Get Some Headspace: 10 minutes can make all the difference (6 page)

He began by asking me to imagine I was sitting on the side of a very busy road, with a blindfold around my head. ‘Now,’ he said, ‘maybe you can hear the background noise, the cars whizzing by, but you can’t see them because you have your eyes covered, right?’ I imagined myself sitting on the grass verge of a motorway (the M4 as it happens) and nodded in agreement. ‘So,’ he went on, ‘before you start to meditate it can feel a bit like this. Because of all the background noise in the mind, all the thoughts, it means that even when you sit down to relax or go to bed at night, it still feels as though this noise continues, yes?’ It was hard to argue with this, because it did indeed feel as though there was always a certain amount of background noise or restlessness in my mind, even when I was not consciously aware of the individual thoughts.

‘Now, imagine taking the blindfold off,’ he continued, ‘For the first time you see the road, your mind, clearly. You see the cars racing by, the different colours, shapes and sizes. Maybe sometimes you are attracted by the sound of the cars, at other times more interested in their appearance. But this is what it’s like when you first take off the blindfold.’ He started laughing to himself. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘sometimes it’s at this point that people learning meditation say some very funny things. They start to blame their thoughts and feelings on the meditation. Can you believe it?’ he asked mockingly. ‘They come and see me and say “I don’t know what’s happening, where all these thoughts are coming from. I never usually think this much, it must be the meditation making me think all the time”, as if the meditation is somehow making their situation worse.’ His laughter trailed off as he picked up the thread of his explanation.

‘So, the first thing to get straight is that meditation does not make you think! All it does is shine a big bright light on your mind so that you can see it more clearly. This bright light is awareness. You may not like what you see when you switch the light on, but it’s a clear and accurate reflection of how your mind behaves on a daily basis.’ I sat there and considered his words. He was definitely right about one thing – I’d been blaming meditation for the state of my mind ever since I started. I couldn’t believe that my mind was really like that all the time. Or at least I didn’t want to believe it was. I wondered if perhaps I was beyond help altogether, that no amount of meditation was going to help. It turns out that this is a surprisingly common feeling though, so be reassured if you feel this way too.

My teacher seemed to sense where I was going and interrupted my thoughts. ‘This is how the mind looks to begin with,’ he said softly, ‘not just your mind, but everybody’s. That’s why training the mind is so important. When you see the mind in this confused state it’s very difficult to know what to do about it. For some people it’s difficult not to panic. Sometimes people try to stop the thoughts through force. At other times they try and ignore them, to think about something else instead. Or if the thoughts are very interesting, then they might try to encourage them and get involved in them. But all these tactics are just ways of trying to avoid the reality of what is. If you think back to the busy road, it’s no different from getting up from the side of the road, running among the cars and trying to control the traffic.’ He paused for a moment. ‘This is quite a risky strategy,’ he said, laughing again.

Sound familiar? Once again, he was right. That’s exactly what I’d been doing and not just in my meditation. It summed up my life in general. I’d been trying to control everything. Seeing the chaos of my mind when I sat to meditate had simply triggered the habitual tendency to jump in and take charge, to sort everything out. When that hadn’t worked, I’d just ramped up the effort. But then that’s what we’re taught when we’re young, isn’t it? ‘Must try harder.’ So I’d just kept trying harder. But it turns out no amount of force will result in a feeling of calm.

My teacher continued by making a suggestion. ‘Here’s an idea – rather than running around in the traffic trying to control everything, why not try staying where you are for a moment? What happens then? What happens when you stay on the side of the road and just watch as the traffic goes past? Maybe it’s rush hour and the road’s full of cars, or maybe it’s the middle of the night and there are very few cars at all. It doesn’t really matter which it is. The point is to get used to “holding your seat” on the side of the road and watching the traffic go by.’ I found the idea of just watching the thoughts go by quite easy to imagine and for once I was actually in a hurry to get back to my meditation cushion.

