Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye. There is incentive behind everything we do. We exercise, for example, to either get in shape or burn calories, to stay healthy, just for fun, or to unwind, blow off steam, and so on... We are incentivized to save money so we can go on vacation, perhaps.
We have incentive to brush our teeth every day, to go to work... you get the idea. But, sometimes the incentive isn't about getting something in return, necessarily; people volunteer, for example, not for recognition or reward, but out of a sense of purpose or moral values. Either way, incentive is what motivates us. So, when it comes to meditation, what's the point? What's the motivation? This episode is my effort to explain how it helps me.
Let's say you decide to sit for a few minutes every day without physically moving no matter what. You can sit in a chair, on the floor, whatever you want, so long as you don't move for a designated period of time. If you have an itch, don't scratch it. If you are uncomfortable, wait until the timer goes off to change positions or stretch. If your mind starts making up stories about a spider crawling on your head, let it.
The benefit of sitting still like that and witnessing urges as they come up but not reacting to them, isn't so you can pat yourself on the back for sitting still, the benefit of doing this daily is that after a while, the meditative exercise of observing, of being patient, and of not letting your thoughts control you, starts to impact your daily interactions in every way. Someone does something annoying, but you choose not to get annoyed, just like you chose
not to scratch that itch while you were sitting. You find yourself in frustrating situations, but you don't lose your temper the way you used to, just like being uncomfortable while you were meditating, but you simply waited patiently for it to pass.
And when you get anxious in life about the future, of which you have absolutely no knowledge or control, your anxiety subsides and you come back to the present moment, just like when your mind created that story about a spider crawling on your head, but you practiced not entertaining every crazy thought. Sitting still is fascinating!
It doesn't change your life in a few minutes right away, any more than eating a salad once is going to help you lose weight, but after doing it regularly, eventually, you find yourself in stressful situations and choosing not to be stressed, or surrounded by annoying people, yet choosing not to be annoyed.
Most people spend their lives avoiding people who push their buttons, or getting mad at them when they do, but Buddhist practice is about getting to a place where you don't have any buttons that can be pushed, at least the way I use it. I do want to point out a subtle but important difference between "Meditating" and what's often simply called "Sitting," though the terms are often used interchangeably, even by me, despite there being a technical difference.
"Meditation" often implies that you're meditating on something specific. Perhaps you're focusing your mind on a mantra, a koan, a prayer, even a big life decision, like when someone asks you a question you don't know how to answer, you might say, "Let me meditate on that for a while." So, with meditation, you could say you're actively engaged in focusing your mind on
something. And although you can definitely meditate sitting down, you can also practice walking meditation or do it while jogging, painting, gardening, anything during which your mind is focused on one thing without getting too distracted. "Sitting," on the other hand, is a disciplined practice of observing the mind, not necessarily resisting its tendency to wander, but watching it closely to better understand how it works. The practice itself begs the question: WHO is watching the mind?
If you're the one sitting down, watching the mind jump from one thought to the next, and you either let it or try to steer it back to the present moment, WHO is watching all of this happen? WHO is trying to think about 20 different things? And WHO is the one trying to bring it back? Are you either one of those, or are you the observer watching this tug-of-war like someone at the movies staring at the screen? I told you it's fascinating!
And you don't need thousands of dollars for meditation retreats or to fly to Nepal and sit in a cave for 30 days, unless that's your thing. I forget who said it, but enlightenment happens by accident, spiritual practice just makes us more accident-prone. And I'm pretty sure it was Suzuki Roshi who said there are no "enlightened beings," so to speak, there is only enlightened activity.
So, the people you might think of as "Enlightened," be it the Buddha, Jesus, the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King Jr., and so on, are people just like you and me, they simply made enlightened activity part of their daily lives, and so can you.
Here's how I explain the experience of meditating in the chapter "Sit Happens" on Page 15 of Buddhist Boot Camp: Life can be like a loud football stadium with all the visual and auditory stimuli of a game: the screaming, laughter, cheering, food, noisemakers, players, referees, and the vibration of your seat. Now, imagine that same stadium absolutely silent, still, and calm, to a point where you can hear a person whispering on the other side of the field.
That's how I can best explain the transformation of my world through sitting meditation. By lowering the volume, I went from hearing the music of life, to listening to the sounds that make up the song; from living, to being alive! The true beauty is that it's ongoing... It keeps getting better. My senses are heightened and I notice even the subtlest internal changes.
There are no words to describe how profound and incredible this feels; one must experience it to truly understand, if only for a moment. Now, sitting very still may may not sound interesting, but the results of doing it on a daily basis are extraordinary. I mean, is peace merely the absence of war, or is it tranquility despite the conflict? Is happiness the absence of suffering, or is it contentment despite the imperfections?
I believe we can be happy in a world that is already broken, and have inner-peace in the midst of chaos. We can find bliss in less-than-ideal situations. Happiness is a choice. When the mind's delight in being stimulated is exhausted, serenity sets in. It's a deep calm with a half-smile of appreciation and acceptance of whatever arises without judgment or aversion. It's a sense of relief beyond peacefulness; it is divine tranquility.
The way Eknath Easwaran explained it: through meditation, and by giving full attention to one thing at a time, we can learn to direct attention where we choose. I think owning your power so you're not so easily manipulated by outside circumstances is reason enough to do it, because if you ARE easily provoked, then you are easy to control. So, make determination and restraint your superpower. If you've been looking for incentive to makes Sit Happen, I think there's plenty. Enjoy the journey!
Timber Hawkeye is the bestselling author of Faithfully Religionless and Buddhist Boot Camp. For additional information, please visit BuddhistBootCamp.com, where you can order autographed books to support the Prison Library Project, watch Timber's inspiring TED Talk, and join our monthly mailing list. We hope you have enjoyed this episode and invite you to subscribe for more thought-provoking discussions. Thank you for being a Soldier of Peace in the Army of Love. 🙏🏼