, it is a pointless distraction. Just try it out yourself after you have gotten some practice with meditation! You will find that hearing a mantra, let alone chanting one yourself, severely distracts from the main goal of meditation. You will be able to mentally relax much better without them.

  Meditation Stripped-Down

  While I have been following a more traditional approach to meditation, built around mastering sitting in the lotus position, I have to bluntly state that it is not necessary to do so for a more casual, yet still reasonably effective meditative practice. Good luck finding anyone in the New Age industry making a similar statement, though. Based on my over two decades of experience, the value of meditating in the lotus position is largely due to it being part of a ritual. However, you can do perfectly well without it, and even without the experience of overcoming physical discomfort in meditation. Some of you may find some value in overcoming physical limitations, which is why I do not want to denounce the lotus position as bullshit. Of course, there is the obvious advantage of stability, which enables you to meditate for very long stretches of tim
e. Very few of you are going to go down that particular path, though.

  I have, for a long time, bought into a ritualistic approach to meditation myself. While there is comfort in following rituals — you probably have integrated several routines as part of your life, which are rituals in all but name — it is not the case that sitting in the lotus position needs to be part of an effective meditation ritual. I would say that if you are curious, try sitting in the lotus position, but also consider the alternatives I mentioned earlier. Those will be good enough to let you reap a large part of the benefits of meditation. It took me a bit of time to admit this myself. This was largely due to having meditated in the lotus position for so many years. Of course, the more ingrained your habits are, the less willing you may be to change them.

  The easiest alternative to the lotus position is lying down on your back, as it is arguably the most comfortable position your body can be in. After all, you lie down to sleep, instead of sitting in an easy chair or intertwining your legs in order to sit in the lotus position. However, you should not lie down in your bed as that might interrupt your circadian rhythm. It is poor sleep hygiene to do anything else in your bed besides sleeping and having wild sex. For lying down, a carpet is a good start. No, you do not have to buy one. If you have a thick carpet in your living room, you are set. A yoga mat is likewise suitable.

  While sitting down in a comfortable easy chair or lying down on the ground, you can just as well focus on the core of meditation, as outlined in this book: focusing on your breathing, if you need that crutch, trying to clear your mind, and learning to be alone with your thoughts. It is perfectly fine if this sounded cryptic as I will discuss the details later on.

  You may want to interject that meditation groups that do not insist on the lotus position and, for instance, let you sit cross-legged could have the same motivation. This is decidedly wrong as they still buy into the belief that you need to sit in a particular way. They cannot sit in the lotus position, so they give you some kind of ersatz version of it, which is uncomfortable to sit in for a long time. Just like ersatz coffee is worse than the real thing, sitting cross-legged is worse than sitting in the lotus position. Their implication is that it would be more beneficial to sit in the lotus position, but since they cannot do that, due to lacking the willpower to continuously work on that skill, they tell you that there is an alternative that is essentially as good.

  Probably quite a few people develop their own meditative practice over the years, which may be quite similar to what I outline in this chapter. On that note, I recall a routine my late grandmother had. She just rested in an easy chair in her living room, not doing anything, not reading the newspaper, not listening to the radio nor watching TV. She just sat there, with her hands resting in her lap. Normally, one of her cats would at one point hop into her lap. I know about that because I grew up in saner times in which people did not lock their front door when they were home, so I ended up barging in on her a few times when I was a kid.

  The main relevance of the lotus position is during long meditation sessions. It genuinely starts to make sense once you are able to meditate for an hour straight. Yet, it may not make a lot of sense to devote that much time to meditation. The lotus position forces you to sit upright and if you get tired, your upper body will start to move involuntarily. Your swaying would be the cue for the monk watching the group to hit you on the shoulder with a wooden paddle to prevent you from falling asleep. I think that it is impossible to sleep while sitting in the lotus position because you need to keep your back straight. Thus, it will be obvious if you are getting sleepy. Yet, all of that is of dubious value as you most likely are not interested in meditating in a Zen monastery.

  Lastly, let me remark that there are good reasons why meditation gurus, even if they have realized that they bought into bullshit, will never tell you any of this. It simply boils down to money and status. As absurd as it may sound, you can be a guru even if you cannot sit in the lotus position, which is about as plausible as virgins teaching other guys how to get laid. For the gullible New Age herd, ambience is very important, though. That crowd vastly prefers appearance over substance. How do you think such people would react if there was a guru who just handed out blankets and told people to lie down and clear their mind? It would be downright ludicrous to them. A lot of the ritualism surrounding commercial or sect-style meditation is indeed built on bullshit, but people who buy into it want precisely that.

