Unlearning Meditation: What to Do When the Instructions Get in the Way

by Jason Siff

  In this sitting we can see an obvious reason why Jonathan doesn’t sit with less control. It makes him agitated and anxious not to have an anchor (not to keep returning to the breath). He lets his mind wander to several things in the meditation: a situation at work, a TV show, a song, feelings he was having. He remarks that he felt less agitated, calmer, when he let his mind jump from thing to thing. But the process of allowing his mind such freedom in meditation also exposed him to thoughts that he was scared to think, and yet these thoughts came to him unbidden. Being receptive and allowing of your mind in meditation can lead to calmness as well as agitation, and permits what was disavowed in your prior meditation practice to rise to the surface.

  Notice that somewhere in the middle of the sitting he dropped off for some time. I would need much more description to say more about it than it was another way he lost control, but this time in a pleasant and relaxing way—though he may not acknowledge that, because he “dropped off,” thus associating the experience with sleep, and we all know that falling asleep in meditation is breaking a fairly common rule.

  Day three (45 min.): Almost immediately aware of places of stillness (legs on the ground, hands on my thighs). Mind less chaotic, not jumping so quickly. The mind seemed able to land on one scenario and stay there for a longer period. During the sit my mind came back to stillness quite frequently and was able to recall where it had been, but I am unable to do that right now as I try to recall it to write it down. Mostly thoughts involved day-to-day occurrences, but there would be moments where fear would come on the tails of an unwanted thought. During much of the sit, I felt split between deep stillness and activity (concurrently), even with moments of agitation (vibrating in the body). I was watching it from a place that was very calm. I remember moments that involved thoughts, “I could do this for a long time.” Almost a sense of deep relaxation inside the agitation/vibration. My awareness moved to my breath for a short period. A feeling of being okay while taking everything in (sounds from upstairs, going in and out of thinking). Mind became more foggy toward the end. Went into thought where I was gone for longer periods of time, but seemed less judgmental (of myself) when I came back from dropping off.

  This meditation began with greater stillness and ease than the prior ones. There appears to be no need for Jonathan to control his experience in this sitting. He lets his mind stay with a scenario for as long as it lasts, finding that being with thoughts and feelings can go on concurrently with a sense of stillness. His awareness moved to breath for a period of time, but he did not intentionally move it there. The breath was like everything else he was taking in or landing on for a while. Even at the end of the sit, “dropping off” had much less judgment attached to it.

  Day four (50 min.): Aware of sound almost constantly in my mind. Songs in my head seemed more prominent than usual (Randy Newman songs). Mind went to different scenarios regarding my children. Lost in thoughts for a long time, but part of me seemed to be aware of the fact that I was thinking. When I’d notice that I was, I would come back to my contact points in a more matter-of-fact way. There was little, if any, judgment directed toward myself for having been thinking. At one point I became aware of my breath, followed by confusion, “Should I be focusing on my breath? By doing that am I following the instruction? What the hell should I be doing?” etc. . . . More agitation in the body. Looked at the clock a few times. Suddenly aware of feeling very calm. Surprised by this.

  The impasse returned in this sitting, even though Jonathan had less judgment about thinking. He was meditating with less force, coming back to his contact points (i.e., hands touching) in a more relaxed way. But when he found his attention on the breath, the confusion started, and with it the impasse reappeared, accompanied by bodily agitation. Upon reading this, I ask myself, “Why is he unable to be aware of the thoughts about what he should be doing in the same way he is aware of other thoughts?” In other words, “What is the hook in the thoughts about what he should be doing?”

  There is obviously much more to this impasse than needing to control his experience. From discussing it with him, it seems that it has something to do with needing an authority figure. He can’t be the one who decides what he should be doing or determines that he is doing it right. He needs someone to do that for him. When he asks the question, “By doing this [following the breath] am I following the instruction [Jason gave me]?” he is expressing a need to have me tell him that following the breath “is” or “is not” the instruction I gave him. He needs me to be definite about that, and I can’t. When awareness of the breath enters into his experience, that is what he is experiencing, and I would encourage him to be with it. He is not making himself aware of the breath in any forceful way or trying to be aware only of the breath. And if he were practicing breath meditation in a forceful way, I would ask him to become aware of that, not to stop it.

  I am a confusing teacher for some people. I admit it. Sometimes the way the teacher teaches is a contributing factor to a meditator’s impasse. In this case, I believe the way I teach can actually bring this side of the impasse into view. For if I were a teacher who taught formal, structured meditation practices, then Jonathan would be preoccupied with doing my instructions correctly. But since I am teaching an open, flexible, minimally structured approach to meditation, he has the added discomfort of being confused as to what the instructions are. This presents him with an authority figure who is not giving him anything specific to do. This is unfamiliar and unsettling. So he occasionally has to see me as the kind of teacher who gives instructions that students either succeed or fail at. I can accept that projection. It is perfectly natural for the role I am in. Still, I have to remind him, and other students in this predicament, that there is no wrong experience when doing Recollective Awareness Meditation.

