Getting It Done

People who practice a little bit of meditation may notice that they become somewhat more aware and relaxed.  But much more than a little bit of awareness and relaxation can be accomplished if one takes it far enough.  I wouldn't go quite so far as to promise the wonderful "ever increasing bliss" that Yogananda suggested, but there can be substantial tranquility, relief from anxiety and psychological suffering, as well as a substantially new way of looking at the world.

"Getting it done" isn't that complicated.  It is mainly about doing enough quality training to "cause" the mind to permanently shift, and implies a relatively serious part-time commitment to practice.  This does not necessarily mean years at a monastery, but rather points to consistent high quality daily practice.

Start Slow

Don't feel like you have to jump in right off the bat with a half hour of meditation.  I mean, that would be great, but even one minute of practice a day is something to start with, it's doable, and you're not going to burn out.  Experiment, have fun with it, and work your way up.

Motivation

Just about anyone who gets much of anything accomplished in life had some kind of desire to get it done, some kind of great love, hope, or interest.  In the meditation world it is often driven by a search to solve life's many problems along with the magical promise of some kind of blissed out Buddha-like perfection.  Although fantasies like the latter should be seen as such, the practical reality of shifting the mind to a relaxed, aware, open, non-conceptual view can be a very big deal.  Most people have no idea of how many burdens they are carrying around, and how much can be let go of.  And from where I sit, this seems completely possible, it is just a matter of getting the quality and quantity of training high enough.  In my own case, the shift from relatively uptight to relatively serene was a big deal, a game changer.  Your mileage may vary.

For many people, reading books and watching videos can be inspiring, so dig in, but just make sure that you are actually doing the practice.  If you want to get it done, it's not so much about some kind of conceptual understanding, it is about training the mind to be mindful and relaxed.

Dedication

Like many other things in life, getting it done tends to require a daily practice, very similar to something like playing a musical instrument.  Imagine learning to write extremely well with your other hand, for example.  That's going to take a lot of consistent, conscious practice, but it would be completely possible to do.  It's like that.  Establish a minimum daily practice routine, a time and a place, and stick to it.  I used to keep a notebook where every line was a date, how long I practiced, and a word or two that summarized the main experiences of that session.  If I missed a day, that meant I skipped a line, and I didn't like to see blank lines in the notebook.

All Day Awareness

A short (30 minute) daily practice, if extremely high quality, can do some amazing things.  But the effect can be greater if one's mindset is to be repeatedly aware of mindfulness throughout the day, rather than just an isolated block once a day.  Normally conditioned minds naturally fall out of mindfulness, but the idea is to become enough of a mindfulness enthusiast that you come up with creative ways of bringing yourself back to the present moment throughout the day.

Noting out loud in the car on the way to work, practicing in the shower, on breaks, washing dishes, etc.  Spending a minute here and there while watching TV with the full awareness that you are in fact in a room watching images on a screen, without getting lost in the narrative.  Coming up with certain events that trigger mindfulness, for example, maybe whenever you walk through a doorway.  Maybe use reminders (I did), like signs that says "aware, relaxed, open" taped to your computer monitor, in the bathroom, on top of the TV, above the kitchen sink, etc.  Set a timer to go off every hour or something.  Use an app that randomly prompts you during the day.  Invent ways to get it done.

Quality

It is really important to stress the importance of the quality of practice, quality being something like the percentage of time one is actually aware of being aware.  There is the practical sense that intention is important, and practice time is important, but it's really important to get the quality aspect down.  Practice makes permanent.  So what are you practicing?  What are you actually getting done in terms of this percentage-of-time-aware metric?  How many quality hours are you piling up?  The path to quality is sometimes going to be the more structured methods that require you to maintain this kind of awareness.  I recommend noting, breath counting, mantra, and combinations of those.  If those aren't your thing, maybe try to at least occasionally check in with a structured method to get a read on exactly how you're doing.  Feedback is extremely important in learning, and many people aren't aware of how often they are losing their mindfulness.

Continuity

The longer you can stay with this kind of meta-awareness we're referring to, the better.  Longer stretches of continuous mindfulness tend to be a marker of progress, so be aware of how you are doing on the continuity scale as well.

