Slowly learning to control your thoughts this way is just one part of the equation. In addition, it is necessary to learn to endure calmness and not try to look for something to think about for the purpose of keeping your mind occupied. Latin has the expression horror vacui, which translates to “being afraid of emptiness.” This describes many people's nervousness that results from not having anything to do as the emptiness they have to deal with reveals whether they enjoy their own company. An expression of this phenomenon is social media addiction. Media consumption in general, if it only has the goal of keeping your time occupied, is problematic. Making use of any kind of entertainment is surely more pleasing than sitting in front of a blank piece of paper and realizing that you have nothing to write about and that you are a dreadfully boring person.
Learning those techniques takes time. However, it is a gradual process. Over time you will reap more and more of the benefits. This should also be motivation enough to keep going. Once you reach a stage where you no longer engage most of the thoughts that appear in your mind, you have come a long way. Right now, you are at the very beginning of that journey.
How to Let Go of Your Thoughts
It may sound flippant if I tell you to just let go of your thoughts. A friend of mine remarked that it is similar to telling an alcoholic, “Just stop drinking!” It is not that easy. Instead, it takes significant practice as it amounts to nothing less than changing what may very well be a lifelong and heavily ingrained habit, namely engaging unproductive thoughts. One clear marker of mastery in meditation is that you are able to sit down to meditate, with a completely clear head, and are able to meditate for however long you want, without even having any thoughts come up at all. It is a sign of even greater mastery if you are able to clear your mind at will during the day, no matter what you may be doing or what emotional state you may be in.
Mastery is the endpoint. But how do we get there? Well, let me dampen your enthusiasm by stating that it may take you many years. Without serious practice you will never even get close to it. As a crutch, you may start by focusing on your breathing. You breathe in and pay attention to not only the sound of breathing in and out but also to movements of your body, such as the expansion of your diaphragm. Focus on the sensation of inhaling, preferably through the nose, as well. Then you focus on the brief pause that naturally happens before exhaling. Exhaling follows the same principle. You pay attention to the sound the air creates as it is moving through your body. Pay attention to how your diaphragm contracts and how the air passes through your nostrils.
By focusing on your breathing, you give your mind something to focus on. Paying close attention to your body while breathing will therefore make it a lot more difficult for your mind to come up with an assortment of random thoughts. Unfortunately, focusing on your breathing is a distraction. It is worse than a crutch. You don't attack the problem of letting go of your thoughts. Instead, you give your mind something to do, which keeps it from coming up with random thoughts. Focusing on your breathing is merely an attempt to keep your mind occupied, and this keeps you from facing the genuine challenge of meditation: facing your own mind.
There is a particular danger as well: focusing on your breathing is at best a very shallow first stage of proper meditative practice. Yet, you will find people who have spent years meditating and who have the misguided belief that meditation means sitting in the lotus position and focusing on your breathing. This is so wrong it's not even funny. Frankly, it is a downright absurd statement. It is even more absurd than, for instance, claiming that doing mathematics means sharpening your pencil and pulling out a white piece of paper. You arguably need pencil and paper for that purpose. Yet, focusing on your breathing is not a prerequisite for meditating, not in the least.
What focusing on your breathing might teach you is that you can sit still without having a myriad of thoughts enter your mind. However, the reason for that is not that you have learnt to control your mind but that you keep your mind busy by observing your breathing. I don't want to claim that this cannot have a calming effect. Yet, at one point you will have to take the crutches off. You will have to learn to meditate without focusing on your breathing and instead observe your mind. At this point your real journey begins. This leads to the question of what to do when some random thought enters your mind. In the beginning, too many thoughts might enter your mind for you to focus on any particular one. If you are stuck in that phase, it can be helpful to hold on to one of those thoughts. Feel free to even actively engage it, until you get to the point where the number of thoughts entering your mind becomes more manageable. Depending on how hectic your life is, this may take you a while. It could be weeks or even many months. During that time, your experience with meditation may amount to observing how your mind gets slightly less chaotic in the course of ten to fifteen minutes, which is certainly a good start.
After some time practicing meditation you should have reached a point where thoughts will only occasionally enter your mind. Whenever this happens, you actively engage this thought. It is irrelevant what it is. Let's say it is a happy memory. In that case, you end up daydreaming. Instead of doing that, try to merely fixate the thought. Focus on that happy memory but do not actively engage it. View it like a picture. Then drop it. You can do this with any kind of thought that enters your mind while meditating. Instead of actively engaging it, you merely observe it. Negative thoughts can be dealt with the same way. In my case, I used to suppress certain negative memories. Through meditation, I got confronted with them again. Repeated exposure allowed me to deal with them and make my peace, meaning that certain negative memories stopped having any power over me. They no longer upset me. I could simply observe those memories dispassionately and eventually move on. Once you have gotten to the point where you can observe thoughts instead of engaging them, start dropping them faster. You will notice that by that point, random thoughts should enter your mind at irregular intervals, but certainly much less often than when you started out with meditation.
