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

by Jason Siff

  Meditation practices where the idea is to “generate an original state” are also generative, but in a different way. These practices often have a concept attached to them that the original state is the “truth,” the “essence,” or the “way things are.” A good example of this is practicing awareness of the breath with the belief that by bringing your attention constantly back to the breath, the “pure” (original) state of mind that is fully awakened will be realized. But this is still generative. You’re trying to create a state of mind that you have been told is an ultimate (or optimal) state. This way of thinking about the truth of your experience leads to a whole slew of practices that on the surface appear to open one up to “reality” but, in practice, are geared to producing experiences that you take as being ultimately real.

  Then there are the several kinds of guided forms of meditation, which are undoubtedly generative, just because of the fact that someone else is giving verbal directions. Even if such meditations guide you to a certain place and then stop, leaving you to just sit with what comes up, it is still a generative practice.

  And last of all, there are meditation practices that involve sending thoughts or feelings to others and receiving the same. Most who do such practices feel that they are sending “true” feelings and receiving the same back. This is the case with most generated emotions. When we have generated them successfully, we may then believe that is how we now feel about someone. Granted, there may be occasions when that is so, but for the most part, generated feelings give us a taste of what it would be like rather than the real thing. For example, generating loving-kindness for someone we despise doesn’t mean that we’ll no longer despise that person at times when he or she behaves in ways that we find despicable in real life or that all memories of how awful that person was to us have been obliterated by the loving feelings we temporarily knew in the guided meditation.

  Generally, the generative process is a process of doing. It relies on effort, on concentration, and on persistence. The effort can be harsh and aggressive, though people can learn to be gentler with it. The type of concentration is often directed onto one thing at a time, one project or goal at a time. The persistence required to maintain such concentration and effort is often understated in such practices, but without it, people would give up on the ones that don’t work for them much sooner than they do. Such determination is not necessarily a beneficial quality for everyone, and it can easily inhibit you from trying other possible directions.

  Unlearning meditation, as a beginning meditation practice, doesn’t use the generative process until other processes have become more established. When someone with an already existing meditation practice transitions through unlearning meditation, the person does it by doing the generative practices she or he has learned within a different meditative process. Beginning and transitioning meditators will engage both the receptive and the conflicted processes and will start to see generative practices from that angle.

  The Conflicted Process

  The conflicted process occurs when experiences are related to in a manner of trying to get rid of them. Thus, whenever there is internal struggle, tightfisted control, and great resistance, the conflicted process is functioning.

  In most instances, a conflicted process arises when you try to do a generative practice and your mind as it is just won’t let you do it. If you stick to the generative practice while in the conflicted process, the situation often gets worse, becoming more tense, pressured, painful. By holding on tightly to the generative instructions while not in a generative process, you just create more internal conflict. The way to transition around this conflict is to drop the generative practice and take up a receptive one as a way to enter the receptive process.

  But engaging in a receptive process is not all that easy either. It can have its own forms of resistance, as you may have experienced by now. You may have found yourself fighting against going with your thoughts and feelings for long periods of the sitting, wanting to get rid of them or have them die down to some kind of manageable murmur. That too is conflicted. On the one hand you are accepting of whatever your mind does, and on the other, you want it to cooperate with a notion of how the meditation sitting should be and where it should go.

  It is difficult to stay with the conflicted process without wanting to get rid of it—which is precisely what keeps it going. In the conflicted process, we bounce back and forth between wanting the painful or unwanted elements to end and being willing to tolerate them. In the midst of this process, we may even find ourselves becoming interested in this experience of being in conflict, and instead of wanting to get rid of it, we want it to hang on long enough to reveal to us what is really going on. We may then find that we have transitioned into a receptive or explorative process.

  I believe that when the conflicted process is banished from the meditative process, our whole meditation practice suffers from the loss and becomes inauthentic. Most meditation techniques either deny that such a conflicted process exists or have strategies in place to curb its impact and control its course. Practices denying the existence of conflict are often those that present meditation as only peaceful, relaxing, and eventually transcendent. Being in conflict, especially about the technique you are doing, is not part of the deal. Even experiencing emotional conflicts around difficult decisions, painful memories, or uncertain future plans may be perceived as taking you away from the true way of meditating.

  Practices that tend to curb the conflicted process and lead it toward a good, wholesome outcome are much more subtly aversive to conflict, but still so. For instance, the instruction to accept whatever you experience with equanimity appears on the surface to suggest that you accept all of your experiences no matter what they are, but underneath there’s a message that says, “Don’t react to it.” So you end up not accepting your reactions because you’re not supposed to have any.