Tight But Loose

It needs to be emphasized that ultimately, with practice, with the structured styles, only a small amount, maybe about 5% of one's attention should be on the structure - the note, counting or mantra itself.  Most of the attention, eventually, should be on the actual object in awareness - the seeing, hearing, and feeling.  One has to adjust to circumstances, tailoring one's awareness to the relative ease or difficulty that presents itself.  When and if awareness is stable and continuous, one can let go of structure, while if one is spacing out left and right, this is a cue to reintroduce structured methods.  These structures are tools, and it's not about the tool, it's about the work you do with the tool, and that work is the mindfulness itself.

Attention at the Edge

One small key might be to notice some things around the "edge" of your experience.  At first a person may notice a kind of binary quality to meditative awareness.  Either they are aware and present, or oops, they are lost.  It may seem very black and white, but maybe try to start to notice the edges of that.  Notice when you are losing it, and maybe note "losing it".  Or maybe you notice "boredom", and that's a cue to reinvigorate your structured practice.  Or maybe you could notice the underlying desire to go think about that thing you've been wanting to think about, and note: "desire".  Being aware that the quality of your awareness has changed, that you have lost some clarity and are getting fuzzier or sleepier, this can be noticed and you can take appropriate measures.

In everyday life, I notice that the times that the mind tends to start to run off is when there is some kind of slowdown or break in the action.  While watching TV, you might have to pay attention to some verbal exposition to follow the plot, but then there is a break with a purely visual transition to set up something like a new location.  The mind immediately notices that there is more room to go off and think and off it goes.  You can notice this at times, that desire to "fill that space", the desire to think and the movement towards that.

The Dogmatic Approach

"It is not a matter of good or bad, convenient or inconvenient.  You just do it without question.  That way your mind is free."

-Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki

The dogmatic approach is to take a structured method and just dogmatically follow it.  Kind of silly in a way, this method is to literally follow the method, but it needs to be said.  Many people take a laid back, laissez-faire approach to meditation.  They're chilling out, relaxing, and, while that's fine in its own way, they may be spacing out left and right, very much like they do off the cushion.  The structured styles exist because there is a real need for them, because our minds have been conditioned to go off and think about those things, and to be very attached to that.  We're like addicts in that way.

A Hindu teacher once remarked on a practice seen in many Asian street markets where people buy cups of raw rice and other products.  The vendors have a practice where they continually and repetitively count out loud each cup during the process of scooping up the product, transferring it, putting it in a bag, so the counting would sound something like "one, one, one, one, two, two, two, two" etc.  It's a practical way of keeping the transaction honest, but it's borne out of the human tendency to space out.  It's necessary.  At some level it might look silly, but it needs to be done, it's the only way to be sure when you have small measuring cups and no scale.

So the dogmatic approach is like this.  It is based on the understanding, in a twelve step kind of way, that we are otherwise powerless against the tendency to space out.  And one remedy is to make this dogmatic agreement with yourself, that similar to the vendors, you will count every breath, or that you will note once per second, or whatever your technique requires.  So you agree to note 3600, yes 3600 times in one hour.  That you have no choice in the matter.  You've signed up for boot camp.  Just do it and stop complaining about it.  Stop imagining that there is some other choice or that you can just wing it without technique.

Someone who wants to be a professional jazz musician doesn't have some kind of choice about whether they practice scales or not.  And even for a die hard musician, some of that might be tedious from time to time.  But they do it because they want to get to the end goal, to play jazz.  A guitarist is not born with the ability to play through a scale with 64th note triplets with perfect alternate picking technique.  It takes a lot of "dogmatic" practice, and they don't get to just lazily pick a few notes and then space out for a minute.  They stay focused on the task for minutes at a time, continuously.  And over time it indeed changes them into a person who can play 64th note triplets with alternate picking technique.

So "you" give up, you surrender to this process.  That's kind of useful in itself, as part of the path.  Wax on, wax off.  The way that your mind has been living life for however many years you have been alive, you are going to abandon those habits and become a slave to these methods that are going to interrupt and interfere with those habits.  Again, useful in itself.  You are just going to sit and do this possibly insane sounding practice, and you probably won't like it at first (because the mind wants to do what it's always done), but that's it, you just do it.  No sneaking off for a few seconds here and there, no buts, no thinking "I'll just wing it", you just do the freaking practice.  The practice that forces you to stay continually aware of your awareness.

It is possible to do this.  If you wanted to, you could count 3600 little spoonfuls of something in a hour, at the rate of one per second.  It's entirely possible, and counting out loud is one way you would be able to do it without losing count.

