The Mind of a Meditation Beginner

The greatest meditation teachers advise that the best attitude to take toward meditation is an open mind, completely free from all preconceptions and expectations. The goal of meditation is not to accumulate knowledge, learn something new, or achieve some special state of mind, but simply to maintain this fresh, uncluttered perspective.

"If your mind is empty, it is always ready for anything; it is open to everything," Zen master Shunryu Suzuki writes in his book called Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. "In the beginner's mind, there are many possibilities; in the expert's mind, there are few." As the title of his book suggests, Suzuki teaches that beginner's mind and Zen mind - the awake, clear, unfettered mind of the enlightened Zen master - are essentially the same. Or, as another teacher puts it, "The seeker is the sought; the looker is what he or she is looking for!"

No matter which meditation technique you choose, try to practice it with the innocent, open, "don't know" spirit of beginner's mind. In a sense, beginner's mind is the non-attitude underlying all attitudes, the non-technique at the heart of all successful techniques.

Be Consistent with your Meditation Practise

Meditation, in some ways, can be compared to sport. If you train for a day and then do nothing for a week, you won't make a lot of progress. You may actually end up hurting yourself because you have not conditioned your body gradually, as most fitness experts recommend.

When you practice meditation, you are developing certain mental and emotional muscles like concentration, mindfulness (ongoing attention to whatever is arising, moment to moment), and receptive awareness. Here too, consistency is the key - you need to keep it up and keep it regular, no matter how you're feeling from day to day. In fact, your feelings provide the fodder for your meditation practice, as you expand your awareness from your breath to include the full range of your experience. There's no special way you need to be - just show up and be yourself!

As one old Chinese Zen master used to say, "Sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha" - by which he meant, happy or sad, energetic or tired, just sit as the being you happen to be.

Awareness of your Thoughts During Meditation

Are you aware of your thoughts during meditation? If you are a beginner of meditation, you may sometimes feel overcome with your thoughts when practicing. The important thing is not to become caught up in them. Do not be like a weak swimmer who gets swept away by a strong current. Stand mentally on the bank, and watch the current flow past you. Be calmly observant of the flow, but still mentally detached from it.

Imagine that the bank on which you stand is situated at the the back of your head. There in fact lies the seat of ego consciousness. From that position, watch your thoughts and feelings flowing by you. Realize, as you watch, that not only your thoughts but your very perception of what is important keeps passing.

Nothing in life, neither your inner thoughts nor your outer circumstances, is firmly fixed. If any thought, feeling, or circumstance seems permanent to you, it is only because it has become snagged, temporarily, on a protruding rock of attachment. In a spirit of freedom, allow the current to release it from the rock.

Create Your Own Meditation Mantra

You may find it helpful to create your own mantra to use while you are meditating. But how to you go about creating a mantra?

First start by singing or humming the vowels in any way that occurs to you, at any volume, speed, or pitch. Feel free to change the order after a while (u-e-a, for example). Change the pronunciation however you like, for each sound has a dozen or so different ways of being said. Your preferences are important and may change with the time of day, according to how tired or energetic you are, and according to whether the sound is external and audible or purely internal and audible only to the mind's ear.

Select two vowel sounds, a-u, e-o, or any combination you prefer in this instant. Say that sound over and over softly, in a kind of chant. Let the sound become quieter over the course of several minutes and simply enjoy the rhythm of the sound, the vibrations in your head and throat, the subtle movements of your tongue, and the flow of the breath. Your eyes can be open or closed, and you can go back and forth between open and closed. At some point in the next several minutes let the softly audible chant become an internal chant. Let this transition happen in its own time, gradually.

When the chant becomes internal, it may change in various ways. Sometimes it continues as before and you are simply listening to the sound mentally. The chant can fluctuate in volume, from being loud and distinct in your inner hearing to being soft and faint. Then it may fade away, leaving you there listening to the silence, or to the absence of sound. Welcome this nothingness, or blank space, or "forgetting," and train yourself not to panic or to think you have failed when your mind goes silent. At some point there will probably be little interludes, little quiet spaces between sounds in which you can feel your body vibrating.

As you listen inwardly to the sound or sounds in a restful way, you may notice relaxed feelings coming over you, alternating with thoughts about what time it is, what you have to do next, and any worries you have. Train yourself to welcome this process, then gently return to the vowels.

Use this simple exercise to cultivate your sense of preference for sound, and in particular to heighten your appreciation of how beautiful the vowels are. Give yourself the freedom to discover what you love about sound, both inner sound and thoughts, and the sounds we use in speech. You may discover that you love the space before speech when you are looking for an appropriate word or sound to express what you are feeling, or possibly the silence after speech, when you have said something. The essence of meditation is to discover, not impose.

Getting To Know Your Breath

Breathing is a classic focus for meditation, for several reasons. For one thing, breathing is sensuous, rhythmic, and always with us, as long as we are alive. Also, breath is a gift to us from the larger universe; it comes inside our body, into our lungs, into our blood, then into every cell. Breath is an intimate exchange with the entire cosmos in which we live and move and have our being.

In paying close attention to a breath, we perceive all this directly. Our breath is intrinsically full of grace. There are hundreds of ways to pay attention to breath. You can be aware of its rhythm, of how it expands and contracts, of how it weaves from outside of the body to being drawn inside. You can visualize the breath, being aware of the tip of your nose, the quiet sounds of your breathing, the soft feeling in your throat, the pause at the end of the inhalation, and so on. You can focus through your sense of touch, movement, hearing, smell, or vision. You can use breath to withdraw from the world or to engage with it. When you meditate with the breath, allow your eyes to be open or closed, and whatever happens spontaneously you will learn to rest in the presence of breath, and your eyes will tend to close by themselves, but do not force them shut.

If you take this gentle approach, even the simple act of closing the eyes can feel exquisite. Your thoughts will drift off and then return to your focus. This is natural. Just keep coming back to your chosen pleasure. Keep in mind that you can sit anywhere and in any position that you find comfortable. Over time you will develop more and more sensory awareness of what breath is. And as you do so, it will become more and more engaging. Eliminate the phrase "trying to concentrate on my breath" from your vocabulary, and replace it with "I am developing an interest in breath." Use your senses to welcome each inhalation. As you become more aware of your breath, extraordinary realms of sensation begin to open up.