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Is meditation hard or easy?
Jeffrey
Veteran
in Meditation
Kind of a funny title, isn't it. The train of thoughts leading to me posting is thinking of my brother just starting meditating and worrying that he will surpass me as he already surpasses me in other status gaining things. But then I noted that in Buddhism any notion of status is relative truth and in reality in peace of just being there is a wholesomeness that is unperturbed by better or worse.
So I got onto the idea that maybe some people have an easier time at meditation? Even if that's true don't we all have our crosses to bear?
I have side effects of drugs that make it hard to feel my body at times. So that is a hindrance. But doesn't everybody experience a hindrance? What does it mean to analyze if older, in the dharma, sanghamates are further, closer, or apart from our meditation experience.
That's not even looking at the question of *should* we compare.... I am assuming we DO compare and just interested in where people go from that space.
So I got onto the idea that maybe some people have an easier time at meditation? Even if that's true don't we all have our crosses to bear?
I have side effects of drugs that make it hard to feel my body at times. So that is a hindrance. But doesn't everybody experience a hindrance? What does it mean to analyze if older, in the dharma, sanghamates are further, closer, or apart from our meditation experience.
That's not even looking at the question of *should* we compare.... I am assuming we DO compare and just interested in where people go from that space.
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Comments
I have not found Hard & easy to be useful terms to use in describing meditation but the obstacles that you overcome daily to practise are inspirational.
Meditation is noticing that it's hard to feel your body at times. It is not a hindrance, it's just the observation of phenomena.
Compare your meditation practise with others as much as you like but know this in itself has little to do with meditation.
In the midst of a fully engaged meditation practise, when a meditation student concerns them self with the subjective comparisons of others meditation, they've simply stopped meditating and have become caught up again in their own conditioned dream.
Just returning directly to the subject ( or subjectlessness ) of your meditation with minimal mentality about your meditation break is the usual answer.
No duality.
No 'connecting' No 'Not connecting'
All that is,is That.
Anything 'seperate' from That an illusion.
Contemplate Non Duality without posture
Contemplate Non Duality without ritual
Contemplate Non Duality in every action
'Enlightenment' comes without fanfare
Its already 'here'
All that is,is That.
Fire-Poker Zen
Hakuin used to tell his pupils about an old woman who had a teashop, praising her understanding of Zen. The pupils refused to believe what he told them and would go to the teashop to find out for themselves.
Whenever the woman saw them coming she could tell at once whether they had come for tea or to look into her grasp of Zen. In the former case, she would server them graciously. In the latter, she would beckon to the pupils to come behind her screen. The instant they obeyed, she would strike them with a fire-poker.
Nine out of ten of them could not escape her beating.
Kind of comical ^^^
Meditation is hard until it's easy. It depends on the mindstate you start with and your skill in settling it down. Coming to equilibrium from an extremely disturbed mindstate can be hard even for fairly skilled meditators. Once equilibrium is attained and attachments to things causing the disturbance have been dropped, it's easy.
This is not?
Into awareness, into the moment, into ease.
We enter formality with ease. Sit easily. Leave formality but stay in ease . . .
What is hard is entering and experiencing discursively. Then leaving awareness.
Maybe we are not really meditating? We are doing 'a sitting thing'.
Enter gently. Sit gently. Leave?
. . . gently does it . . .
'Buddhist meditation is easy', I was once told, 'either you do it or you don't'. Makes sense to me. But we will all start from different places and go at different speeds.
HHDL comments that the spiritual path is easy if we have no preferences.
The object of the exercise is after all to dismantle our identification with the person that thinks that things are hard or easy...Buddhadharma is a path of shedding not gaining.
Don't do it...
It's your life.
Take responsibility.
This is the same that some people are natural athletes, artists and musicians while others have to train much more. But in a way I have more respect for those who have it harder and still practice. That way you can also learn more. Once I heard a monk say, the best teachers are those who struggled the most.
Jealousy or comparing oneself to others is something to abandon on the path. If you can, it doesn't matter who is further or less far on the path. I sometimes do the Bodhisattva contemplation of intending to let all beings enter nirvana before me, of me helping them to nirvana. This helps with this. Perhaps try it also @Jeffrey.
but seriously, if it was easy, we will have
fewer problems in the world.
