Decide This First as You Develop a QuickSwitching Practice
Which is more important? To focus on one part of the image or just soak it in?
One of the biggest misunderstandings in the continuing enthusiasm about meditation and mindfulness is the purpose of a practice. The new research that shows different kinds of meditation impact different parts of the brain reveals a bigger question: Why are you practicing?
I remember my first formal class on meditation and prayer practices during grad school. Each week we dabbled in a different form and the assignment was just to experience it. We explored Ignatian contemplation and the examen, centering prayer out of the Trappist/Cistercian world, traditional prayers of Christianity like the Lord’s prayer, and monastic traditions like walking meditation. I don’t remember if mindfulness was a word that mattered back in 1998.
What I do remember is sitting in my blue recliner vibrating. It was not a vibrating chair. This was inner life lifting off. I don’t remember what form I was practicing. I don’t know what the intention of the day was. I just remember this intense feeling of being completely absorbed in feeling. I stayed on that feeling, concentrated on it, repeated it. To this day, I can conjure it any time I need to reset. It doesn’t take away suffering, it simply reminds me I am well in the middle of pain.
Why are you practicing?
It matters so profoundly because the kind of mental work you do determines the impact on your inner life and your capacities with people and in the world day-to-day.
As I worked with a man who had just been on a two week mindfulness and yoga retreat, we talked about a bad day at work. He recounted the different forms of inner work he did to handle the person he needed to be in the next day’s meetings. Breathing didn’t help. Listening to music didn’t help. His yoga class helped while he was in the class, but after, his anger returned.
But the next morning, when he did Metta, or loving-kindness meditation, he opened up. The people and problems he was trying to solve weren’t problems anymore. His world, that had become small, had room again. That didn’t instantly fix his work challenges; it gave him the headspace to creatively, rather than re-actively, engage with people and conundrums at work.
We learned together in that moment that different experiences in life demand different kinds of meditation.
One of the biggest problems in the mental health, self-improvement, and meditation retreat/training world is that we teach practices as one-form-fits-all-solutions.
First, inner life work isn’t a solution. It cannot fix you. It creates results. It can be medicine. It is, however, more important than a cause and effect equation. Exploring inner life is about how to be yourself, well, no matter the outside conditions or internal suffering. Your practice can help you win. It can help you succeed.
The purpose of the practice? The purpose of the practice is the practice.
Second, modern anti-depressants have been criticized as the equivalent of pouring a gallon of oil on an engine to change the oil. They don’t specifically get at the mental health problems, instead they completely change the chemistry of brain. They help often and also may not help as intended. The same is true with meditative practices. We pour one form into a person and expect miracles. When it is the right form, practiced regularly, it can create miracles.
But did it work because of what had been tried before? Was it valuable in the context of the person’s old vs. new mindset? Did it change the pattern of their day and any form would have worked? The research on what different forms of practice do to the brain hasn’t caught up to the proliferation of the different practices. Exploring the larger context of a person’s life and what inner life work will develop a deeper, centered person is not yet a clear matrix. What is clear is that we need different practices in different places and phases of life.
I struggle with breath meditation. I created the 30-breath challenge for that reason. I worry if my breath is right. I wonder if I should hold it for longer or shorter at the top or at the bottom. I worry about the things I have to do. Until I don’t worry. It usually takes me 30 breaths.
I keep doing the challenge because it is difficult for me. The problem with challenge and meditation and mindfulness is that for most people, when it is too hard, they quit. The reason certain practices are too hard is that they don’t fit your time in life. They don’t fit the need you have in your inner experience right now. You don’t have a teacher who is asking you what you really want to experience. Or, your teacher is barking what you should do rather than inviting you into a deeper self.
What matters most in a practice, old or new, is that its discipline meets the stage of our growth. You can’t climb Everest if you are 300 pounds and just began to walk again. And, everyone is capable of a first breath. You can open your inner life to new ways, even as an experienced practitioner, of being. That’s it. You can discover new ways of just being.
In your inner life work right now, do you need to concentrate or be mindful? I think this is the most important first question in a practice. Notice that the word ‘more’ isn’t in the question. Here’s a quick assessment:
Are you stuck or distracted?
Would you rather feel free or focused?
Do you want to loosen up or get stronger?
Whether your practice, moment-to-moment exercises or extended session meditation, needs to be more open or more limited depends on where your mind and inner experience are. The practices are the same: breathing, listening, counting, mantras — really any form of single stream intention.
Concentrative practice asks that you come back to what you are attending. If you are breathing and you get distracted, return to the breath. Everything is about returning and staying on one thing.
Mindful practice suggests that you be where you are. If you are breathing and you get distracted, notice the distraction. Return to the breath when you are ready. There is no extra weight on when or how you do. The goal is to be as you breath.
If you are stuck, want to feel free, and want to loosen up, be more mindful.
If you are distracted, want to feel more focused, and want to get mentally stronger, be more concentrative.
If your results of the quick assessment where two to one, go with the form for which two questions pointed towards mindfulness or concentration. If you hated the assessment, go with the form more compelling to you.
The point is that your practice, as it begins or as it continues, has one form. If a practice has too many intents, the experience can get lost in the purposes.
I keep wondering these days--as the mindful apps abound and we finally have woken up to the value of inner life in all parts of life--why it took so long. Why was this kind of practice only the purview of seers and saints, monks in caves and the oddballs of each generation?
And then I realize that the problem throughout time is that practices were taught as magic elixirs. Schools of practice fought with each other for supremacy rather than mutual education and development.
We are in a brave new world for learning about our inner life. The information is out there. The choices are becoming clearer and clearer. The best news for all of us is that if we want, we can all take steps towards a centered brain and a more grounded life.