By Nagasena Bhikkhu

Whether you are a beginner or have lots of meditation experience, whatever form your practice takes, preparation is crucial. Just as a boxer warms up, focuses his mind and determines to give of his best, so too there are ways a meditator can prepare. If you start with a mind full of thoughts, feelings and memories, or longing to achieve peace or alleviate anxiety, depression or stress, you are starting with ego and handicap your practice. If you are aware of your mental state and aspire to remove such handicaps, again you are producing ego. This is not a good start. So, before you begin meditating you should make every effort to quiet the mind and reduce ego.

Starting without ego, a strong determination should be made. The energy from this determination is the factor that will keep the mind alert. Without ego, as mental distractions such as imagination, conceptualising, planning and thinking arise, you will remain undisturbed yet awake to them. Your practice will be fruitful and you will either attain the stillness where no disturbances arise or else will observe their arising while continuing with your object unhindered. In this latter case you will see such disturbances and know them to be natural events of the mind but they will not harm your meditation or affect your peace. In fact, they will instead become the tools that help you to penetrate to reality.

If your meditation is heading in the right direction, you will experience peace and harmony fairly easily. When the mind is confident and pure the whole process leads to successful and meaningful practice. In the absence of ego, meditation bears fruit. With right mindfulness all of your actions, speech and livelihood will become right. This is the way to look at yourself if you are a meditator. But with ego present then thinking, confusion, depression and frustration arise when the meditation object is lost. The more you become involved and concerned with the arising phenomena, the more depressed, confused and downhearted you become, so that the hindrances become even greater – a vicious spiral of thoughts and emotions that counteract peace and lead nowhere. Even at this point you can extricate yourself, however. Turn away from your original meditation object and start to observe all that is happening within the mind. What is this state? Are you becoming emotional, worried, depressed, disappointed, frustrated, because you are unable to keep to your object? First identify and categorise the state, then accept it, noting, ‘I am frustrated, disappointed, etc.’ Make the knowing as clear as possible. The technical name for this process is cittanupassana.

If you are unable to do this, then simply observe the feelings or sensations that arise from your current state. This is known as vedananupassana. You began with the intention to watch your meditation object; now turn your mind into the depth of the feeling and make it your object. Know that this arises from the ego and acknowledge it as being a burden. Ask yourself why something you do not want comes to trouble you. More wisely, acknowledge that you have not invited this in. Consider repeatedly that all this is the illusory self that is disturbing you and that it is nothing but an obstruction and a hindrance. You will then come to see that what happens to your mind and body are just events that happen, not self. For if there was an intrinsic self, would that self create hindrances to its own wishes and desires? The recognition of what is not self (anatta) is not self-annihilation, just the knowing of its impurity or defilements. It is in this way that purification takes place and one’s real nature becomes clearer. This is part of what is known as dhammanupassana. Once you stop fighting and accept nature as it comes to you, your reactions will cease by themselves. Now you can return to your original meditation object.

There are other observations one can make. If you are depressed, disappointed or anxious in meditation and are unable to stop it by any other means, you can wisely consider this state of mind, reflecting, “I am not harming, cheating or stealing from anyone at this moment. I am not making other beings unhappy or causing them to suffer. So why am I feeling worried, depressed or disappointed as if I were a killer, a liar or a thief? My intention to practice is good and right.” Reflecting in such a way, positive factors such as goodwill, right thought, loving-kindness and compassion will arise and stabilise the mind on the object. This practice is not suitable for all types and in any event should not be practised regularly. It is just an alternative aid for use as a last resort.

Whatever happens in your meditation, no matter what technique you practice, Dhamma is just understanding one’s nature without ego and without reaction. We practise not only for ourselves but for our society, our family, and for peace. How important it is, therefore, that one prepares for meditation by a strong determination to purify the mind and eradicate the ego. Meditators should not only determine to practice on the chosen object, therefore, but also to lay down the burden of the ego. Then they will be ready to meditate, alert to every object that appears in the mind, observing it with clarity and detachment. By dwelling heedfully in the present moment we create spiritual energy.

Practise, then, but without too serious an endeavour, as seriousness itself can become a hindrance. When peace and calm prevail, we can realise our true nature.