‘When you start to approach your meditation in this way you’ll notice that your perspective changes,’ he said. ‘In stepping back from the thoughts and feelings, there will be a sense of increased space. It might feel as if you are simply an observer, watching the thoughts, the traffic, go by. Sometimes you might forget,’ he said, smiling knowingly, ‘and before you know it you’ll find yourself running down the road after a fancy-looking car. This is what happens when you experience a pleasant thought. You see it, get caught up in it, and end up chasing after the thought.’ He was now laughing loudly as he imagined me chasing the cars. ‘But then all of a sudden, you’ll realise what you’re doing and,
in that moment
, you’ll have the opportunity to return to your seat at the side of the road. At other times, you might see some traffic coming that you don’t like the look of. Maybe it’s an old rusty car, an unpleasant thought, and you’ll no doubt rush out into the traffic to try and stop it. You might try to resist this feeling or thought for quite some time before you realise that you’re back in the road again. But the moment you do,
in that moment
, you have the opportunity to take up your position on the side of the road again.’ He continued, now speaking more deliberately. ‘Over time, this will get easier. You won’t want to run out into the road quite so often and you’ll find it easier and easier to just sit and watch the thoughts go by.
This
is the process of meditation.’

It’s worth taking some time to reflect on this analogy and as I sat there I considered what he’d said. It all made so much sense, at least theoretically. But there were a couple of points that didn’t feel right. If I was just sitting there as an observer to the thoughts, then who was doing the thinking? Surely I can’t be doing both at the same time? ‘Your thoughts are autonomous,’ he explained. ‘Of course, if you want to think about something you can, you have that ability to reflect, to remember, or to project into the future and imagine how things might be. But what about the thoughts that just “pop” into your mind when you sit to meditate, or when you’re walking down the street, or sitting at your desk trying to read a book? What about those thoughts? You didn’t bring those thoughts to mind, did you? They
came
to mind. One minute you’re reading a book and the next the thought of an old friend “pops” into your mind. You haven’t thought of this friend for a long time and you made no conscious effort to
bring
him to mind and yet, all of a sudden, there he is!’ This was definitely something I’d experienced a lot. I don’t know if it’s something that ever happens to you, but I’d often start reading a page of a book, only to reach the end and realise that not a word had gone in. Inevitably, somewhere along the way a thought had popped up and I’d become distracted, often without even being aware of it.

‘So,’ he continued, ‘these thoughts that we try so hard to suppress, to get away from or to stop altogether, are pretty much just popping up whenever they feel like it, right? We like to think we control our minds, control the flow of thought, but if it was possible to do that then you wouldn’t have travelled halfway around the world for my advice.’ He pointed at me, playfully, laughing. ‘In fact, if it were possible to control your thoughts then you’d never have any reason to get stressed at all. You’d simply block out all the unpleasant thoughts and live peacefully with all your happy thoughts.’ I couldn’t believe how obvious it sounded when he explained it like that. It was almost as if I already knew it at some level, but had somehow forgotten to apply the idea to my life. ‘But what about productive thoughts?’ I asked. ‘What about creative thoughts, ones that are necessary to solve problems?’

‘I’m not saying that all thinking is bad,’ he said. ‘We need the ability to think in order to live. It’s the nature of mind to think. In the same way that the road was built for cars to journey on, so the mind exists to experience thoughts and feelings. So don’t make the mistake of thinking that all thoughts are bad. They’re not – we just need to know how to relate to them. What you need to ask yourself,’ he continued, ‘is how much of your thinking is helpful, productive, and how much is unhelpful or unproductive. Only
you
know the answer to that. I’m assuming that because you’ve come all this way to see me, your thinking causes you problems at times, that maybe some of it is not so helpful?’ There was no arguing with that. A great many of my thoughts fell into the ‘unhelpful and unproductive’ category. ‘If you’re worried about losing these creative thoughts,’ he gestured somewhat dismissively, ‘then where do you think they come from in the first place? Do those moments of inspiration come from cold, rational thinking, or do they arise from the stillness and the spaciousness of the mind? When the mind is always busy there’s no room for these thoughts to arise, so by training your mind you’ll actually make
more
space for these creative thoughts to arise. The point is, don’t be a slave to your mind. If you want to direct your mind and use it well, then good. But what use is the mind if it’s all over the place, with no sense of direction or stability?’