Meditation is for Masochists

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Last night I attended a free talk by some healer-person shilling for her new book.  She presented herself as having developed this “revolutionary” new healing method, and after droning uncomfortably on about it for an hour (note to public speakers:  connecting with your audience is actually important! please take note!), she opened up the floor for questions.

Q:  O guru healer-person in whom I am blindly and unthinkingly placing all my trust and faith, how can we mere ignorant mortals apply this revolutionary new amazing healing method in our own lives please oh please?

A:  That’s going to be in my second book.*

Q:  Oh, but healer-guru, we are here now and you talked about empowering ourselves, and we really really want to know what we can do to apply this revolutionary new amazing healing method in our own lives please oh please?

A:  Chapter 8 in my book [glancing over at the table stacked ceiling-high with copies of said book] has some exercises that I stole from Osho.  You can do those.  Basically, shake and scream for awhile and then you can go to a place of inner stillness.

Q:  WTF?

Q:  Okay, guru-person, we are getting restless now.  You made a promise.  You were going to tell us how to heal ourselves.  How, o how, can we do that?

A:  Meditate.

Q:  That’s it?   Meditate?

A:  Yup.

[This is where they stormed the stage and bore the guru-person off on a rail while they shouted something about stabbing her in the chakras.  It got sort of ugly.]

Meditation. It’s billed as a panacea, something that will cure every ill and imbalance.  You.Must.Meditate.

But … what is meditation, exactly?

Most people view meditation as a sort of struggle.  Calming the monkey mind.  Cultivating stillness, inside and out, so as to eradicate every thought.  KILL THE THOUGHTS!!  BANISH THOUGHTS FROM YOUR MIND!  MAKE YOUR MIND EMPTY!!

Fuck that.  That’s almost impossible.  And trying to do it sets you up for all sorts of judgments (I am having thoughts!  I FAIL meditation!  I am a baaaaad person!), resentments (FUCK meditation!), and disconnects you from what you’re trying to accomplish, which is self-awareness.

Let me say that again:  meditation is simply a way to gain self-awareness.  It’s not supposed to be anything other than that.

By observing yourself without judgment, you learn about the patterns of response and reaction that habitually come up for you.

So what is meditation?  Observation.  Nothing more, and nothing less.  It’s a keen observation of yourself on every level—physical, emotional, and intellectual—and completely without judgment.

And it can be done anywhere, under any condition.  There are no “rules” to meditation.  You don’t need to sit on a special bench or cushion.  You don’t need incense.  You don’t need a fucking temple bell to tell you when to start and stop.  You can do those things if it helps, but there are no requirements.  None.  You can meditate at any time and in any place and in any manner by which you are willing to objectively observe yourself.

Now we’ll open the floor up for questions.

Q:  Sex?  During sex?

A:  Whoa, slow down there!  Well, yes.  ONLY if you can do it so that you can objectively observe yourself while you are otherwise, uh, engaged.  But dude.  If the idea excites you so much that it’s your first question out of the starting gate, there’s probably something in the experience for you.  So go for it.  I’m not sure I’d want to be your partner, but whatever.

Q:  What about breathing?  I heard that meditation is about breathing.

A:  Of course.  Breathing is important.  (Forget to breathe for long enough and you’ll be dead, which makes the whole meditation thing kind of pointless.  Way to get out of meditating!)  The way you breathe not only says a lot about you but it also affects how you move energy through your body.  And since the ultimate way of experiencing anything is through the physicality that is your body, your experiences are going to be affected by your breath.  So when meditating, one of the things you will be observing is, naturally, your breath.

Q:  But … HOW should I meditate?  Can I read about it?  Tell me all the answers, guru-person!

A:  Number one, I’m not your guru, so stop it.  I’m your bitch.  Number two, yes, you can read all about meditation all over the place, but DON’T GET CAUGHT UP IN THE FUCKING RULES.  Reading about something like meditation naturally opens you up for asking stupid questions like, “Am I doing this right?”

• Meditation shouldn’t hurt.

If you’re not comfortable, don’t do it.  Stop and get comfortable.  Try to get comfortable enough that you can move beyond thinking about how comfortable you are, but there’s no reason to try to get past the pain or to breathe into the pain because hello, the pain shouldn’t be there.

• Give yourself time.

Think about meditation as a gift you are giving yourself.  It’s the one time when you can access some inner stillness.  But be patient; the stillness doesn’t happen overnight, and it can take time to get to that point especially if you continue to fight with yourself.  But just having a quiet half-hour to yourself can be an enormous gift.  Allowing yourself the freedom to let that time develop as it will, not caring if, for instance, you use it to plan the next day’s menu or to write an important email in your head, is part of that gift.  Judging yourself for failing that day’s meditation just lets you feel shitty about yourself in yet one more way.  Who needs that?

• Meditation will change your life.

Seriously.  If you let it, anyway.  Stuff will come up, so be prepared.  No one said this was going to be easy.  Stuff will come up, and you’ll look at it.  The end.  No need for judgments.  And if you start judging yourself for moving back into old patterns and crappy-feeling emotions, oh well.  Clear the slate and start over next day.

But if you make it a regular part of your life, you’ll see change.  (Hell, you’ll change even without meditating, but that’s up for discussion another day.)  You’ll get to know yourself.  You’ll move on down your spiritual path, whatever that is and wherever that takes you.  It’s totally fucking work but it’s totally fucking worth it.  So do it.

And?  The Bitch meditates daily.  And we all know you want to be more like the Bitch.

*No lie.  WTF??  After all this build-up about “personal empowerment” and “revolutionary healing method that’s going to heal the earth and change the world” you’re saying you havent even yet GOTTEN TO THAT PART?  You suck.

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