  Other Conflicted Areas

  The conflicted process is not just about the struggle caused by trying to do a generative practice when the conditions are not right for it. It goes much deeper and is much more extensive than that, for there is more to a meditation practice than just the instructions. You can be in conflict over the instructions and attempt to subdue your conflict regarding “doubt,” and in the process, still continue to experience the conflict as the unacknowledged background of your practice. Such conflict regarding the beliefs and views you’re taught, and consequently are supposed to embody or realize, is not something to be banished but something to bring into your practice. To sit with how you disagree with a particular teaching, and learn to become aware of both the articulation of beliefs within the teaching and the views you hold that are contrary to those beliefs, is a way to use the conflicted process rather than avoid it.

  In a similar vein, conflicts over morals, ethics, or any rules and standards of behavior found within your practice will arise and will require attention, not just surrender. When we too easily adopt a foreign standard of behavior, one that comes from a culture that is not our own and of which we know little, we tend to give it far greater importance and significance than the ethics and morals we grew up with. The Buddhist monastic codes and the way Western monks tend to worship them and follow them unquestioningly is a perfect example of this. Many Western monks and nuns try to obey the rules as best they can, even though some of the rules do not make sense from the point of view of the culture they come from. Rebelling against the rules is really not possible in a monastic community where everyone not only adheres to them but also sees them as an integral part of the path toward liberation of mind.

  Lay Buddhist practitioners also experience conflict with the rules of conduct they must obey while on retreat or decide to take into their daily lives and can become even more self-conscious and self-critical than before. Instead of reflecting on these new codes of behavior and staying with the internal struggles they naturally bring, some people simply force themselves to obey the new rules. And this may not be limited j
ust to forcing upon themselves the new rules of conduct but may even extend to restrictions on how they think and feel. Some people may come to believe they should never feel their anger or listen to their cravings, as if our emotions could obey a decision not to feel compelled to act on them. Some may even go so far as to believe that adherence to this new code of behavior will enable them to no longer feel the undesirable feelings. The practice becomes not about cultivating beneficial qualities but about suppressing unwanted behaviors, controlling thoughts and feelings, and acting in ways that can at times be false and misleading.

  But if, once you’ve taken up the new code of behavior, you allow the conflicts with it to emerge, then there can be a healthy tension between the newly adopted code of conduct and your accustomed behaviors. Take for instance someone who has taken up the precept not to speak ill of others (a part of right speech). This precept makes good sense and, if followed, will lead not only to less guilt over what one says but also to fewer conflicts with others. But what if someone is accustomed to criticizing corrupt and dangerous politicians, arrogant and autocratic bosses, or people who lack scruples? These acts of speech seem normal and even necessary at times. They’re easily justified. Adhering to the precept of not speaking ill of others can be very difficult in these situations. When you do speak ill of another, you might feel guilty and self-critical because of your efforts to follow the precept, and you may then vow never to do it again, which, of course, just leads to more guilt and self-hatred when you end up doing it again. In this way, the conflict becomes about your failure to keep the precept, which is not where learning about the conflict takes place.

  The learning is found in recognizing when the new mode of conduct (not speaking ill of others) and the preexisting behavior (self-justified criticism of others) rub up against each other, pulling you in both directions. So in this situation, you may take up the intention to train yourself not to speak ill of others instead of taking up a rule not to do so. You may be willing to learn how to move from being critical of others to greater acceptance and understanding of them as they are. In that process, there will be many failures, though each failure can be an opportunity to learn what makes it hard for you to tolerate certain people and to observe your unwillingness to look into the causes and conditions for the way they are and the feelings they stir up in you.

  The conflicted process challenges us in so many ways, how can it not be a part of the path for each of us, especially in meditation, where conflicts are bound to emerge just by the fact that we are with our minds for the duration of each sitting? It seems to be the case that just about every meditation sitting, at least for most beginners, begins with the conflicted process. This brings us to another element of my theory, which I call the primary transition.

  18

  The Primary Transition

  Every time you begin a meditation sitting, whether you’re a beginner or a longtime practitioner, you go through a transition from your states of mind preceding the meditation sitting to those that will arise within the sitting. During this primary transition, any one of the three basic meditative processes (receptive, generative, or conflicted) will usually be operating.

  In mainstream meditation practices this transition is generally considered either as a period to prepare the mind for meditation or as something to be gotten through as soon as possible. For instance, Vipassana students are often instructed to begin a meditation sitting by immediately putting their attention on the breath at the nostrils or the abdomen and to continually return the attention there when the mind wanders from it. Or a student may be given a series of rituals to put herself in the right frame of mind for meditation, some phrases to repeat, some vows to recite, or objects to contemplate or visualize at the outset of a sitting.

