How to Meditate?

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Frustrated?

One of the chief complaints I hear from beginning meditation students is that they have trouble keeping up with their practice. It’s boring, they tell me. It’s difficult to keep my mind still. I start thinking about all the stuff I need to do and I feel like I’m wasting my time. I don’t see how sitting and breathing can make me a Buddha. Besides, they tell me, if I sit too long I’ll just fall asleep.

The problem isn’t with the beginning meditation student. The problem is within the practice itself. Mind needs a task. Without a purpose it starts to search for meaning, and without finding what it needs, it either gives up, gets bored, or goes to sleep. And when that occurs, enlightenment and Buddhahood is impossible.

Lama Jigme’s guided meditation practice solves those problems by giving the subconscious something to work on while during the meditation practice. Because of this, the student has a more fulfilling meditation session.

For instance, most meditators take breath as their object of concentration. There’s nothing wrong with that. What sucks, is when your will says watch the breath and your mind’s natural curiosity says, “yeah but what’s it like to make out with Brad Pitt?” So, rather than foolishly attempt to repress our mind’s natural curiosity Lama Jigme teaches us to exploit this useful quality of our mind through the use of what he calls, “Assumptive, rhetorical, mantra-empowered – Questions.” Instead of asking students to use the shear force of will to turn their minds to their breath, he simply invites us to use this simple technique. During the IN-breath we are to silently, mentally ask {or read} “What could a longer, nose-centered breath, Feel like?” and during the out breath we are to intone the mantra: “Om Mani Padme Hum.” We don’t even have to answer the question, he explains, but rather just ask the question and then {instead of answering it} simply relax into the recitation of the mantra. Try it, you’ll like it! I know I did.

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-Patricia Snodgrass.