Which Type of Meditation Practice Floats Your Boat?

Transcript

[Music] welcome everyone dr. Manoj Jane and I are talking more about meditation and we are discussing our model of meditation in which we have come to categorize different modalities of the practice of meditation into three types we've already discussed the idea of focused attention or concentration meditation where you take an anchor and try to train your fought in your attention on one single thing now we're beginning to look at what we call open monitoring meditation or surveying meditation where rather than focus on a single thing what we're trying to do is to expand our consciousness to allow our minds to be open and be aware of whatever experiences might arise okay so one of the things that arises when you try to do that our thoughts and sensations so I'm sure many folks who have been listening to us and try these meditations have found that it's very difficult to be aware of a thought and not get attached to it not absorb that thought and began to dwell on it so how is it that one observe the thought without being attached to it sure so the first step is to be able to observe the pot and many people aren't able to do that many people aren't able to sort of look inside their mind and see the thoughts coming and going and once we begin to do that then we become a patch to the thoughts we take one thought and it links to another thought it links to the other side this is how I think about it you find label or thought oh right now I'm thinking about a patient at the hospital and I acknowledge it what happens is the thought is acknowledged and often like a misbehaved child it doesn't bother me anymore if have acknowledged the misbehaving child and that allows me to then see other thoughts that might be coming and going I've often talked about the analogy of sitting at a riverbank watching boats pass side which I like thoughts which are passing by and so it's really important to be able to observe your mind with thoughts coming and going but not being attached not evaluating them not judging them because once you begin that process then you begin the process of thinking which is away from the process of just sheer awareness yeah one of the ways i like to think about this experience that you're discussing is to think of myself becoming an observer of my own mind so I'm a witness like you say of an individual sitting on a riverbank watching sailboats passed by so I watch my mind i become the observer of my mind rather than being absorbed in the thinking process what are the problems I think that we get into as human beings is that not only do we think a lot we're not aware that we're thinking we get so absorbed in our thoughts that we begin to dwell there what we're talking about is sort of taking a step back and watching our thoughts as they arise and one of the things that I've learned and just simply watching my mind work is that thoughts don't last long they like everything else are really quite transitory and the only thing that keeps thoughts arising is when I provided with certain kinds of energies sure and one of the exercises that we do in our class is we tell your thoughts just like you would tally the number of runners who are passing by or you may tally the number of cars which are parked in the parking lot I can tell you my thoughts and those are ways through simple exercises we can become aware of our mind and our thoughts that are coming in and out of before we move on to talk about the third category of our model which is self transcendence I want to make sure that we're clear about the idea that we're not talking about a progression of modes of meditation so that focused attention is not like the foundational component and then you move to open monitoring then you move to sell trance and if there's no hierarchy involved here but how would you describe the relationship between the different categories sure I'll i look at focused attention as a beam of laser light it is focused on one and only one activity a word or an image open monitoring it more like the Rays of the Sun you're able to see the vastness of the mind the thoughts which are coming in and out now focused attention doesn't begin the meditation process and it doesn't and it doesn't have to progress into an open monitoring process they themselves are very useful activities and modes of meditation however focused attention tends to be easier for many folks and they begin with focusing on the breath and then people go into practicing open monitoring or self transcendence meditation but one doesn't have to be a process to lead to the other but I can also say that it is possible to choose which form of meditation you would practice in a particular instance are there certain situations in which it would be preferable to practice focused attention as compared to sales and monitoring yeah well at certain times when I am at a chance to reflect I tend to use an open monitoring so I say I have time to sort of reflect and and take some time I use that at other times when it might be a moment when something has happened and I am NOT able to control my surroundings I just take three deep breaths and continue a focused attention on the breath as a way of doing my meditation oh there are other times i like to use self transcendence especially for and when I'm with a group of people with a spiritual practice I find that to be very useful at that time well we'll come back to spiritual practices and to self transcendence momentarily but I wanted to wrap up this particular conversation simply by saying that in both open monitoring and in folks detention we're talking about attention yeah both modalities involve awareness and so it's important that we keep that in mind because that's what meditation and mindfulness is all about there are different kinds of attention one is as you say like a laser beam focused on a particular thing and the others may be broader more like sunlight but as a whole metaphor of life seems to suggest it's all about seeing things and seen clearly yeah so when we come back we'll be talking about self transcendence [Music] you [Music]