My meditation redux

 I’ve tried to get more serious about meditation over the last couple weeks, and it’s been an interesting experience. Part of it is because considered doing a 12-day meditation retreat with about 14 hours a day of meditation interrupted only by light meals and some chats about spirituality. It appeals too me. I’d like to figure out where that would take my brain and how it would change my behavior.

Meditation has given me more focus, and helps me clean out some of the junk floating around in my head. But it generally only does so for about 10 or 15 minutes after I’ve finished the session, which I usually try to do for at least 10 minutes every morning. What I’ve come to realize is that many activities in life are chances to do something similar to meditation. Walking from my house to the bus stop is a chance to observe what’s around me instead of listening to the incessant rattling that’s going on my head. Sitting on the bus is a chance to watch what people are wearing and how they carry themselves, or gaze out at the park and the guys playing morning soccer or look at the beautiful old buildings along the side of the road.

Once I’m on the bus on the way home in the evening, my brain is usually so drained that I can’t do much other than let my conscious run around however it wants. I’ve tried to do some meditation after coming home from work and I generally find it’s the absolute most difficult time to do it.

And meditation does have its limits. About a year ago I was so enthralled by its power that I came to think, possibly without realizing, that if practiced with enough depth and consistency it could be the solution to any emotional problem. But I realized there are lots of moments when greater clarity and focus are not by themselves going to solve a problem. Mindfulness does not help you make decisions, even if it can help you understand the process around the decisions or make it clear that you need to make a decision. And it does not force a person to confront things that are difficult for them. It is not a substitute for courage, dedication, or hard work. It can at best illuminate the need for these things.

And meditation digs up a lot of stuff out of your psyche, which is a double-edged sword. It can put your mind into a state of relaxation that lets you enjoy the things you want to do. But it can also dig deep down and pull out that bad mood that was lurking below the surface that you weren’t paying attention to because you were distracted by other things. When you break up the layer of clutter in your consciousness, you’re not always going to be happy with what you find below.

I’ve tried to spend a good chunk of today, a lazy Sunday that I’m spending at home, to really do some serious meditation. Part of this is in preparation for someday being able to do a longer “boot camp” so to speak, because I figure if I’m going to make it 12 days I should be able to make it a couple hours. I worry about whether the experience would simply be isolating. A person all by themselves trying to sort out what goes on in their own brain, with no distractions, no books, no music.

It always surprises me how little training we get in understanding our own minds. Of course this is difficult because each mind is so different – cada cabeza es un mundo, as Venezuelans like to say. But most of my friends and family have jobs that are almost entirely focused on their mind, which makes it strange that we don’t try harder to understand our minds the way athletes get intimately familiar with the functioning of their own bodies. I think meditation offers a window in. But knowledge is only part getting what you want from life. In the end there are no answers, which is simultaneously daunting and liberating.