But you have to agree to this, you have to be okay with this, you have to let go of your resistance.

And Yet Let Go

Although dogmatic practice is goal oriented in this way, it's equally important to emphasize the idea that you don't beat yourself up about the lapses that absolutely will occur.  If you slip, you slip, and you just smile at yourself and go right back into the practice.  Don't stress yourself out with it.  You'll need to get up to speed with a new practice, learn a bit, get adjusted to the process, it will take time.  Some people might even panic or worry a bit, but just keep it simple, relax, and just do it.

At first, it may be hard, but eventually it will become easier, as it becomes second nature.  Find a way to do it in a relaxed way, even if you're learning.  Find a way to be okay with it.  And as it becomes easier, you can focus more on that relaxation aspect.  When you've got the awareness of awareness going, within that you can relax.  Notice whatever physical, emotional, or mental tension there is.  Let it be there.  Don't fight it.  If you can let go of some of that, great.  If you can't let go of it, great, just let it be there.  Feel your resistance to that tension, let it be there.  If you can let go of some of that, great.  If you can't let go of it, great, just let it be there.  Repeat ad infinitum.

Lean into the Sensate

Our culture leads to a population of people that could be described as brains on popsicle sticks, relatively out of touch with our bodies and overly oriented towards thought.  We are out of balance in this way.  So another great pointer is to lean in the direction of the basic senses, seeing, hearing, and feeling.  All you have to do is continually and wordlessly check in with basic sensory stuff.  What am I seeing?  What am I hearing?  What am I feeling?  With no conceptual elaboration, no stories, no spin.  Just the sensate experience.  Your techniques should lead you to a continual nonverbal answering of those questions.  In a way it couldn't be easier: just what is here, right here, right now, seeing, hearing, feeling.  All we have to do is set up a bit of structure to keep us from running off into daydreams, and we can just sit and be and witness.

Examples of Structured Styles

• Noting
• Breath Counting
• Mantra
• Noting with breath counting
• Noting, timed with breath
• Breath counting with mantra

Support

Local meditation groups and teachers can be helpful, often giving people more motivation to practice well.  These are almost always going to be promoting a non-structured, mainstream style, but you can meditate any way you want.

There are a couple of online communities that are well oriented to the approach of actually getting it done.  A person who really wants to get it done might consider joining these communities and possibly keeping an online practice journal for feedback.

• Dharma Overground is the biggest, this is a typical "wild west" kind of internet forum
• Awake Network is a very small and protected community
• Reddit Streamentry group is relatively on point
• Many traditional Buddhist or other forums

For many people psychological work with therapists and groups, bodywork, yoga, etc. might fall into this category, and has the potential to reduce suffering.

Gadgets

Whatever gadget or technique that works for you, use it.

I'm not super into smart phones and their apps, but I understand that the

•  Insight Timer (some free)

is relatively popular meditation app, and there are many, many others such as:

• Waking Up (some free) - I have used this app and recommend the content.  It lightly introduces the basics while spending a lot of time pointing out some pretty advanced topics.
• Headspace (some free)
• Calm (pay)
• Buddhify (pay)
• 10% Happier (some free)
• Simple Habit (some free)
• Breethe: Sleep & Meditation (some free)

Also, not exactly pure meditation but the

• Unwinding Anxiety app (pay) comes highly recommended

When I was getting it done I often used a device (the Motivaider) that was essentially a modified beeper that vibrated every so often.  I had it set to the minimum, one minute.  I would hold it loosely (so I would notice it more easily) in my left hand, and I logged probably over 1000 hours with it.  They also have a mobile app.  And I'm sure there are many other apps that do this.

RESPeRATE is a device designed to help pace and slow down your breathing.  It is considered a medical device in that it has been demonstrated to lower blood pressure.  I used one several times at a biofeedback practitioner's office and it is extremely effective at inducing relaxation.  Cultivating slow, relaxed belly breathing is very worthwhile.

Gadgets might also encompass guided meditations, ambient music, supplements, whatever might help to keep you mindful and relaxed.

Walking meditation is another possible "trick".  The Theravada community spends maybe half their meditation time walking, and neurologically speaking, that kind of exercise helps with learning.  And we are trying to learn.

