A few days ago, I wrote a post talking about the Zen in John Lennon’s old line, “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans”. If you missed it, go read it here.

I received some comments about meditation, so I thought I’d give some brief words on that here.

Meditation… talk about a loaded word. The West has run with it and crammed it full of so much meaning and baggage over the past 80 years.

Because of that baggage, I almost say we abandon it. In Zen Buddhism we speak of just sitting, and that might be a pretty good substitute. Just sit. Sit.

But then again, Zen meditation is a little different than the meditation that pervades popular culture, so maybe that wouldn’t work. Breathe might be a better candidate.

That aside, I will continue to use “meditation” in this article just so you know what we’re talking about. But referring to it as “breathing” in your own life might help reframe the idea.

There is this image in the West that meditation is something that only Asians can do. It has this vaguely mystical image, thanks to old stereotypes of Tibet and “Shangri-La”. It may not be intended, but there is a slightly racist air about it, suggesting that the Asian mind is different and that Western minds are too advanced to be able to be quiet. The noble savage.

The funny thing is, within Asia most people have just as much trouble figuring out how to do meditation as people do in the West. Which shouldn’t be a surprise — we are all human, after all.

Meditation is both the easiest thing in the world and the most difficult. Easiest because all you have to do is sit and ignore the mind. Hardest because… you have to ignore the mind.

We often confuse the mind for us. We are our mind, in the common way of looking at things. Of course the mind is part os us, but it is not the whole of us. Would you say that you are your heart? Or that you are your liver? Surely not. That would be slightly ridiculous. But with the mind, we picture it as us, like some figure sitting at a desk with all kinds of control switches and monitors located somewhere in our head, controlling our body as if it were a robot.

You are not your mind. The sooner you realize that, the easier meditation will become for you.

Try this: sit down, dim the lights and narrow your eyes to slits. Don’t close them because that invites daydreaming, but don’t look at anything. It may be easiest to sit facing a wall, Zen style, just to limit distraction.

Breathe out slowly. Breathe in slowly. There is no need to count seconds, trying to make either one a certain length. Just breathe slowly. As you do so, listen to your breath.

Easy, right?

The hard part is that after 2 or 3 breathe, your mind will start talking to you. I’m bored it will say. How long have we been sitting here, it will whine. Has it been 5 minutes yet? How long are we going to waste time like this?

(Well — again, you confuse your mind for you, so those thoughts will probably use I instead of we, but you get the idea.)

If that doesn’t work, your mind will start trying to bring up random memories or random plans. Something you need to do next week or something you forgot to do last year. It will pull up all kinds of thoughts in an attempt to pull at your attention and engage with it.

We usually call the mind the monkey mind for this very reason, but maybe the toddler mind would be more accurate, as just like a toddler, it wants you to pay attention to it and will annoy you non-stop until you do.

And just as you ignore a toddler when they start on one of their fits, you should do your best to ignore the mind.

Ignoring the mind is really very hard. Even monks who have been meditating for years find themselves distracted by the mind sometimes. You should remember this. So often people try meditation, find it hard to stop thinking, then give up, thinking it’s just too hard for them.

You will find yourself engaging with the mind at times (talking to yourself). When this happens, just bring your attention back to the breath. No getting angry at yourself, no sighs of frustrating, just move back to the breath.

That’s it. That’s meditation. Do that for 10 minutes a day and you will be well on your way to… well, to whatever you think meditation will bring you. Lower stress, longer life, whatever. In Zen we say that meditation is good for nothing, and that’s why we do it. Zen humor. What we are basically saying is there should be no goal. You do it to do it and that’s all.

Anyway, give it a try and let me know if you have any questions.

❦

David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Bluesky.

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