"What we need is a cup of understanding, a barrel of love, and an ocean of patience." - St. Francis de Sales
This class is a class in Buddhist meditation, so we will be learning some basic techniques in sitting meditation that come from the Buddhist tradition. One thing I need to be clear about right off the bat is that I am not a guru or sufi or meditation master. I got interested in meditation through my practice of martial arts and have been meditating seriously since 2008. It is commonly said that it takes 10,000 hours to truly master meditative practice, so in those terms I am definitely a novice! However, as they say in martial arts - a green belt is not a master, but he can teach useful things to a white belt...:) I will be concentrating on the very basic principles here for two reasons: 1) these I understand fairly well and 2) this is what you need to understand to make your own start in meditation. If you decide to make meditation a regular practice, at some point you should consider finding a teacher who is much further along than I am. But that's a worry for a future time.
Although the techniques we will be learning come from the Buddhist tradition, we will not spend a lot of time on Buddhist theory. I want you to know just enough about Buddhism that you have some idea of how to do the techniques and what the point of them is supposed to be. You certainly don't have to be a Buddhist, much less alter your other religious beliefs, to get something out of the class. You will see as we go along that I have a very pragmatic understanding of Buddhism anyway and tend not to buy into many of the metaphysical doctrines that some branches of Buddhism are embroidered with. That being said, let's jump right in.
Posture: When you are meditating, it is important that you be comfortable and can sit for an extended period with your back straight. Sitting in full lotus position is great if you can pull it off without pain, but there are lots of ways to sit and the simple "criss cross applesauce" you learned in kindergarten is just fine. Here is a page with illustrations of some of the different positions you can try if you like: http://www.mro.org/zmm/teachings/meditation.php. You can also sit in a chair as the illustration shows, but try to make sure it's a straight backed chair - not too comfy - and don't lean your back against the back of the chair but keep it upright on your own power. There are actually all kinds of aids to maintain good meditation posture, from meditation stools to various kinds of pillows (some to sit on and some to support the knees) so you can spend your money on these sorts of things if you get into meditation seriously and feel the need. Finally, there are also non-sitting postures, in particular lying down and walking, but we won't do that in this class except perhaps occasionally just to introduce the idea. My view is that you should first learn basic sitting meditation and only after that branch out - meditating while lying down often causes tired college students to nod off, for example, and that is not the point (enjoyable as it may be).
So find a way to sit that is comfortable. Then there is the question of what to do with the hands and arms. It's helpful to get these into a position where they are comfortable and their weight won't mess up your straight posture. The two basic ones are: 1) place your hands on your knees, palms up. Touch your middle finger gently to your thumb. or 2) place your right hand in your lap, palm up. Then place your left hand. palm up, on top so that your fingers overlap. Gently touch the thumbs together. In either position, your fingers (thumbs) should touch just enough to hold a piece of paper in place. They thus function as a kind of monitoring device as you meditate: if you find yourself squeezing too hard, then you need to relax, and if you are letting the fingers drift apart, then you are getting sleepy or losing focus.
The eyes: The simplest thing is just to close your eyes. Some people prefer to leave them open (particularly in Zen schools), which is fine too. However, if you do open your eyes, the trick is not to focus on anything, because then you are looking instead of meditating. A basic technique is to close your eyelids about 95% and slightly cross the eyes by directing them both towards the tip of your nose.
Your first assignment is to get into a posture and begin to meditate. One basic goal, especially at first, is to just get used to sitting for an extended period and relaxing your body as much as you can while maintaining the requisite posture. Indeed, you can practice meditation just for the purpose of relaxation and learning to relax is one of the biggest benefits of meditation. The next time you are freaking out about your organic chemistry test or you simply can't fall asleep, just practice your meditation breathing for a few minutes and you will see what I mean.
Now the ultimate goal is to shut down your higher brain functions and avoid thinking. This state is called mushin in Japanese, which translates to something like "no mind". The problem is that this is almost impossible to do at first. The untrained mind just can't stand the quiet and so it will manufacture things to think about even when none exist. In the 1960's, for example, people did experiments where they placed subjects in sensory deprivation tanks so there was essentially no sensory input at all. In such circumstances, people begin to hallucinate because the brain gets bored. To help with this basic problem, we use a crutch at first: instead of thinking of nothing, you will concentrate on your breathing. Pick some aspect(s) of your breathing to focus on - how it feels going into your lungs, the touch of air against your nostrils, the pull of your clothes as your chest rises and falls. Breathe normally (or deeply if you prefer - different schools, different techniques) and concentrate on your breathing to the exclusion of all else. To add one additional twist, count at the beginning of each breath as well, up to 10, then start over. If you lose track of your count, just start over - the idea is not actually to count anything, just to give your brain some intellectual chewing gum to keep it occupied.
We will start by doing this for 10 minutes. If you lose your focus on the breathing (and you will, many times), try not to get upset or start thinking about how you are losing focus. Just try to recognize loss of focus when it happens and then gently redirect your mind back to the breathing. Meditation takes a great deal of practice to truly master, so cultivating patience with yourself is something you should actively cultivate.
One more item to talk about before we begin meditation: distractions. The idea is to get to the point where you can meditate despite being in a noisy room, having an achy back, etc. But again, this is very hard at first. Your modern American is completely used to immediate gratification of every little desire, so when you are meditating and your nose itches, you will want to scratch it now. You need to work on avoiding this temptation as much as you can because every time you give into such distractions, they destroy the train of your concentration. 99% of the time, what is distracting you is not important at all, you just are used to dealing with it without even thinking about it. Of course, if the distraction represents a real threat - your knee is in agony or you hear someone enter the room and begin shooting people - by all means act to correct it. The point is not to be a macho meditator who grits his teeth and forces himself to hold still even while on fire. On the other hand, you don't want to constantly be wiggling about in response to meaningless distractions. One technique to deal with minor physical distractions like an ache or itch is to shift your concentration to focus on the distraction itself. Use the distraction to give your mind something to focus on - ask yourself, "Where, precisely, is this sensation?" and "Does the sensation change over time, say as I breath in and out?" You will find that this can be an excellent focus point and often you are annoyed when the "distraction" goes away, since you now have to focus on breathing again...:) In fact, people have successfully used this kind of technique to help them deal with very serious chronic pain, so it should work wonders for an itch!
Remember: Patience is the most important ingredient in meditation. It will take time to get good at this, so don't be too hard on yourself...