  This common way of beginning is not a smooth or gradual transition that incorporates what went on before but a harsh break from your previous state. The transitional aspect of this change from one activity to another is not usually given significance. Instead, all of your attention is focused on what you need to do as you start meditating, and whatever was happening before is intentionally let go of rather than transitioned out of.

  Launching into a meditation sitting with complete disregard for what you’re bringing into it creates an artificial division between your mental processes outside of meditation and what they should be like in meditation. It sets up and supports the notion that your mind should behave differently in meditation, or be of another order, such as perfectly aware and calm. This kind of division contributes to the struggle, frustration, and conflict that occurs in meditation sittings.

  When doing a generative practice, often at the beginning of a sitting, you’re drawn into the conflicted process. You try to get your mind to quiet down and focus on the object of meditation. The transition at the beginning of the sitting could then have a flavor of trying to tame your mind, slow it down, and get it to stay put. If that finally happens, the transition is over, and you might feel that now you’re finally meditating. If that doesn’t happen, then what you expected to be just a transitory conflict lasts much of the sitting.

  People do have meditation sittings where they do a generative practice and there is little or no struggle with their mind at the outset. The transition between where they were before meditation and during the sitting is then usually very short. If the practice is observing the breath, then awareness of the breath is easy to maintain. If metta, the feelings and sensations come readily, and so on. But even if the conflicted process has been averted, it still does not go away, as something can easily happen within the sitting to upset your calm or concentration. After recovering from such an interruption of concentration, it may feel as though you are beginning the sitting all over again and that you have to find a way to transition back into a calm state of mind.

  This brings up the whole notion of transitions in a meditation sitting. How many are there? There can be several in a single sitting. In fact, there can be many periods you’d like to transition out of in a given sitting, as well as periods where a pleasant state of mind emerges that you’d like to transition into more fully. These are secondary transitions, occurring within the context of having already made the initial transition into the meditation sitting.

  The Primary Transition with the Receptive Process

  When you begin a meditation sitting with the receptive process, the state of mind you’re in as you enter the sitting affects how the sitting will unfold. There is no line marking the end of what was on your mind before you sat and what develops as you sit. Such transitions do not always follow the same pattern, and you may feel very little has shifted far into the sitting, or you might experience some dramatic shifts toward the beginning, or anything in between.

  I will go into some examples of primary transitions, starting with a meditation journal I received from someone whom I never met. This individual heard about me from a colleague and contacted me. I asked him to journal a series of meditation sittings and then set up a time to talk on the phone. The way he goes through the primary transition, highlighted in italic type, has some features that will be recognizable to anyone who is becoming receptive to the primary transition.

  First sitting: Much body restlessness (five to ten minutes) with temptation to go to breath to settle down. Images appear, with noise in the background—muffled sound/word. No clear verbal thinking. Images appear disjointed—images from the day are most prominent. Difficult to recall. There appears to be no focus. Then anxiety appears in the form of chest tightness. A vivid thought occurs: “What if someone breaks in?” Then sleep comes—I estimate two to five minutes of drowsiness. This happens two or three times during the sitting. As this happens, and each time it does, I am suddenly jolted from sleep by a vivid sensation that I am choking and unable to breathe. Every time this happens, I am jolted awake. It is very unpleasant to experience this. At twenty to the hour high alertness occurs—very awake. The images decrease and there are episodes of stillness. Severa
l thoughts enter: “Is this really meditation?” Gradually nausea sets in. A headache, eye ache, and lower back pain join in. I feel I will vomit. By the one-hour mark I stop. Interestingly, so does the nausea and body ache.

  Second sitting: Begin with intense anxiety arising in chest, stomach. With hypersalivation. Thinking occurs—difficult to describe, as they are not entirely verbal, but they imply a profound sense of inadequacy, and this ties into anxiety about going to work tomorrow. The thoughts imply that somehow I will be perceived as inadequate, not good enough and inferior by coworkers at my company. This is accompanied by random, neutral images of the work setting. Wander into other thoughts (don’t remember them). When I realize that this has happened, I also notice that the anxiety is gone. Anxiety goes up and down after this—fluctuates (gently). Interestingly, I notice that the images that accompany the anxiety appear entirely unrelated and are in fact quite pleasant. They are images of a painting, of flowers, grass, then a field emerging. Thought occurs about meditation—I feel defeated—there are endless layers to the mind: “How will I ever make any sense of it or what do I do about it?” “What do I focus on?” Things settle and the images continue. Physical anxiety abates.

  If there is no line dividing the beginning of the meditation sitting from the rest of it, how can I mark the end of a transition in these meditation sittings? Instead of a line marking the end of the transition, it might be more accurate to say that there is a transitional period of experience that occurs, after which the meditator feels more inside the meditation. This period of experience occurs on account of the segment of experience that began the meditation sitting subsiding completely or moving out of the foreground.