Stop, Relax, Wake Up

by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche

MEDITATION PRACTICE IS A PERIOD of self-reflection that offers an opportunity for us to feel. To feel is to be present, which allows for depth and insight to occur. By learning to feel, we can contact the inherent openness of our being — known as buddhanature or, in the Shambhala teachings, basic goodness. This universal nature is characterised by kindness and compassion. A successful meditation practice is one in which we intimately connect with this naturally occurring love in our hearts, and then embody it in our lives.

The ancient meditators realised that people needed a period of seeming inactivity to make any substantial growth or change. Generally speaking, it is very hard to change when we are on the go. When we are engaged in daily life, we may have the thoughts,“I wish I were kind, I wish I had not done it this way,” but it is very hard to change our habits. We need time to reflect on who we are, and how our mind feels underneath all the thoughts and emotions. From the physiological perspective, we have sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. When we are on the go — running, talking, working — the mind is engaged in a sympathetic nervous system process associated with “fight or flight.” The parasympathetic system, like the heart pumping blood, is less visible, is associated with “rest and digest.” If we don’t balance these processes by giving ourselves time out to deepen and rest, we become wired, edgy, and emotionally sensitive. Crossing our legs and sitting on a cushion is a good start, but meditation is not a process of osmosis; it’s one we need to engage with. It comes down to this simple point: if we do not respect what we are doing during the period of meditation, nobody will. Understanding what we are doing is called “the view,” and it is very important. It helps us build inspiration and feeling. If we don’t feel inspired to be present for our life, we will not continue meditating, and if we do not know how being present feels, we will not be able to rest with that feeling and help it grow. So it is important to know why we are sitting here, looking as if we’re doing nothing.

In the meditative tradition, we regard every feeling and perception as an opportunity to tune into the present moment. The reason we meditate is that most of the time we are too caught up in thoughts to feel where we are, and be there. To feel, we need to relax. By taking an upright sitting posture, we enable the body to relax and the mind to be awake. This is the first step in building a strong meditation practice. Then we use the breath to train in mindfulness of feeling. Releasing thoughts and coming back to the feeling of the breath automatically bestows some insight: “It is so hard, but this is how I feel.” What follows such awareness is a feeling of openness, gentleness, and curiosity. If we respond to the thought with “I am bad” or “These thoughts are making me feel worse, I must get rid of them,” meditation becomes a battle of sorts, and a feeling of pressure sets in.

Meditation is supposed to feel good. In fact, when we are simply being and feeling, we appreciate; we find that we are naturally less discursive and less critical. That’s because practice is different from conceptualising. Most people meditate just with the head — “How am I doing?” Or perhaps they feel, and then think, “Well, what I am feeling cannot possibly be what the meditators are talking about.” When we do that, we are disempowering ourselves. We need to let go of our conceptual mind and be with the feeling. To be aware of how our mind feels and learn to stay with it requires taking time out every day, even briefly, for a period of self-reflection. If you have a hard time sitting still, you can stand, or walk slowly — or even just find a nice chair where you can sit down, relax, and self-reflect. We all need that moment. Even though we are quiet and still, a lot is happening during this period of rest: we heal and we develop. It is how we learn and how we change.

Such moments of self-reflection are not especially encouraged in our culture. It is up to us to see their importance, especially as the world becomes speedier. Just as exercise is considered a normal, healthy thing to do for the body, self-reflection is a good thing to do for the mind. But because we cannot see the mind and heart, the benefits of meditation are not as obvious — and in our culture, it is hard to simply be. We are more inclined to always be doing. However, like the crops in the field, we all need a fallow period of enriching and gaining.

Meditation is a very personal experience. Even if we sit there for only five minutes, our mind is not doing nothing. We are exploring how our mind really feels, unconditioned by family, education, friends, culture, and even our concepts about meditation.

Resting in this space is self-empowerment minus the ego.

By contacting that open feeling, the inherently pure stream at the depth of our being, we are laying the seeds for those feelings of love to grow within our own consciousness. Then those potent seeds will materialise in our life.

How we feel is an important part of being in a community. If we can feel a little bit, then we know how somebody else feels. This gives birth to the thought of helping others. The great bodhisattva Shantideva says that there is not a better feeling and purpose than that thought. He instructs us to water that thought with the six paramitas: generosity, discipline, patience, exertion, meditation/feeling, and prajna/intelligence.

When we are relaxing and feeling, we are being present, and when we are present and feeling, that moment is whole. Our mind knows how to be and how to feel, and the whole thing is one complete moment that we call happiness, pleasure. We know how it feels. However, if we do not know how happiness or pleasure feels, we are continuously looking for it, never able to appreciate its simplicity.

Feeling and being are not necessarily taught in school. That is why the meditation tradition has survived — so we can train in the ability to relax, to feel and embody our nature. When we embody compassion and kindness, we have potency and strength. Then even good posture is an expression of how we feel inside — not just something we are imposing on ourselves.

So let’s practice from the inside out. Taking time to feel the compassion and kindness at our core has an effect on our health, our state of mind, how we relate to our family, and how we work. No matter what is on our mind, we can find time in the day to feel where we are, and just be. We are not talking about being ourselves in an egotistical way. We are simply talking about being human. Goodness is always present, and with the practice of meditation, our feeling for it continues to grow.