. . . trying to engage with a time it was hard for me . . . and believe me it was . . .
1. Find an easy form to gain the benefits . . . all my early forms were based on the body. Tai Chi, yoga, kata as 'moving meditation'.
2. Some Taoists just sit around in nature and stroke their chins
3. Trance induction - yes I know - as used in hypnosis CD's and DVD’s can teach your subconscious to relax . . . and more . . .
4. On SecondLife I used to visit a sitting group that practiced mindfullnes for seconds - less than a minute, we sat together and chatted and then every 15 minutes there was a pause . . .
5. The dervishes often engage in mindful crafts/livelihood - how many have done work duties on retreats? Mindful cleaning. Now you are polishing . . .
If hard, you need to find a form that eases you . . .
Be gentle with 'your'self, she has been on a long journey . .
Onward and Upward, Sideways and Inward (YinYana saying)
Here are a few I don't understand:
1) "Just returning directly to the subject ( or subjectlessness ) of your meditation with minimal mentality about your meditation break is the usual answer. "
The only thing I don't understand is "meditation break". What does that mean?
2) "Meditation is ultimately another distraction. What you are expecting is another 'experience'. All experiences lead to are more experiences. A blind ally.
No duality.
No 'connecting' No 'Not connecting'
All that is,is That.
Anything 'seperate' from That an illusion.
Contemplate Non Duality without posture
Contemplate Non Duality without ritual
Contemplate Non Duality in every action
'Enlightenment' comes without fanfare
Its already 'here'
All that is,is That. "
Could someone kindly do a "For Dummies" translation/analysis?
3) "Fire-Poker Zen
Hakuin used to tell his pupils about an old woman who had a teashop, praising her understanding of Zen. The pupils refused to believe what he told them and would go to the teashop to find out for themselves.
Whenever the woman saw them coming she could tell at once whether they had come for tea or to look into her grasp of Zen. In the former case, she would server them graciously. In the latter, she would beckon to the pupils to come behind her screen. The instant they obeyed, she would strike them with a fire-poker."
Nine out of ten of them could not escape her beating.
I don't understand this at all. What is the moral of the story?
4) "This is meditation?
This is not?
Into awareness, into the moment, into ease.
We enter formality with ease. Sit easily. Leave formality but stay in ease . . .
What is hard is entering and experiencing discursively. Then leaving awareness.
Maybe we are not really meditating? We are doing 'a sitting thing'.
Enter gently. Sit gently. Leave?
. . . gently does it . . . "
Sorry I don't understand this one at all either.
Should I go on quoting all that I don't understand? Or is there a one-size-fits-all fix for this confusion? I always looking to have a firmer grasp on how easy or hard meditation is and how it could be done more or less efficiently.
*By "going farther" i mean shedding more spiritual/psychological luggage, depending on what your beliefs are.
Spending time judging how one's meditation is going instead of just meditating was my example of taking a meditation break.
Instead of worrying about getting caught up with phenomena when you finally notice that's what has happened, just return immediately to meditating without getting caught up in self judgements.
Mindfulness of every aspect of every moment of every sensory observation from birth until death starts off easy, until you start to lose yourself and see past the illusions and get closer to the oneness, and then it just gets harder. The reality of the "not nothingness" is scary.
The firepoker zen is a koan so of course it is hard to understand. Koans are used to show something in our direct intuition of life. So they don't make literal sense always.
For me the lady brings out the fire poker when someone comes to question her dharma understanding. It's not really true someone would beat people with a firepoker that's why it is a koan. So the student who is making life simple just wants her tea. The buddhist who is obsessed with ideas rather than making it simple gets the fire poker. I imagine she debates them and tears them apart.
It's just a koan. I'm glad you asked all of your questions.
The second, if I may make so bold, is that it is our preferences, in the form of desires, worldy ambitions, likings and dislikings, acceptances and rejections, that get in the way of our progress and tie us down to the mundane world. With no preferences we have no reason to let our self-interested ego stand between us and progress. We would not even have a reason to cease practicing all day and night. So then the path becomes easy. We are not being led by the nose by our ego, and it is only our ego that makes the path difficult. Or something like that. It is always safe to assume that there is more to these things than can be said.