  Particular flavors of bullshit serve as unique selling propositions, targeting different crowds. People in that market do not want to hear that they could achieve the same or better results for free at home, or worse, that all they need is a quiet place. Instead, they desire the souped-up experience because they want to be part of something bigger. This is particularly ironic as those people normally do not want to pursue meditation more seriously anyway and could get better results if they just spent some time meditating on their own at home.

  Getting Started

  By now you should be itching to get started with meditation. We will aim for a very modest goal at first, namely meditating for two minutes. This might sound quite short, and it is. If you are used to looking for ways to distract yourself, then even a two-minute session can prove surprisingly difficult to endure. Yet, in such a short amount of time, all important aspects of meditation will be encountered. You will have to find a (hopefully) comfortable position for your body, block distractions, and confront a likely restless mind. I will say more about breathing in the next chapter. For now, just breathe as you normally do.

  Facing Your Restless Mind

  Through meditation you will encounter two kinds of discomfort, physical and psychological discomfort. The former is due to sitting in the lotus position, which may take some time getting used to. However, as I have discussed earlier, there are alternatives to the lotus position which spare you physical discomfort, but at some cost. The latter, psychological discomfort, is a more severe issue. It results from being confronted with emptiness. The question is what your mind will latch on to when left to its own devices, while your books, smartphone, laptop, or video game console are out of reach. Of course, you could avoid all of that by listening to meditative music in order to give your mind something else to focus on, but doing so would completely bereave you of the benefits of meditation. Your mind will not overcome any obstacles by listening to chants, instrumental music, or ambient sounds.

  The biggest surprise for most people is that as soon as they sit down in a quiet environment without any external stimuli, they have many thoughts popping up in their mind, often disconnected ones. In the scriptures of gurus and classical works in the area of Eastern philosophy, this is often interpreted as a sign of unresolved issues. Indeed, you may remember someone who wronged you or decisions you regret having made. There may have been opportunities you regret not having taken. Your thoughts may also be oriented towards the present or future. Some focus more on unresolved current issues, others on problems you expect having to deal with in the future. It can take a long time to let go of those thoughts. Hopefully, your thoughts are not all gloomy. Yet, the same principle applies in the opposite case as well. If happy thoughts enter your mind, you should likewise not hold on to them, as pleasant as they may be.

  Based on my experience teaching people meditation and based on my own progress, it seems to be the case that negative thoughts are much more prevalent than positive ones. This makes perfect sense, as your mind is pointing you towards unresolved issues. However, a lot of people worry far too much. They let themselves get bogged down by past misfortunes and worry excessively about potential future disasters. In more tragic cases, they are so obsessed with their past and future that they forget to properly deal with the problems they face in the present. A much more sensible approach is to mine past unpleasant experiences for valuable lessons and deal with present problems to the best of your ability, which will likely already prepare you well for the future. In that regard, meditation is a via
ble method for learning to focus on what is important.

  What holds many people back are vague concerns about future events. Most often, they consist of nothing but baseless conjecture. They worry about things they should not even worry about because the eventual outcome will be much different anyway. Therefore, there is no point in dreaming up horror scenarios about you missing your flight, fumbling up an important business meeting, getting hit by a truck, or anything like that. It amounts only to fruitless expenditure of mental energy. Meditation is one way of getting a hold of that.

  In general, you can expect your mind to become much calmer over time through meditation as you learn to not get distracted by entertaining unproductive thoughts. This is the key part of meditation. That kind of mental progress can aptly be described as strengthening of your will. You learn to control your thoughts and you learn to focus as well as to relax. Every little bit of progress in that regard is commendable, considering that many people cannot even sit still. You will learn to not only do that but also to control your mind and perceive reality more clearly.

  Making Meditation More Accessible

  In order to lower your resistance to meditation, I suggest starting with two-minute sessions. Even slightly longer sessions of five minutes or so may prove uncomfortably long for a beginner. Indeed, when starting out, it may be difficult to sit down for more than a few minutes as you will quickly feel discomfort. Probably you will want to reflexively pick up your smartphone. Given that we are in an age where people have been collectively working towards having the attention span of goldfish, I recommend taking baby-steps at first, and I mean it. The prospect of meditating for fifteen minutes may not sound like much when you read about it, but just try it, and you will notice that it is a lot harder than you might think. To minimize frustration, we will therefore start with two-minute sessions, because even that will feel a lot longer than it is.