Being the witness
I recently attended a “Learn to Meditate” course, taught by Swami Shankarananda at the Shiva Meditation centre in Mt Eliza. My brother and his partner missed the 3rd week so I took copious notes so I could bring them up to speed before the last session. The last session came and went and I still haven’t passed on the teaching from week three so am writing them here.
Swamiji started with an anecdote about two meditation students walking along together. They came across a flag pole and one of the monks said “Look! The flag is flapping in the breeze.” The other monk said “What are you talking about? Obviously the breeze is flapping the flag.” The two monk debate back and forth ferociously for miles as they walked along until they came across a Zen master. They put their question to the master - is the flag flapping in the breeze or is the breeze flapping the flag? The Zen master prompted announced “Your minds are flapping!”.
This was an introduction to the topic of the night’s session - the mind. Swamiji talk about the Self, the mind, the senses and the world. The world just is and the senses simply register what happens in the world. The mind interprets what comes through the senses - this is good for me, this is bad for me. The Self is always a place of peace and joy. Your true nature. It’s the mind which gets us in trouble!
Swamiji talked about “Mind Culture” and explained that in the context of meditation, Mind Culture is not about acquiring information, it is about getting happiness. It’s about making sure the mind doesn’t make us miss out on joy and peace.
Sow a thought and you reap an action
Sow an action and you reap a habit
Sow a habit and you reap a character
Sow a character and you reap a destiny
After sharing this verse, Swamiji spoke about how, in life, a lot of things can come in the way of who we are and how we create our life. The single thought repeated can come in the way of the self. Whenever our emotion attaches to a thought, it becomes strong.
With this, Swamiji was introducing the concept of tearing thoughts. A tearing thought is a thought which tears into your heart, into your self. They are the main way we torment ourselves. A sage once said “cease to be a problem to yourself!” We become our own enemy - the mind is a source of both bondage and liberation. The mind, which is the closest thing to you, turns against us with tearing thoughts.
Swamiji shared another anecdote. There was a once a farmer who was struggling to keep up with the work of maintaining his farm. He heard about a local magician and went to seek his help. The magician offered the farmer a demon who would be able to do the work of dozens of men but he warned the farmer that if the demon ever ran out of work, he would eat up the farmer! The farmer, thinking of the huge backload of work on the farm, thought there was little chance of this and accepted the demon. Once back at the farm, the demon set to work and to the farmer’s wonderment and dismay, the demon ploughed all the fields in hours not weeks and flew through the other tasks at hand. The farmer started to worry that the demon would run out of work, so he visited the local swami. The swami told the man the solution - when the demon ran out of work, set him the task of erecting a large pole in the yard and tell him his job was to climb up and down the pole until he was called to his next task. The farmer did just this and he and demon lived together peacefully from then on.
The demon is our mind - everything we experience goes through the mind and when the mind becomes idle, it turns against us. Providing the mind with a pole, for instance Mantra, is the best solution.
The next topic Swamiji spoke about was the relationship between thought and feeling. Thought and feeling are intricately linked - where there is negative thought, there is negative feeling, and where there is positive thought, there is positive feeling. If you are depressed, there must be negative thought underlying and feeding the feeling.
Tearing thoughts love to operate without being seen. Once you see them, they don’t work as well, their power goes away. Always look to see what thoughts are underneath a negative feeling - there must be tearing thoughts hiding there! Ramana Mahashi once said that the mind is one but has two tendencies - positive and negative. When the mind is operating under the positive tendency, it is a good mind and visa versa. Swamiji spoke about 1st education and 2nd education. 1st education is about IQ while second education is about a good mind - open, happy and peaceful.
A sublime thought expands and elevates the mind, while a bad thought contracts the mind and heart. Happy thoughts bring positive vibrations. As you become more sensitive to your inner self, you start to see the effect that thoughts have on your being.
The mind is our closest environment, we live in it all the time. We need to keep it beautiful! It can be a garden of joy or a place of despair. Every little effort put towards keeping the mind beautiful is worth it.
Swamiji pointed out that it is very difficult to work with feeling. If we are feeling sad and someone says “cheer up”, it has little effect on the feeling and is unlikely to help you shift the feeling. But if you work with thought, you can more easily change feelings.
The third topic Swamiji spoke of was Introjection, which is the act of placing new thoughts into the mind to replace negative thoughts. Introjection can be mantra, self inquiry, affirmations or contemplations. We can subtitute negative thoughts with positive thoughts. We need to remember that we are free to decide what goes on in our mind but we forget and think we can’t. It’s a free choice to make a change to the mind.
Using the analogy of the mind as a garden, if we are not pruning and cultivating, weeds will take over. Prune bad thoughts and plant good thoughts. Make some effort!
The mind gives every event an interpretation which creates feeling. Without negative thoughts, there would only be happiness. If we find ourselves thinking negatively, change the way we are seeing things. Find a way to hold challenges in a positive way.
Patanjali said to get rid of negative thoughts, think of the opposite. If we feel fear, we can contemplate confidence or strength, if we feel angry, we can contemplate peace, acceptance and forgiveness.
The final topic swamiji shared with us was Witnessing. Witnessing is about watching your thoughts without becoming attached to them - you are not your thoughts but you are the watcher of your thoughts, the witness who is always present in your life.
Swamiji said to try to get a little space between your thoughts and your self and just watch them. Don’t become attached to them. Simply observe them then let them go. It is only when we cling to the thoughts that they begin to form certain patterns.
Swamiji spoke about witnessing the breath and letting the thoughts just come and go without holding onto them. Watch the breath as it passes over the lips, or count the breaths - up to 9 and then restart (so you don’t get caught up in a challenge of reaching a high number!).
The mind and breath are connected - working with the breath can calm the mind. Prana-yama is the term for breath meditation.
The meditation technique which Swamiji shared with us was the Ham Sa meditation. On the in breath, say Hum, on the out breath, Sa. Hum means I am and Sa means that. Breathe air into the inner world, contemplate the self, the “I am”. Breathe air out to ‘that’ - the world, universal consciousness. Don’t say it as a mantra - the breath naturally finds a peaceful rhythm so just let it flow. Hear the sound of the breath, watch the breath. Stand in the breath and the thoughts will go into the background. If you focus on the breath, you won’t run off with your thoughts. If you do find yourself caught up in your thoughts, gently and calmly refocus back on the breath, forgive yourself and return to watching the breath. Depending on what works for you, listen to the sound of the breath, feel the feeling of the breath or visualise the breath.
Swamiji concluded before leading us into meditation by reminding us that we can change everything in the outer world but you are stuck with your mind - so work with it! Make it work with you. Identify tearing thoughts - don’t supress them. If we ‘put on a brave face’, stuff will leak out eventually, so it is best to deal with it - identify it so it can be let go. You can’t reason with a tearing thought - it will pull you into an endless spiral of negativity so invalidate them. Invalidate them by saying “this must be a tearing thought because of the way it makes me feel”. We need to unlearn many bad habits so start making little bits of effort.
As he was leading us into the meditation, Swamiji said that in prana-yama, sometimes the breath becomes so slow it seems to stop, and that this is good so if it happens, just let it happen. Don’t control the breath - just let it find it’s own natural rhythym.
Feel like you are inside the breath, feel the feeling of aliveness inside…