Zen of Recovery Meditation Tips
from the forthcoming book Zen Mind, Recovery Heart by Mel Ash
Don't wait: make love. That's wisdom!
Meditating, chanting and praying: complete idiocy!
-Zen master Ikkyu
The essential practice of Zen and a technique alluded to in the 11th step ("sought through prayer and meditation...") is what I call "sitting around, doing nothing, looking at the floor." Meditation is common to most world traditions and is a lot easier than you've been led to believe. It is as natural to us humans as a nap is to cat. Mediation is an important 11th step skill for recovering people and I can't emphasize its importance enough to a good program of abstinence from addictive behavior and spiritual and emotional growth. Meditation also has many physical benefits, as well, healing the body as it heals the soul.
The good news is that any effort invested in the practice is like money in the bank and will permanently alter your awareness for the better. Exhaustive meditation instructions are given in my first book, The Zen of Recovery, in the chapter "Sitting Around, Doing Nothing, Looking at the Floor." Many of you are already familiar with those instructions or with techniques from your existing practices, be it Yoga, Vedanta or other forms of contemplation.
Rather than repeat previous information, I offer here lists, menus really, of what I regard as the most important tips. They should be of help to old-timers and even start newcomers off with fairly clear and complete instructions.
These are the same menus I hand out at my workshops and have been field tested by people just like yourself. So order what you need and leave the rest. They are, after all, just suggestions, like the 12 suggested steps of recovery, O.K.?
Posture Menu
Be comfortable but sit in a posture of wakefulness.
The back should be straight, but not rigid. If you are in a chair, don't lean back for support; if on the floor, use cushions and cross the legs in the most comfortable position for yourself; even kneeling works, a cushion beneath your buttocks.
Imagine your head and spine like that of a puppet pulled up by a string at the top of the skull and then slightly released. Spine assumes a natural, relaxed "S" curve. There is no such thing as a straight back. Don't force it or else: OW!
Relax your belly. Let it assume its natural shape. This isn't a body building contest. Surrender your pride.
If sitting on the floor, cross legs or kneel, using a cushion under the butt.
Always warm up first, doing simple stretching exercises.
If your back hurts, it's because your head is drooping forward, filled with heavy thoughts, pulling and stretching the spine with its weight. Straighten up, but not unnaturally so, and the thoughts themselves will lighten up and decrease their load. Listen as the world falls off your shoulders and hits the floor!
The brain/mind is part of your body: posture affects recovery. Vice versa.
Sit with a slight smile. This actually releases "feel good" endorphins. Lighten up in every way. This is not supposed to be grim!
If you itch, scratch; if you get sore, move around to relieve it. No place for masochism in practice. We've been punished enough. Don't do it to yourself!
The feet flat on floor if sitting in a chair, hands folded palms up on the lap, left hand over right, thumbs lightly touching or simply at rest, folded in lap.
Eyes closed or half open, unfocused. Stay awake and aware of what is in front of you.
Relax your shoulders. Unclench your jaw. Stress is stored in these areas. Drain it away through your fingertips.
Let the tongue float loose in the mouth or touch it lightly where your front teeth meet the roof of your mouth. This decreases the need for constant swallowing.
The eyes soft. Shoulders soft, slightly thrown back. Belly soft, awareness crystal clear.
Breathing Menu
Everyday we breathe in, breathe out.
Nobody pays money for that.
-Zen master Seung Sahn
Begin by attending to the natural rhythm of your breath. Count them to ten. If you forget, start again at 1 without judging yourself. There is no right or wrong way to do this. Guilt and a sense of failure are your enemies. Banish them! Or repeat a mantra, word or simple prayer with each breath.
Breathing should be an involuntary process, mindfulness a voluntary one.
Bring your awareness to the first touch of air passing in and out of your nostrils.
Cultivate "bare awareness" of the breath: the first touch of the air entering the body and the touch of it leaving: arriving and leaving, touch and go, touch and go.
Breathing is the only higher power, since whether we believe in breathing or not, we still breath. Obey your breath. It is your Zen master and sponsor.
Place some of your attention at the rim of your nostrils, experiencing the sensation of the breath as it enters and leaves your nose.
Don't force it. You'll hyper-ventilate, get "high" and pass out and you already know what that's about!
Try this: breathe out, imagining your breath as a colored smoke, say blue. Imagine it swirling down your front. Inhale through your navel, imagining it to be the third nostril of enlightenment. Visualize the smoke entering your stomach and rising up through your lungs as you inhale.
Breathe the blue smoke out again and down your chest toward your navel/nostril. Do this until you visualize a loop, a circle, a donut of smoke rotating through your body, inside and outside. Relax as you inhale and exhale, rotating this blue circle over and over again, cleansing, purifying, illuminating.
