Tree Trunks

If this is your first time seeing one of these, you’re welcome to hop in and give it a go, or you can start with the first one.

Image Credit: Cartoon Network/Phil Rynda, Paul Linsley, Nick Jennings. No copyright infringement intended.

This is the fourth episode in a series designed for absolute newbies to meditation or for those who really want to focus on the basics. This track includes just four minutes of meditation practice; no getting it wrong! We’ll build up steadily from there.

Turn on the TV, get comfy, and play this track after you’ve watched the fourth episode: Tree Trunks (Season One, Episode Four)

If you want to know more about the work of Sharon Salzberg (mentioned in this episode) you can check out her website or her Wikipedia article.

P.S. If you’re curious, here you can find out why I started this project.

Recording Transcript (Meditation starts at 4:08)

Meditation, like adventuring, benefits from a balance of expertise and naïveté, there are undeniably benefits which come from a stable practice, like building concentration, but there are also benefits to keeping a spirit of curiosity, of open-mindedness. These are traits we tend to have a lot of as children, but steadily lose as we age and take on more responsibility and become aware of the “real world” and it’s many serious demands. In some sense, meditation is a process of unlearning the habits we have picked up over the course of our life which no longer serve us, habits which, in some cases, can prevent us from getting the things we really want.

At the same time, we must be careful what we seek. Sometimes our intentions may not actually what we believed them to be. For example, let’s say you are setting out on this meditation journey in search of happiness or bliss, I believe that you can indeed find that through meditation. But you are likely to first encounter tremendous discomfort along the way. Many things worth doing take patience and sacrifice. And if you are not prepared for setbacks, you may get disappointed and give up.

At the same time, we can approach challenges with a spirit of curiosity, of light heartedness. Sometimes the less serious path, or less direct path, or less aggressive path serve us better. This is not because one method is better or worse than any other, but because we need the right method, the right attitude, and the right tools for different challenges along the way.

It can be helpful to play around with your method. If you are feeling too sleepy during sits, see if you can find more alertness in your posture, or give more attention to your inhale, or in breath. But if you are finding yourself too uptight, then perhaps a little more relaxation will suit you better. Try lying down or granting more attention to the exhale, the out breath. As we slowly move in these practices from building confidence to building concentration, you may discover that sometimes you are trying too hard, are clamping down with your attention, and can benefit from loosening up. But sometimes we are unfocused because we are too loose, our intention is so soft that our trouble shooting brain is louder than our attention, and our mind wanders simply because we haven’t committed it to our object of focus. In this case, the same challenge, lack of concentration, can come from a different source, and accordingly, each challenge benefits from a different approach. So if we are too attached to a single method, if we don’t strike a balance, if we don’t bring playfulness, curiosity, and flexibility to our practice, we may find ourselves frustrated by how things are turning out for us.

I hope that none of this scares you; these are not intended to be a list of things you must keep in mind at all times or perfectly perform to get meditation right, they are just intended as reminders to stay gentle and compassionate with yourself. If something isn’t working well for you, that is not a failure. It’s actually a profound victory, noticing that something isn’t sitting well creates an opportunity to try something new. All feedback is good feedback. So as we continue to increase the length of our sits, minute by minute, don’t be afraid to try new things and see how they feel for you. You are the only one who can decide what you need moment to moment, and just by trying these practices, you are taking a huge step in the direction of figuring that out.

Okay. Let’s get settled.

Maybe do some neck circles or a quick stretch, something to take gentle care of your body. Find a posture that is comfortable for you, something that strikes a balance between alertness and relaxation.