Meditation on the Move!

SPEAKING TREE, TOI, 26.07.2012 Sample these situations we often find ourselves in: Feeling bored waiting for the flight/train? Preferring to stay in the car while the spouse is shopping? Or awaiting the kids to call to be picked up when they’re finished with a birthday party? Or just chilling out. Here’s an anytime, anywhere experiment, to get into the insides of your mind. Sit erect. It doesn’t matter if you prefer to keep your eyes closed or open. Either arrangement is okay, but for the beginner open eyes tend to distract. Breathe normally. Now, shift your attention to the mind. To begin, do nothing with it. Just let the dude be. But keep observing it un-distracted. Allow those rising thoughts to float in without giving any treatment to them. Every thought that arises, may or maynot be accompanied by an emotion. Doesn’t matter. Just observe. Your mind will tend to grasp the arising thought, chase it, build on it until this conceptualizing reaches a dead-end and falls. On reaching the dead end with nowhere else to go, the mind grasps on a new thought that arises and the mind goes on to chase this one. And this process goes on. In a span of few minutes, depending on how hyper the mind has been, the never ceasing cycle of ‘arising-chasing-deadending-falling’ goes on and on. However, when you focus some more, you will also notice that as your observation towards the mind gets more intense, the arising of thoughts gets slower too. Much like the crystals of sugar settling down in a glass of water after a quick stir, observe this slowing down. You will begin to be amused with this observation. This does not mean the mind has stopped taking on a next thought to launch another chase. Our observation has only slowed down the process. Now be attentive to observe further that between the passing of the previous thought and the arising of a new one, there exists a hair breadth of a gap that you might sense. A very fleeting one, but it does exist. It exists by itself in a pure, pristine, fresh, virgin and un-manipulated state. This is identified as the nature of our mind. This is the gap you need to recognize and work on. Try and get a hang of this gap that is pure, unaltered and in total awareness. Try to rest in this gap for as long as you can. Initially, this maybe possible only for a few seconds. Resting in this gap even for a few moments, one feels peaceful and refreshed. This is our Buddha mind itself! Nothing else, but prolonging this recognition for as long as you can, is meditation. In Tibetan Buddhist texts this ‘gap’ is referred to as, rigpa, ( pronounced ‘reejpa’). “If you are in an unaltered state, it is Rigpa”, says Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, a great master of Tibetan Buddhism of the 20th century. With repeated practice of this simple ‘anytime-anywhere’ method of generating awareness, it is easily possible to familiarize ourselves with our base mind, otherwise clouded by all sorts of delusions and defilements. How cool is that? PS: It is advised not to try this after consuming alcohol simply because as the nature of alcohol is to confuse, the recognition will be difficult and what you will experience instead is a dull, dark and ‘grey’ state, which is certainly not our true nature. And yes, for the safety of yourself and the family, not to be tried by beginners during driving too!