I just introduced the concept of dropping a thought. This is hopefully a more intuitive metaphor than telling you to let go of your thoughts. Yet, those two verbs mean the exact same thing in this context. As you progress further, you should be able to very quickly let go of any thought that enters your mind while meditating. In my case, it is exceedingly rare that this happens, and if it does, that thought disappears as quickly as it emerged, letting me enjoy the calmness of my mind. With continuing practice, random thoughts should enter your mind more and more rarely, not just when meditating but in everyday life as well.
Proper Meditation
I have covered all important theoretical aspects of meditation. Now it is time for everything to come together. It is time for your first real practical session. Make sure you will not get disturbed, which means that you should turn off the TV, radio, computer, and phone. If you are not living alone, close the door and make sure nobody will barge into the room. Hopefully, you are able to sit in the lotus position. If not, then pick one of the alternatives I described earlier.
The next question is whether to close your eyes or keep them open and stare at the wall. It is great if there is a blank wall in front of you or just some even-colored surface, maybe the door, to which you can position yourself so that it fills your whole field of view. Any gadgets, furniture, clothes, books or whatever else you see lying around will only distract you and make it harder for you to meditate and get a hold of your thoughts. If you are sitting still and have nothing that occupies you, your mind may be quick to find something to latch on to and suddenly you think you have to call one of your friends to chit-chat. If you have the impression that the room you are in would be too distracting, then either find a different spot — or simply meditate with your eyes closed. For added difficulty, meditate with open eyes. This allows you to experience your mind's tendency to distract itself much more strongly. Thus, you will arguably make faster progress compared to meditating with your eyes closed. Whe
n you are just starting out, it can be easier to close your eyes, so if you find it too difficult to sit still with your eyes open, then just close them.
Another aspect that often comes up is the time of day. Personally, I prefer to meditate before going to bed because it allows me to relax and subsequently fall asleep with ease. Others meditate in the morning because they think it wakes them up properly. To some extent, it is a matter of personal taste, and of course there is nothing wrong with making meditation part of both your morning and evening routine.
You have found a spot. Now set the timer and sit down in the lotus position. Afterwards, breathe in, and breathe out, deeply. It may help you to focus on your breathing, but, as I wrote earlier, this is a crutch you will eventually have to let go of. Keep going until your timer rings. While meditating, do not try to engage any thoughts that come up. That is all there is to it. The goal is to reach and maintain mental clarity. Make meditation a ritual with a fixed number of steps you always perform. Ideally, sit in the same spot at the same time every day. Make it a habit.
Progressing
Meditating for two minutes is just so that you get started. After a few days, I want you to increase the time span to five minutes per session, no matter if it's once or twice a day. It is important to make it a habit. Otherwise it is too easy to say to yourself that you are tired or have better things to do with your time. Once you have gotten comfortable with five minutes, you can gradually increase the interval. My progression was from 5 to 15 minutes. I eventually increased the time in 15-minute steps until I could sit for an hour. This was partly due to my desire to see how far I could push myself or how deep a meditative state I could reach. I eventually went well beyond that, but that is hardly necessary.
Interestingly, the more practice you get, the less time you need to spend meditating for the same effect. In the next chapter I will describe meditative states. At first, it can take a long time to just reach the second one, but with regular practice, you may go through the first two states within seconds and be able to reach a deeper and more relaxing meditative state after five minutes than you would have reached after forty-five minutes one year earlier.
Also, let me reiterate that I strongly recommend that you use a timer because you won't be able to judge for how long you have been meditating. At first, you may think you have been meditating for twenty minutes, even though it were less than five because you are not used to it. Later on, you may think you had only meditated for ten minutes when in fact it was closer to an hour. This is because in a state of relaxation with no external stimuli, there is no way to keep track of time.
Once you have reached a state of being able to meditate for half an hour with ease and reach a deep meditative state, you will notice that the calmness carries over to your daily life and affects your personality in a positive way. This is when you will start to experience the benefits I have described at the beginning of the book to a much more significant degree. It is the beginning of mastery.
Meditative States
While meditating, you will encounter a number of meditative states. The first is chaos, which refers to the restlessness of your untamed mind. Chaos eventually gives way to clarity, which describes your empty mind while meditating. If you can reach that state, or even if you only manage to catch a glimpse of it every now and again, you will be able to reap quite a bit of what meditation has to offer. Indeed, clarity is the state you should work towards achieving. It is within reach for all of you.
There are further meditative states to discover. I mention them in this book mainly because I do not intend to write another book on meditation. Even the first one of those further stages, warmth, will only be reached by a fraction of you. Subsequent states will be elusive for all but an extremely small number of you. You are therefore arguably better off viewing those parts as entertainment.
