Meditation is not about becoming a monk
I consider meditation to be the art of systematically training the mind 🧠. The goal is to make it effortless for me to react to events in life.
🧠Training
The mental image I have of myself meditating is less that of a monk, and more that of a Jedi, or a Samurai.
The Jedi
Jedis practice meditation in order to reinforce, among other things, their affinity to the force. The force exists in the universe, and the jedi has to figure out how to communicate with it. It is fundamentally outside of his control, and it requires a great deal of giving in, and trust, in order to tap into it.
The Sith, are the Jedis that allowed fear, anger, and greed to take over.
However, I do not like the Jedi as portrayed in movies, because it is too pure and thus unrealistic. They insist too much on the need to resist darkness. On the contrary, there is great deal of learning that can come from sitting with the darkness, and studying it.
I like most the Gray Jedis. My favorite is the last sentence in the Gray jedi code:
In life, there is freedom
In death, there is purpose
The part on death is critical to understand, as the cycle of death and rebirth is core to buddhism. Because everything is impermanent, it thus follows that everything dies. As such, the limited resources and time at hand, invite the Jedi to find a meaningful purpose that would drive their actions.
In life, there are the possibilities seem limitless. Thereby lies the freedom of choice. But, the fact that everything dies, means that the meditator needs to be careful and deliberate about time.
The Samurai and the study of patience
What fascinates me in the Samurai is not the martial art, but the discipline and patience. Discipline is obvious. Without it, no warrior can put in the hours to train and become fearless on the battlefield.
However patience is less understood, and tends to be neglected. I invite you to reflect on this famous quote by Ieyasu Tokugawa:
There are 7 emotions: Joy, anger, anxiety, adoration, grief, fear, and hate
If a man does not give way to these, he can be called patient
The key is that patience is not in the face of time, but rather emotions. That is true for both happy as well as sad emotions.
The Samurai is thus invited to study patience. To examine how these emotions rise and fall. To the experienced eye, they are clearly in charge of their life.
This is exactly what happens during mindfulness meditation where both good and bad emotions challenge the focus on the breath.
To recap:
- both the Jedi and the Samurai are warriors with different goals, but similar challenges.
- The challenges arise form either positive or negative emotions that disturb focus and attention
- Meditation is the training of the mind to be more patient in the face of emotions
Applying this in real life
The Jedi fights the Sith. The Samurai fights other Samurais. But, you, as a meditator, what would you use the meditation for?
That’s the key question that reveals why I don’t believe meditation is (only) about becoming a monk.
Remember that meditation is the art of training the 🧠to be mindful and remain calm in the face of adversity. The adversity of a monk is the life of a monk in a monastery. The adversity you face is going to be of a different nature.
However, in both cases, adversity will rise and will have to be deal with. And people capable of cultivating patience in the face of such challenges, can experience calmer lives. We recognize in monks these qualities, but there is nothing stopping a lay person from having them.
There is nothing stopping you from tapping into the ‘force’ in order to respond more mindfully and skillfully.
As such, I meditate not to live the life of a monk, but in order to live a joyful, still, calm and equanimous life as a normal human being. I cultivate mindfulness to be able to bring about joy with the people around me. I practice single pointed attention, to be able to solve complex problems.
Most importantly, I have expanded meditation into all aspects of my day to day life because it brings about a sense of calm.
With meditation; with the force; I remain still. Only then can I know.