We Already Meditate Every Day
Today I will explain how Buddhist meditation is actually done. First, there is one misunderstanding we need to clear away: the idea that Buddhist meditation is difficult. In Part 1, when I outlined Buddhist meditation, I said that it is practiced through absorption. Absorption itself is Buddhist meditation. The state of being absorbed is meditative concentration, and that is samadhi, the state of entering a deep meditative absorption. The mind becomes clear like a perfectly still mirror of water. Yet the way into that state is not some special spell or ascetic ordeal. It is absorption.
Absorption itself is Buddhist meditation. The absorbed state is meditative concentration; it is samadhi, the state of entering a deep meditative absorption.
Is absorption, then, something only exceptional people experience? Not at all. Anyone can become engrossed for a while while reading a web novel on a phone, become absorbed in a movie, or lose all sense of everything else while watching an entertaining drama or reading a martial-arts novel. While playing a game such as League of Legends or World of Warcraft, we become fixed on and absorbed in that object as well. Many people simply do not realize that they are meditating. They already spend a considerable part of every day in a state of absorption much like meditation.
The same applies whether you play Go or basketball, play tennis or table tennis, or play soccer or baseball. You can concentrate briefly on work, play, or swimming, and even a five- or six-year-old child becomes deeply absorbed while building something with blocks. Human beings are creatures of absorption. To accomplish something properly, we become absorbed in it, and while absorbed we do not think of something else. In a moment of complete immersion in one thing, we cannot simultaneously fall into stray thoughts and suffering. Buddhist meditation is therefore not difficult at all. Before any technique, what we need is a change in perception.
Why Call the Same Absorption “Meditation”?
Why, then, am I saying something everyone already knows? It is because the same action feels entirely different according to how we understand it. The purpose of Buddhist meditation is to step away for a while from inverted fantasies and false dreams, affliction and suffering, mistaken concepts and delusions, idle and distracting thoughts, anxiety and fear, anger and misunderstanding. While absorbed in something, we step out of all that and rest.
People today have too much to think about and do in daily life, and they live under many kinds of stress. We meditate to rest briefly from that complexity. The object of meditation can even be something we have always enjoyed doing. The point is to become more completely absorbed in it and to recognize clearly that this moment is a time of rest. Playing a game, drinking a cup of tea, and exercising can all be ways of resting. They should not automatically be dismissed as escapes from reality. Once I understand that I am resting free of affliction, an ordinary activity can become a doorway into Buddhist meditation.
Body and Environment: Do Not Be Fooled by the Show of Asceticism
To meditate in earnest, we need to consider three things: the posture of the body, the posture of the mind, and the environment. Here too, we first need to remove a misunderstanding. When people hear about meditative concentration or the practices of Buddhist monks, they recall stories of someone practicing for ten years without ever lying down, or of Bodhidharma facing a wall for ten years. They assume that enduring for a long time and tormenting the body must make a practice profound.
Not long ago, a monk in the Jogye Order named Jaseung staged what was called the Sangwol Seonwon retreat. In the middle of winter, they pitched a tent, went unwashed, grew out their hair, slept less, ate less, and presented their endurance of the cold as an extreme test and as Buddhist practice. When people see scenes like this, many mistakenly conclude that Buddhist meditation must be extremely difficult and harsh.
Buddhist practice, however, does not go beyond stopping and observing, these two. Stopping means gathering the mind on one thing and becoming concentrated and absorbed, thereby stopping idle thoughts, afflictions, concepts, and judgments. Observing is the practice of observation. Every practice is ultimately one of these two or a variation of them, and nowhere in either is there ascetic self-torment.
What happens if a person trying to become absorbed stands on hot gravel or over a fire? The mind does not gather on the object. The person cries, “Ow, that is hot!” In a freezing place, the person is simply cold. Deliberately creating conditions that obstruct absorption and then enduring them cannot be called the practice of meditative concentration.
What Jaseung staged in a tent in the middle of winter was not practice but a show: the show of a person who did not even know what practice was, pretending to undertake a sacred practice.
To study well, one needs enough sleep and must become fully absorbed while comfortable. What matters is not how many hours one sat at a desk, but how much time one actually spent absorbed in study. Meditation is the same. Even ten years facing a wall is not meditative concentration if you never once become absorbed. Why refuse to lie down and wreck your back in the name of always sitting? If you mean to concentrate on breathing, what difference does it make whether you are sitting or lying down?
Put the body in its most comfortable posture. You can sit on a sofa or lie on a bed. While out walking, you can sit in a pavilion and concentrate briefly on the breath. Choose a posture suited to the object in which you intend to become absorbed, a posture that is not painful. The same goes for the environment. Arrange an environment in which you can become absorbed. Do not deliberately create conditions that interfere with absorption. That is foolish.
The Posture of Mind: Emptiness Free of Past and Future
The best posture of mind for entering meditation is a mind at rest, what is commonly called an empty mind. Suppose you are lying in bed at night. You may replay what happened during the day, torment yourself over it, kick the covers in embarrassment, become angry, or feel wronged. But the event has already passed. At the moment you are lying in bed, you cannot have any effect on what happened in the past.
You may worry that your boss will tear into you tomorrow, or think about an exam or something you must do. Conversely, you may look forward to something good happening tomorrow. But all of that belongs to tomorrow, which has not yet arrived. No matter how much you worry or anticipate it now, you cannot act on it at this moment. You cannot repair what has passed, and you cannot handle a future event before it has arrived. Right now, it is simply time to sleep.
You cannot do tomorrow’s work now, however much you try, and you cannot repair the past, however much you try. Right now, you simply sleep.