  Day five (35 min.): Initially mind focused on points of stillness. A feeling of pleasure at just staying with the stillness (not thinking as much about whether I am doing it right, what I should be noticing for my journal, etc.). Noticed my mind would move into fantasy: one involved standing at the top of my street, seeing a bunch of green grapes rolling down it. Aware that I am unable to stop the grapes from rolling away. An out-of-control feeling. This was very much like a dream state. Noticed that fear or “being caught” (surprised) seemed to precipitate my mind’s leaving the still points of contact. Also aware of my awareness being split concurrently (felt like layers of awareness) between still points of contact, vibrations in the body, fear, as well as quick activity in the visual field (all at the same time). My mind then moved into analysis, trying to ascertain if it is fear or something else I am experiencing. Noticed that agitation in my body increased as I tried to figure this out. It was at this point that I opened my eyes, looked around, looked at the clock. The rest of the sit was very anxious in the body. A subtle shakiness in most of my body. Thoughts, “Maybe this is the coffee I drank.” Through most of this though I felt pleased at having a vantage point in the stillness to observe my experience.

  In this sitting, the impasse once more disappears, and Jonathan is conscious of its absence. It is not gone for good, as it pops its head up every so often in his journals over the next couple of years. It comes and goes but is still strongly rooted, for his need for structure and certainty in his meditation practice has deeper and far more extensive roots than he knows.

  12

  Getting Through an Impasse

  Today is a beautiful sunny day, a bit warmer than yesterday, with about two inches of freshly fallen snow on the ground and in the trees. As the sun heats up, clumps of snow fall from the trees. The snow on the ground and around our car is softer and easier to shovel, though more dense and therefore heavier. My wife and I are going to try to get the car dug out. We’ll use the tools we have at our disposal and our past knowledge of what we’ve done in similar situations, and with determination to see it to the end, we will hopefully be driving into town this afternoon. If we fail—which is entirely possible—we’ll hav
e to wait until after the next storm, which is scheduled to arrive this evening, to pass. It’s reported to be a big one, and we may end up with another foot of snow to clear.

  We concentrate our efforts around the tires. The big, flat-edged snow shovels are too clumsy to maneuver around the tires, so my wife gathers some gardening tools: a small hand shovel, a couple of small trowels, and a stick to poke through the snow and loosen it. So, even though there are piles of snow all around the car, we get down on our knees and carefully dig out the tires. Falling snow from the tree branches above fills in some of the spaces as we dig, so we remove larger clumps of snow with a shovel as we go. It gets easier, because the snow below the top frozen layer is soft, fluffy, and light. It takes us about an hour to get the car cleared enough to start her up and drive out into the street.

  Impasses in meditation are usually bigger, heavier, and more difficult to manage than we think. Awareness can help us whittle them down, become more tolerant of them, and explore them. We can even concurrently develop enough tranquillity to make the impasse temporarily subside. This process requires patience and perseverance. At some point, meditation with the impasse becomes more fruitful and less frustrating, and you can begin to see a light at the end of the tunnel. That’s when the time is ripe to dig in and get to the roots of the impasse.

  This is delicate work, requiring a skilled and gentle touch. Bear in mind, though, that there are no universal instructions, no proven strategies that work for everyone.

  Impasses

  HEAVY AND LIGHT

  Most impasses start heavy, and as you progress in unlearning meditation, they tend to become lighter and easier to be with and go through. That’s because the habits you’re unlearning are what have made an impasse heavy or difficult to begin with. With those habits unlearned for the most part, creative and intuitive ways of being with the impasse can emerge.

  A heavy impasse becomes lighter as soon as you “loosen” around the meditation instructions and allow yourself more flexibility. As the impasse becomes less weighty, you may be able to question the views and beliefs of a particular practice and not just drop it because it doesn’t work, but also loosen your grip around the notion of the correctness or rightness of that practice. As the impasse gets even lighter, you might even find that the practice that wasn’t working for you arises in a different way and that you’re able to do it for a little while, experience its benefits, and let go of it. At that point the impasse is no longer operating, and instead of feeling like you have made some great breakthrough, you just might feel a little lighter, as if a load had been taken off your shoulders. Meditation is really as easy and pleasant as you had hoped.

  Many impasses are made up of concepts and the mental constructs built up around them, and those are harder to become aware of than the ones that just pertain to meditation practice. The constructs may have to do with beliefs about reality, about the nature of existence, the truth of things, and so forth. They may also be personal narratives about your life or the people in it. They may also be reasons, justifications, and explanations for various behaviors and attitudes that have been running your life from behind the scenes. It’s an interesting area to explore, and it’s one toward which unlearning meditation inevitably will take you.

