Wednesday, August 27, 2008

New take on meditation


The great take-away from my stint at Insight Meditation Society this summer was a new theory of meditation practice. It’s been a pleasant transition to adopt this easier manner of sitting and observing. I’m a lazy soul and this works for me.

Christina Feldman, one of the three teachers at this course, said that in recent years her style of teaching meditation had evolved. Lately she has encouraged students to create “spaciousness” around their thoughts. Many of her instructions to students were along the lines of "just take it easy" and see what happens when creating space in the mind. The goal shouldn’t be to empty the mind, but to create space around thoughts and thinking. Worrying and obsessing can thus be detached from the objects /subjects of concern.

I came home to find an article in the latest issue of Shambhala Sun on the same topic. Pema Chodron describes this new style of spaciousness as an effective technique for becoming untangled from the minutiae of daily life. She calls these moments of enlightenment “gaps.”

“If you take some time to formally practice meditation, perhaps early in the morning, there is a lot of silence and space. Meditation practice itself is a way to create gaps. Every time you realize you are thinking and you let your thoughts go, you are creating a gap. Every time you realize you are thinking and you let your thoughts go, you are creating a gap. Every time the breath goes out, you are creating a gap.”

She goes on to describe a “pause” practice that can be incorporated into daily routine. Hard to do but worth trying out on the occasional crazy work day. And I’m just kidding about being lazy; it actually takes some discipline to achieve these “gaps” of insight in day-to-day life and the training at IMS was invaluable.

Small excerpt here, and worth checking out in the latest issue on stands now.