Different forms of meditation

Student: Recently, I’ve been experimenting with different forms of meditation. So following the breath is what I’ve always done, since I began meditating, but recently have been involved with some sitting with a teacher who talks about reflective meditation—actually kind of following the thoughts. And then reflecting on those afterwards. Following sounds. I sit at the beach and follow the waves. I guess what I’m wondering is: it seems actually to be helpful to do different forms—but is it? I guess I’ve answered my own question.

Ken: Yes, but I think we can go a step further. How familiar are you with Alice in Wonderland?

Student: Haven’t read it recently, but as a child …

Ken: Compulsory reading for all serious practitioners. So Alice, I think, wanders away from—I can’t remember what actually—and she comes across a Cheshire cat sitting in a tree, and the cat is sitting with a grin. “How many of you have seen a cat grin?”

And she says, “Please, sir, which way should I go?”

He says, “That all depends. Where do you want to go?”

“Well, it doesn’t really matter,” she says.

“Then it doesn’t really matter which way you go, does it?”

“As long as I get somewhere,” she says.

“Well, if you go far enough, you’ll be somewhere.”

So, where do you want to go?

Student: I guess where I want to go with my practice is in being able to sit with the pain and the emotions of life and not be so driven by them. To be able to sit in and reflect on them. But ultimately I guess for myself, because I deal with people dying, I want to be able to sit with my own death. I guess that’s why I practice. That’s what drives me to it.

Ken: May I go a little further?

Student: Yeah.

Ken: Well, why do want to be able to sit with your own death?

Student: Because I watch people resist it so. And I think that it doesn’t have to be, and yet, I can also be compassionate and understand it, you know.

Ken: Yeah. Well, this is quite wonderful. You have a very clear intention in your practice. That makes things a lot simpler, not necessarily easier, but a lot simpler. Ann, could I borrow the book please?

Ann: This is a most wonderful book … [laughter]

Ken: That was unnecessary, but thank you. [Pause]

This is at the end of this book, I write:

If anything rattled you, (in the book) don’t throw up.
Let it work in you—until the you that you are now, is fatally poisoned.
The importance of conventional life is greatly exaggerated and a good death can do wonders.

An Arrow to the Heart, Ken McLeod, p. 153

Ken: So, as I understand, you want to know how to die?

Student: I want to not resist it.

Meditation: a tool, not an end

Ken: This is very deep. And I’ve long been under the feeling, or of the opinion that one of the most valuable things we can learn in our lives is how to die. There are many different forms of meditation. Meditation, it should be remembered, is a tool, not an end. It’s a way of cultivating, bringing attention to what we experience. I don’t know whether you ever read any of Carlos Casteneda. You may recall a distinction that Don Juan makes between dreaming and stalking. Resting with the breath, cultivation of attention that way, that’s stalking. Opening to experience and just opening and opening, being with whatever arises is dreaming. In the beginning, our attention is usually so unstable, particularly in Buddhism, we put the emphasis on stalking. One of the unfortunate byproducts of that, is that many people think that meditation means just that, or practice means just that.

But sometimes it is good to reflect. I would not do them at the same time or in the same period. There are two different kinds of meditation. And one of the things that I often recommend to people, if I’m having them do something like death and impermanence meditation, or loving kindness, or any of the four immeasurables and so forth, is that they rest in the experience of breathing or whatever one day, and then they do this reflective practice the other day. They actually alternate. And that they find quite helpful. Or you could do one at the beginning of the day and one the end of the day, if you’re meditating twice a day. What is very important is to keep your intention in mind.

So for you, you welcome every difficulty and every challenge in your life, because it’s practice for you. That’s a difficult way to live, something I’ve not found very easy at all, but that goes to the heart of your intention. Any difficulty that comes, “Oh, well, I’m going to have to experience this when I die anyway, so I might as well get started now.” Does this help?

Student: Very much.

Ken: Thank you.