Meditation

Finding a Path

Intention

One of the most important aspects of starting a meditation practice is being clear about why you are doing it.

Release or Connection?

You might be starting meditation because you want to become calmer, or even to be released from the difficulties of the world. You might be starting meditation because you want to feel more deeply connected with and engaged in life. You might say: both! These two different intentions are not necessarily contradictory, but they can become contradictory if you are not aware what is most important to you, and if you are not aware of the intended outcomes of the meditation practices you are using.

Release

Some meditation practices are intended to reduce to an absolute minium your engagement with most human activity. They are designed for a monastic life, and you could argue that they are ultimately intended to free you from entanglement with life altogether: the state known variously as Cessation or Nirvana.

Connection

Some mediation practices are intended to allow you to engage more fully as a human. They are designed for a life led in the beating heart of things, in the deep mess of human entanglement: Skillful Activity in the World.

Your intentions may shift over time. You may need to withdraw from life for a period of time, or withdraw from certain activities, and certain Release practices may be very helpful in allowing you to do that skillfully. But it is important to be conscious of those intentions, and therefore to be fully aware which practices will help you.

Slow or Fast Approaches

There are broadly two types of approach to meditation in Buddhist traditions: the Slow and Fast approaches.

The Slow Approach

The assumption behind the slow approach is that getting an profound insight into what reality is like is very hard and you need to spend a long time (in traditional Buddhism many life-times) steadily working at it.

The Fast Approach

The assumption behind the fast approach is that you actually already have a profound insight into what reality is like but you have just forgotten it or it has been obscured. The process is therefore a kind of remembering or removing of the things that have got in the way.

Main Techniques

There are two main types of meditation technique in most Buddhist traditions. Here I am going to call them Focused Awareness and Close Observation (traditionally they are known as Shamatha and Vispassna respectively).

It is important to understand from the start that Buddhism is a diverse collection of different traditions, with very different perspectives, and to be clear about the intentions behind the techniques, so you can see if the perspectives and intentions match with your own.

In most Buddhist traditions, the Focused Awareness and Close Observation techniques are used in combination. Usually, Focused Awareness is seen as a preparation for Close Observation.

There is also a technique, associated primarily with later Buddhist traditions, that I will call Open Awareness, in which you have a broad and open focus on your surroundings.

Either Focused Awareness or Open Awareness may be good starting points - depending on your intentions.

Which Approaches and Techniques might be suitable for you?