Meditation Observations: Remembered Dreams and Watching the Breath

I practise meditation in the Theravada tradition of Buddhism. This, to use a really bad analogy, is sort of like the Catholicism of Buddhism. It's the oldest surviving school of early Indian Buddhism and, consequently, the most conservative of all Buddhist schools in existence today. The differences between all these different schools are great and fascinating, but that's not what this post is about.


The reason I mention this all is because in my tradition of practise, there are basically two standard types of meditation: samatha and vipassana. These translate (roughly) as "calming" and "clear-seeing" and they have two different though complimentary aims. Samatha, as one might guess, is all about calming the mind and learning to focus undistractedly upon the object of attention (typically the sensations of breathing around the nostrils or in the abdomen). This is very helpful for vipassana, which is the attempt to see, precisely and in real-time, the arising, abiding, and passing away of everything that presents itself to us. Of course, these two types of meditation overlap each other seeing as it is impossible to focus clearly on an object without noticing it changing and vice versa.


But for now, I have been focusing on samatha meditation. Since November, I've been (trying) to do an hour every day, but even if I cannot get an hour in I never miss a day entirely. Fifteen minutes is better than none. It can be really rough at first but after a while you get used to it and actually start to look forward to your daily sit. It's calming and you feel more clear when you do it. It's a lot like brushing your teeth except for your brain.


Anyway, as of late I've been noticing two interesting things about my meditation and how its going:


Firstly, I've noticed that when I meditate soon after I wake up, I recall dreams that I suspect I would not have otherwise. I often don't recall my dreams so this is cool.


Secondly, I've noticed I'm actually paying attention to the sensations of the breath. This might sound weird, 'cause the basic instruction for meditation is "sit down and watch the sensations of the breath at the nostrils." But it's true. As of late I am becoming more and more aware of the fact that although I was trying to follow those instructions before, I wasn't really. While I thought that what I was doing was watching the breath what I was really up to was thinking about watching the breath. But not in words so much. It's hard to explain but it seems like before the physical sensations were mixed up with some purely mental something but now I'm perceiving each independently. I don't know how to describe it better. Anyway, I am very happy about this realization, 'cause I figure it means I'm making some sort of progress. Yaaaaaayhe!

I, Buddhist

I feel like I have to come clean. I mean, in my very first post (my first real one, anyway) I trashed the idea of God, the afterlife, et al. I mean, yeah, I don't believe in that crap but this isn't to say that I'm completely devoid of any interest in things *ahem* spiritual (if I must use that term). I have my views on the big questions of life, death, the universe and everything, and if I'm going to trash other people's deeply held views, I suppose I ought to present my own. So in this vein, I'm gonna come clean and tell you what I think and what I do. In later posts I'll tell you about the things that people think I think and think I do which I neither think nor do.


Of course, if anyone actually read this blog and paid any attention to the sidebars, they might have already guessed that I'm a Buddhist. Yes, it is true, a Buddhist am I. I imagine most people know what that means but I also imagine that I'm the mostest* awesomest guy in the world and everyone likes me. Since that's manifestly untrue, a brief account of what I think.


The basic idea is this. There is a fundamental dis-ease to life. Most of the time we're trying to cover it up, but it's always there in the background, buzzing around your ears like a mosquito when you're trying to fall asleep at night. This dis-ease is called dukkha. Anyway, the reason it exists is because we're fundamentally confused about the way reality is. Basically, everything that we know, everything we love and hate is constantly coming together and falling apart. Impermanence is the name of the game, but we don't know that. Nope, we believe that things are permanent, stable, unchanging (including ourselves). Hence, we think that things (including our selves) will make us happy in a way that is permanent, stable, unchanging. This doesn't work. As a result of the disconnect between the way reality is and the way we believe it to be, deep down inside, dukkha comes to be. It's sort of like swimming upstream.


Therefore, the way to lead a truly happy life is to get rid of dukkha. This is done via the practise of meditation. Basically, we sit around for hours on end trying to directly perceive the utter transience of all phenomena as they arise, abide, and pass away, all in real-time. Simply thinking about it won't work, simply hearing the fact of impermanence doesn't end dukkha, or else you'd already have become enlightened reading this blog post! No, it's a deep belief, this belief in permanence. It's so deep and fundamental that we can't even recognize that we believe it. It's just how the world appears to us. So we practise meditation frequently, every day and try to perceive every sensation, every thought, every single thing arise and pass away.


And at some point, if we've been diligent and done the work, maybe we'll be one of those lucky enough to get it. We perceive the universe for what it really is and how it's really working and we just drop the dukkha like a hot coal. We just get that the universe is constantly changing and nothing's permanent and we stop fighting the way things are and live our lives without that added discomfort.


That's basically it. Everything else (like belief in rebirth, karma, psychic powers, etc.) has just been added on for one reason or another, maybe to appeal to some audience, maybe just because people couldn't be done with those superstitions. But they're really not necessary to practise and they're quite tangental to the truth of things and I don't ascribe much importance to them.


But I'll get to those items in other posts. Indeed, I plan on touching on all the crap that Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike like to believe they must believe about Buddhism (some of which is really funny). And I'll expound further on my views.


Until then.

* I call this grammatical structure a hyperlative. Yes, I have created a new application of the English language. Who's gonna stop me?

Long Time, No Blog

So it's been what, a year, approximately? Got busy with work, etc., and found I didn't have all that much time to do this stuff any more. Then the economy crashed. Yaaaaayhye! At least I'm still employed, albeit doing something different than I was a year ago. But I should have more time to get things like this done, methinks. I've been feeling stale lately, and I figure that this will be of some use to me. Not that anyone actually reads anything I put up here anyway. Ha. But that's not really the point, is it?

Oh well. Expect more soon.

Regards,

James-ing