Chaos and Clarity
When you start out, you will first encounter a state of manifold, confusing thoughts. It will be difficult to keep your head clear for even a few seconds because you are not used to not occupying your mind. I have described the nature of those thoughts earlier. As a beginner, you may wonder if you will ever be able to just sit still, meditate, and not entertain any thought. Reaching mental clarity itself is a goal worth striving for. If you reach this state consistently, then you will find it much easier to stay focused in general. Situations you hitherto found stressful will become a lot less intimidating.
Chaos is the meditative state consisting of encountering random thoughts, no matter if you engage them or not. Whenever your mind is not occupied that way, you are in a state of clarity. As a practitioner of meditation, your goal is to minimize chaos in order to maximize its opposite, clarity. In the state of clarity, you do not engage any of the thoughts that enter your mind. Likewise, you do not actively think of something. In the state of complete clarity, your mind is empty. Aim to remain in this state for as long as possible. As an experienced practitioner, you will be able to start your meditation session in the state of clarity and never leave it until you get up and continue with your day.
Reaching mental clarity during your meditations is well and good. Furthermore, there will be certain spill-over effects into your everyday life. However, it is possible to utilize this even further if you make it a habit to calm down consciously during the day. Just by sitting still and closing your eyes for a few moments you should be able to recall this mental state and enter it as needed. The effect is even stronger if you follow certain routines for what I call mental hygiene, which I discuss later. The reason is clear, because if you distract yourself habitually, your mind does not have much of a chance to get some rest.
If you are only ever able to enter the state of clarity, you should feel perfectly content. However, a minority of you may encounter another state, which I refer to as warmth.
Warmth
While meditating, it is not uncommon to experience a feeling of warmth emerging from your center. It may even feel as if it emerges from your hands. This could cause psychological discomfort because it is a strange and unknown sensation. In addition to feeling warmth, you may also have the sensation of perceiving it like a physical object. To me, it feels as if a ball of energy is growing in my hands, getting bigger and bigger. Then, the warmth extends further and further, crossing my wrists, creeping up my forearms and eventually reaching the elbows. This is a clear physical sensation. You should not try to control this sensation. It is indeed possible to steer the expansion of the ball of warmth, and such can even be entertaining. However, just as learning to not manipulate your thoughts helps you reach a deeper meditative state, so will not interfering with this sensation enable you to reach an even deeper mental state by not trying to actively influence your perception.
Whenever I enter this mental state, I am not just unable to hold any thoughts; I have none appearing since my mind is too occupied processing this sensual input. I like to compare it to taking a warm bath or shower when you just stand there and let the water run over your body. You enjoy the moment and the feeling you get from the warm water touching your body. It is thus just normal that you do not waste any time thinking about anything. It is probably not that you could not, but simply that you do not want to because you do not want to spoil the experience.
After exiting this mental state, you should feel completely refreshed and at incredible ease with the world. When I meditate in the morning, the spill-over effect of warmth almost makes me too unfazed. On the other hand, it is a wonderful way to end your day. Meditate for a bit, let your body get engulfed in warmth, and go to sleep afterwards. It is part of my meditative practice to remain seated in the lotus position but bend my upper body forward so that my forehead touches the ground. I remain in this position for a few minutes before getting up.
There are two levels in this state: one is the sensation of warmth in your center, which may or may not grow to reach your elbows. However, once you pass this barrier — at least I perceive it as such —
you will quickly feel as if the warmth engulfs your whole body. If you manage to maintain this state, without interfering, something entirely different may happen, which I will describe next. However, let me curb your enthusiasm already as you may never move beyond feeling a warm sensation.
Unbinding
You can probably picture the effects of meditation up to the stage of reaching mental clarity. Complete mental clarity may remain elusive for quite some time. What you just read about warmth may sound odd, but presumably not crazy. At the very least you can easily imagine what this state might be like, in case you have not reached it yet. However, descriptions of deeper meditative states may sound quite strange. I cannot speak with authority on the effects of the various recreational drugs, so I am unable to confirm that the experiences through meditation are indeed drug-like. Yet, when speaking with people who are familiar with meditation and no stranger to consuming mind-altering drugs, they tend to point out the similarity.
If you lack reference experiences of deeper meditative states, the following could well be as successful as describing sex to a virgin, but I will do my best to make it descriptive. After meditating with a clear head, just letting your thoughts come and go and never engaging them, you probably semi-regularly reach a state in which the perception of yourself or your environment changes. The effect is even more pronounced if you meditate with your eyes closed as this forces you to pay more attention to other sensory perceptions. What may happen is that your perception of the boundaries of your body changes. I refer to this state as unbinding. You feel bigger or smaller. This can be an interesting perception to explore, but you probably tire of it quickly and return to a mode in which you do not actively engage thoughts and won't focus on this sensation either.
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