Why do mindfulness meditation?
A summary of what happens as you practice mindfulness meditation. Source: Turning the Mind into an Ally by Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche
Why meditate, indeed? You could be doing so many other things instead, like sleeping, cooking, working, or sleeping. And why would mindfulness meditation be something worth the effort to teach your children? After all, they could be doing ballet, instrument lessons, soccer, or homework instead.
The simple answer is because mindfulness meditation tames your mind so that you can ride and direct it to do your bidding, which in turn gives you an immense sense of joy and relief. Its fruits let you enjoy the natural strength and clarity of your mind, like exercise lets you enjoy the natural strength and endurance of your body. You do need to do all those other things, but unlike most of them, mindfulness meditation can give tangible results in 5-10 minutes a day, if you do it regularly. It’s a very good return on time investment!
When I say ‘mindfulness meditation’ here, I mean śamatha (शमथ) meditation, also known as 止 zhǐ, ཞི་གནས་ shyiné, peaceful abiding meditation. In śamatha, one sits with cross-legged or in lotus pose with a straight back with one’s attention on the breath, letting go of thoughts as they arise. This is a very old meditation type that has been used for thousands of years, and so we also know well what happens when you practice it. Its purpose is to gather and tame the mind, and it does this in nine stages that are shown nicely in this print of a painting by Greg Smith that hangs framed in our meditation room.
In this painting, the woman with the ponytail is the individual, the horse is the mind, and the squirrel is distraction. The horse’s saddlebags are lethargy, and the squirrel’s walkman, headphones, and ice cream represent mind scattering. The flames are effort; the larger flames at the beginning of the path represent more effort. The squirrel wheel and the things inside it are objects of sensory pleasure. In the beginning, she is trying to use her lasso and her whip to catch and control the horse, but as she tames it she no longer needs them.
1. Placement
The first stage is placement (of the mind on the breath). This is the conscious paying attention to how it feels to be breathing, represented by the woman running after the horse that’s being led by the squirrel, with her rope behind her. In this first stage, one is swept away by a waterfall of thoughts rather quickly.
2. Continual Placement
With time comes the second stage of continual placement, in which one can remain focused on the breath for some time. This is where the horse has lost two saddlebags, and the woman is swinging the lasso in front of her to prepare to catch the horse.
3. Repeated Placement
Then, as the lasso almost lands around the horse’s neck and the squirrel has lost its ice cream and headphones, comes repeated placement. In repeated placement, one only gets washed away in a torrent of thoughts occasionally during a meditation session, often in elation. At the end of this stage, right when the lasso lands around the horse, comes stability of mind. One is never fully distracted during meditation, and one starts catching thoughts before they occur.
4. Close Placement
With stability of mind, you enter the fourth stage: close placement, shown by the woman landing the lasso, two fewer saddlebags on the horse, and both the squirrel and the horse turn towards her. Here, one knows that one can stay on the breath, which brings a quality of joy and ease. It can feel so good that you get too lax. The mind is stable, but not yet clear.
5. Taming
In the fifth stage of taming, shown by the woman finally leading the horse and the squirrel following last, you bring in more clarity. A strong, stable, and clear mind feels natural. You might have some discursive thoughts during meditation, but you are no longer struggling. Meditation feels joyous, like the delight of a bee drawing nectar from a flower.
6. Pacifying
When the woman is leading the bag-free horse closely without having to use her whip very much, she is showing the sixth stage of pacifying. Pacifying feels tranquil and vibrant like mountain greenery after a thunderstorm. There is tremendous clarity. Adjustments to your meditation are still needed, but making them no longer feels frantic. There is excitement about the possibilities.
7. Thoroughly Pacifying
After pacifying comes thoroughly pacifying, represented by the horse, the woman, and the squirrel walking paw in hand. Subtle thoughts still arise during meditation, but now they dissolve on their own when we notice them. You might be attached to how good meditation feels.
8. One-Pointed
The eighth stage, where the woman leads the horse without any contact, is called one-pointed. The remnants of discursiveness have evaporated, and during meditation you sit there completely awake, clear, and knowing. The only thing separating being one-pointed from the ninth stage, equanimity, is needing to make a slight effort at the beginning of a meditation session.
9. Equanimity
Equanimity is reached when the woman has climbed up on the horse’s back, on the carpet on the raised cliff. When you sit down in equanimity, you engage with the breath in a completely fluid and spontaneous manner. Your mind is strong, stable, clear, and joyous. You are in union with the present moment. You feel a complete sense of victory, and feel like you could meditate forever.
The rainbow, where the woman is flying in the ecstasy of body and riding the horse in mental ecstasy, represents the start of another kind of meditation in which one uses the concentration one has developed to study the nature of reality. This meditation type is also very old and thus also has many names. It is known as insight meditation, विपश्यना vipaśyanā, ལྷག་མཐོང་ lhaktong, or 觀 guān.
It might seem like this is impossible for you. And it is, if you don’t meditate.
Training your mind is a lot like training your body. There is a reality of where you start, out of shape and struggling. But there is also a reality of what can be done – running a race, climbing a mountain, taming your mind.
What can seem like miracles initially become ordinary reality through small, consistent training sessions. The latter stages of śamatha are indeed big accomplishments, just like running a marathon. But lots of people run marathons, right? Lots of people have also tamed their minds, and I don’t mean ascetics 2500 years ago. I mean insurance agents, psychologists, computer scientists, engineers, HR managers. People here now.
You train for a marathon one mile at a time. Similarly, you train for vipaśyanā one minute at a time. It adds up faster than you might realize as you’re doing it. The important thing is to show up and keep showing up more often than not, even when it doesn’t feel like it’s going well. Knowing that it’s quite within ordinary human capability and that you are far from the first can help quite a bit – if you put in the work, you will get the results!