  Transformative Conceptualization

  Transformative conceptualization is what I call the framework I have developed for looking into the mental constructs that support an impasse. It is a way of examining what we have come to know and believe to be true about certain kinds of experience. The things we hold to be true about ourselves, others, and the world can keep us in a light impasse for a long time.

  One of the major beliefs that must be questioned before a transformative conceptualization process can work is the belief that nonconceptual understanding comes from “pure” sense experience. With that belief unexamined, you will not be open to this process, which, in fact, states the opposite: the nonconceptual is arrived at through awareness, discernment, and investigation into your own experience. There is a common belief that the Buddha was teaching people to become aware of the senses in a way that led to only pure sense experience for one who attained liberation. Some people extend this notion to include the preverbal stage of infancy and think that a liberated mind would be like an infant’s mind, having no concepts. But we cannot go backward to a world of no concepts once we have progressed along the line of using concepts. I believe the Buddha was actually teaching a development of mind through a refining and clarifying of the conceptualizing process to the point where, free from concepts, one is also free from beliefs concepts create. To get there, however, you need to travel the path of investigating your beliefs, views, and models of experience. Here we have another aspect of unlearning meditation.

  So how does this transformative conceptualization process work? It works in three basic steps.

  Naming an experience

  Describing that named experience

  Seeing into the narrative of that experience

  Naming the Experience

  The first step in conceptualizing our experience happens when we give it a name. There are two ways we generally do this. The first way is to learn a concept beforehand and then look for it in our experience. “Doubt” would be one such concept. When we then have an experience that matches doubt as we’ve conceived it, we designate that experience “doubt.”

  The other way we tend to conceptualize our experiences with names is when we have an experience and then name it while it is happening (or sometime afterward). For example, you’re sitting in meditation and you’re so frustrated with the meditation instructions that you conclude this sort of meditation isn’t for you. At the time, the experience may not be named, but on reflection, you might end up calling the experience doubt.

  Normally you would stop there at this first step of conceptualization, especially if your teacher or your peers accept that word as the correct label for that experience. The word doubt may actually be part of the vocabulary of the meditation teaching you’ve received, just as its opposite, the word faith, may also be. If you conceptualize doubt, you may identify yourself or be identified by others in the community as a doubter. Such conceptualization quite readily lends itself to labeling and to personal identification with the label.

  Describing the Named Experience

  The second step of this conceptualization process comes when you begin to describe the named experience in more detail. In doing that you might find out several things about the experiences that escape notice when a name is used for them. For instance, you might describe how you try to do the instruction to the best of your ability and yet are periodically pulled away by thoughts and feelings. Or, in unlearning meditation, you will likely experience periods of confusion about what you’re supposed to be doing in the sitting. You might also wonder if this approach is aimless or counterproductive. By describing what you call doubt in more detail, you can become aware of how you have been using doubt to name a variety of different experiences that may share some qualities, but are not exactly the same.

  You may also notice that when you describe your experiences, there can be confusion about the language you have chosen to describe them, especially if the words come from a system of thought, such as Buddhist teachings—that is, if the words you’re using to describe your experiences aren’t your own. You might find that when you begin to use your own words, the experience starts to sound different. For example, you call one sort of experience of doubt “being confused about what to do,” and another “not being convinced of the validity of this teaching.”

  By describing experiences in greater depth and detail, you might discover things about them that you missed on earlier passes. There is more going on than meets the eye—not all of our experience makes it into language when we use a single word to describe it. What gets put into that single word is a selected area of experience that fits it, but not the aspects of the experience that don’t.

  Many times we by
pass the step of naming and go to describing instead. When we can’t find the right word for some emotion and launch into a lengthy description of the experience instead, that is what we are doing. We are conceptualizing with a description rather than just a single word. But we often go through such descriptions in order to find a single word for the experience, as if every experience has a name if we can only find out what it is. In this process of transformative conceptualization, you can come up empty-handed and let the description, the story, the poem, or the picture be what represents the experience for you.

  In calling back to mind a meditation sitting, you might verbalize segments of experience or visualize them, using descriptions. You might also use single words to describe experiences, though the word may be only a place marker for the greater and more nuanced awareness of the experience. General characteristics of one’s experiences may come back, such as the texture of a state of mind, the tone of a narrative voice, the sense of space or place, or the underlying mood that pervaded the sitting. The bits and pieces of the meditation sitting, the highs and lows of it, the qualities that were present and those that were absent, are just some of things that will enter into the description. The description of a sitting can be of anything that occurred in it, and yet it does not have to be totally complete.