Non-Dual Teachings

Another approach, or supplement, would be to check out the people who are doing talks where they are pointing very directly at or from an enlightened perspective.  This would be the realm of Advaita/Non-duality/Dzogchen.  There are more of these teachers now than one could count, but a couple of the more famous would be Adyashanti and Eckhart Tolle, for whom there are innumerable Youtube videos, books, and recordings.  These can sometimes be helpful, teaching something about the direction to lean towards.

Traditional Buddhist dharma talks might also be helpful and motivating, there is a huge repository at dharmaseed, for example.

Head-Butting Your Worldview

Another supplemental approach would be to do a kind of intellectual inquiry, digging straight into the concepts and seriously confronting one's entrenched views about the world.  A good example would be the book Gateless Gatecrashers (pdf, also available in print).  They have a website, Liberation Unleashed, with forums where people work on this kind of stuff, and like the meditation forums above, you could start a personal thread to directly engage with people on your journey.

The classic Alan Watts "The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are"  might be an additional example.

Effort vs. No Effort

 

Many would place me in the "effort" camp of meditation.  There is some of that.  But I believe the dichotomy of effort vs. no-effort is solved, like most things, by understanding that both things are happening, both things are required.  One has to simultaneously remain mindful (effort?, at times) in order to notice the grasping and resistance that can be let go of (no-effort).  So I recommend some kind of structure in addition to a basic intent to be aware, and I recommend feeling your feelings and letting go of everything that can be let go of.  And letting go of the structure is fine.  Just be realistic about how mindful you actually are, and return to structure when you need to.

Feel Your Way Into It

Don't beat yourself up about this.  These structured techniques are just tools, use them, and relax while you're using them.  You're just doing the equivalent of counting cups of rice, it doesn't have to be stress inducing, far to the contrary, it can be relaxing.  Counting a cup of rice isn't hard, but it does mean you don't get to go off and think about that thing.  That's the job you signed up for.

Maybe I should end by making the point that this is ultimately or eventually something that you very much have to feel your way into.  Feel the sensations, feel the emotions, feel the grasping and resistance, feel the breath.  And relax, relax, relax wherever you can.  Counting the breath, for example, is not about the counting.  It's not about controlling the breath.  It's about using the counting as a tool so you can feel the breath continuously, until you are just watching it happen, until you are just being, effortlessly experiencing an animal that happens to be breathing.

Best of luck to you.

Next: Mahasi Noting Style

Table of Contents for How to Meditate
 

Why Use the Noting Style?

First off, use whatever works.  Whatever works to get you present and aware of what you are aware of, and keep you there a high percentage of the time.

The noting style comes from southeast Asian Theravada Buddhism, from a monk called Mahasi.  The style came out of a period of experimentation and regrowth in the Theravada communities due to various cultural factors.  It was an attempt to replicate what Buddha described in his talk about mindfulness.

The following is a bit technical, but here are some of the reasons that this style may be effective:

• Perhaps most importantly, the noting requires you to continuously prove one is aware, to provide evidence that you are aware, unlike most methods where one merely intends to be aware
• Regular noting at approximately one second intervals doesn't allow much time for mind wandering
• Coming up with the note uses up a certain amount of mental bandwidth that might otherwise be used to wander
• Practiced earnestly, it allows for a very high rate of continuous mindfulness or awareness of awareness, true for many structured styles
• Freely noting from any points in awareness, "dancing" from one object of awareness to another, trains mental flexibility and gives insight into impermanence
• Similarly, continually breaking up one's experience into parts, deconstructing the experience, "busting it up", gives insight into no-self
• Every note is telling you what experience, what attachment, to let go of
• The regular noting (around 3600 times per hour) provides a unique type of feedback, allowing the mind to see patterns it might miss otherwise, at times providing insight into dependent origination, the billiard ball like physics of our experience (for example: loud sound > fear > body tensions > fearful thoughts > realization > relief > relaxation)
• This style is perhaps exceptionally good for interrupting the conditioned prejudice towards, and attachment to, thought
• This style is recommended by Dr. Jud Brewer, who has tested out many types of mindfulness with subjects using fMRI, comparing the results to that of advanced meditators
• Ultimately, it is a complete by-the-numbers approach to learn how to pay attention to the present moment.  If you actually do it, you are being mindful.  If you are doing mainstream mindfulness practice where you merely intend to be mindful, it may be that much of the time you won't be mindful.

But again, whatever works.

Next:  Intro to Noting and Meditation

Table of Contents for How to Meditate