All of this is impossible to do if you allow yourself to cling to the sensations, thoughts, sounds and images which arise in your mind to lure you away from mindfulness of the breath. Allow these things to pass through your mind like clouds in an empty blue sky, neither grasping nor repelling them.
If a thought or feeling becomes predominant, softly note it as simply "feeling", "thought" or "sensation," sort of like sticking a tiny Post-It note on the thought. This immediately lessens its grip by 50%.
Naming thoughts is like naming someone who's breaking into your car. It gives you power. If you don't know the identity of the thief, you're a helpless victim. You're allowing serenity thieves to break into your sober consciousness. Finger them. Name the thoughts. They'll flee.
But don't tarry with all this naming of thoughts. Just name and let go, always return gently to the only reality: breathing in, breathing out.
General Tips & Advice Menu
Life's Little & Completely Condensed Instruction Book
by Rev. Tom Ahlburn,
U.U. Minister and Buddhist teacher
Don't go looking.
Let go of everything.
Be utterly empty.
Refuse nothing.
Be absolutely honest.
Don't ask for anything for yourself.
Wait & see what happens.
Maybe nothing will. (or something like that...)
1) I told Mr. Fix-It, Zen master, that I was instructed in meetings to get on my knees and pray or I would drink. I was smug, feeling superior because I didn't kneel and pray as a Buddhist.
"You think you're better or any different?" he asked. "When you meditate, you get even lower and humbler: on your butt! Don't feel so superior!" I began to kneel sometimes. It worked just as well as sitting!
A good teaching from a Zen old-timer about feeling different, the feeling that got us messed up in the first place! It's not the posture, the kneeling, bowing or sitting. It's the mental and spiritual posture these things cause. Body posture will affect mind posture. Mind posture will affect spiritual intent. Despite ourselves. It's sometimes as simple as re-arranging our limbs to begin to surrender and recover!
2) No guilt! There is no such thing as doing it right or wrong. This isn't school. Life is the test. This is doing it to do it. No more, no less.
3) No regrets.
4) Listen to noise as you would to music, without naming or judging. You are creating the noise with your own eardrums. You are the sound.
5) No blame.
6) Do not even "think" about the process. Expect no product
.
7) Each mind moment is allowed to arise and pass away of its own momentum.
8) Sensations arise in the body, thoughts arise in the mind, coming and going like bubbles in water, like clouds in a vast and empty clear sky.
9) Watch it!
10) Don't get lost.
11) Don't even think of concentration.
12) All things arise and eventually pass away: no effort.
13) "Thus shall ye think of all this fleeting world: a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream, a flash of lightening in a summer cloud, a flickering lamp, a phantom and a dream." Buddha, The Diamond Sutra
14) "Life is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime, the flash of a firefly in the night, the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset." Parable of the Crow people
15) Who is this who who is asking this question?
16) Your mind is like a calculator gone mad, flashing meaningless numbers and sums. Hit the Clear button in your brain. Return to zero.
17) Your mind is like a clear glass that takes on the color that's poured into it. Green jealousy. Red rage. Black depression. Yellow fear. Purple passion. Pink elephants. White cocaine high. Your original nature is clear. Empty the glass.
18) Pay attention.
19) If you are meditating to "get something," you just don't get it, do you? Got it? Good!
20) Don't sit to be spiritual or to "better" yourself or to reduce stress. Just sit, O.K.? It is in sitting that we learn to let go of goals, Somehow, we attain them.
21) Smile, dammit!
22) Ahhhhhhh!
23) Don't construct or expect some kind of perfect atmosphere for meditation: no noise, etc. It is already perfect and as it is: motorcycles, kids yelling and all. Just pay attention. This is training for the rest of your life.
24) Set a time limit: 5 minutes is better than none, 15-30 minutes ideal. Whatever you can manage is exactly the right amount. Use a clock or stick of incense to time yourself.
25) There is no bad or good session: even boring, thought-filled, fidgety ones are still practice. Don't make good or bad. It's what got you in trouble in the first place. This is about letting go of that diseased mind.
26) Very important!!!! You cannot stop your thoughts. Your brain secretes them to digest experience like the stomach secretes acids to digest food. To stop thinking is to die. Meditation is about becoming unattached to the thoughts generated by the brain and letting them pass through the area of consciousness without hooking us. When hooked, unhook and resume paying attention.
27) You are not your brain. You are not your thoughts. What in the world are you?
28) Do it daily, same time, same place, in the morning and again in the evening. Create a corner for only this.
29) Hang up a picture of a saint or something that represents your higher power. Incense, candles. Music. A nice rug and cushions. The Serenity Prayer. The Big Book. Your recovery medallions. Whatever will inspire you to practice the 11th step. This is a space where you meet yourself and your possibilities. This is you.
Walking, Chanting, Bowing and Mantra Menus to be posted in near future, as well as guided meditations.