With this empty mind, become absorbed in what you are doing at this very moment. The object can be Go, study, billiards, breathing, walking, or anything else. Clinging to and worrying about the past or future does no good. Besides everything unrelated to the present act, you also need to release thoughts such as “I must accomplish this,” “I absolutely have to win,” “I must attain awakening through meditation,” or “I want to have a mystical experience.”
When you begin studying, the wish to study well can motivate you. You may begin playing billiards because it is fun, then want to play better and win. At the actual moment of becoming absorbed in study or billiards, however, thoughts of the goal must disappear. If you are caught by the need to win, billiards ceases to be enjoyable and you cannot concentrate on the game itself. It is the same with games, music, and sports. To live in the present by becoming completely absorbed in the act now under way, you must empty the mind of its irrelevant demands.
The purpose of meditation is to rest, that is, to step free of affliction. Yet the mind that enters meditation most easily is likewise a mind already free of desire and worry, an empty mind. This may sound slightly paradoxical, but it is so. Once you become absorbed or experience samatha and recognize, “So this is what I was thinking,” “This is why I was suffering,” or “Why was I clinging to something so absurd?” the mind becomes peaceful.
When the mind is peaceful, concentration becomes easier again. When concentration removes distracting thoughts, the mind becomes still more peaceful. As it settles, uncomfortable states of mind and body that went unnoticed become easier to see and recognize. Stopping and observing therefore resemble two wheels that drive one another. They begin turning slowly, but ease supports concentration, and concentration clarifies observation, so the two increasingly turn together.
Three Reasons I Recommend Breath Meditation
There are many possible objects of meditation, but among them I recommend breathing. I have three reasons.
- Breathing continues without additional effort or expenditure of energy. Playing Go, drinking tea, exercising, gaming, reading, watching a film, dancing, drawing, or riding a bicycle consumes extra mental or physical energy. We breathe anyway for as long as we live, so observing the breath requires no new expenditure of energy in order to produce it.
- Almost anyone can breathe. Some people do not know how to play Go, lack the physical conditions needed for exercise, or do not have the necessary tools and environment. The breath, however, is an object given with substantial equality to nearly every living person.
- The breath can be observed anytime and anywhere. You can do it on a bus while traveling to an appointment, or while sitting in a pavilion during a walk. Immediately after fighting with your girlfriend and bursting into anger, at the very moment you wonder, “Am I thinking about this wrongly?” you can enter breath meditation.
The breath requires no equipment, special place, or long preparation. It is therefore the closest object to which we can return and stop at the very moment affliction begins to drag us away.
Breath Meditation Means Watching the Breath Without Losing It
Ordinarily, we breathe without recognizing that we are breathing. In breath meditation, we recognize that fact. The key is not to force the breath into existence, but to watch without losing the breath that is already happening. Other acts must be deliberately performed by thinking or moving the body, but breathing continues whether I try to do it or try not to do it. The person merely forgets the breath itself in the moment it is no longer consciously noticed.
Do not try to control the breath. Observe the breath entering and leaving by itself. Watch the fact that I am not manufacturing it, that breathing is happening, and that the out-breath and in-breath follow one another. It is not easy at first, so you may intentionally breathe audibly. Notice, “I am breathing out,” and “I am breathing in,” and quietly watch the breath.
Watch the In-Breath and Out-Breath Themselves, Not the Nose Tip or Abdomen
Some people tell you to observe the feeling of air brushing the tip of the nose or the abdomen rising and falling with the breath. That is not what I mean. I am saying to observe the fact itself that breathing is happening, that the breath is leaving, and that it is entering.
While breathing out, keep watching the out-breath. Then, without any command from me, the out-breath changes into an in-breath. The transition is extremely brief. If your attention moves elsewhere for a moment, you miss it. Keep watching, “Breathing out, breathing out,” until you recognize, “Ah, now I am breathing in,” without losing the moment of change. Watch the transition from the in-breath back to the out-breath in the same way.
At first, you may practice by making a sound or breathing through the mouth. Once accustomed to it, you can breathe naturally through the nose alone and without sound. When you simply observe, you use little additional physical or mental energy, and the breath may grow somewhat longer than in ordinary activity. You are not manipulating it to make it long. It lengthens naturally while being observed.
Do not miss the brief moment when the out-breath becomes the in-breath and the in-breath becomes the out-breath. Concentrate on the act of observing the breath itself.
As you keep following the flow and transitions of the breath, concentration attaches itself to the observation. Attention becomes firmly bound to the breath, and that is absorption. The method is very simple. It is neither difficult nor a mysterious procedure.
A Stray Thought Means You Lost the Absorption
You may ask, “What should I do if a stray thought appears while I am doing this?” If a thought appears and you follow it, you have lost the breathing. That is all. While watching the out-breath, the in-breath, and the moment between them without losing any of it, you cannot engage in another thought. A human being cannot be absorbed in one thing and simultaneously become absorbed in something else.
A person deeply engrossed in a game cannot simultaneously think about unrelated household chores. While absorbed in reading the possible moves on a Go board, one does not think about some irrelevant event in the past. Energy goes only toward what is related to the object of absorption. The same principle explains why another thought cannot be pursued while the breath is being observed completely.
That is why I criticize instructions such as, “When thoughts arise during meditation, just let them arise and pass,” as the words of someone who does not understand meditation. There is no need to turn the appearance of another thought into some special event. Simply recognize, “I briefly lost the observation and absorption,” and return to the breath.
You may choose the duration as you please. Five, ten, or twenty minutes makes no difference. The criterion is not how long you remained seated. The only question is whether, even for a brief moment, you can remain absorbed without losing the breath. That is all.
This article was edited by AI solely from the supplied video captions and description. No external sources were used.