Being Zen: Bringing Meditation to Life (4 page)

Thought-labeling is a precise tool that can help in two ways. First, it breaks our identification with our thinking, allowing us to learn to see our thoughts as just thoughts. Second, it
allows us to know
what
we’re thinking. Let’s say you’re sitting in meditation, trying to be aware of the breath, and you notice that you’re thinking about what a busy day you have ahead of you. To thought-label, you would simply repeat this thought to yourself, saying, “Having a thought that I have too much to do.” It’s like having a parrot on your shoulder, stating the thoughts verbatim as they arise in the mind.

At first thought-labeling may seem very mental. It may seem as if the labeling itself were making our minds spin more than ever. But that’s only because we’re not used to it. It takes time for thought-labeling to break us out of our mental tape loops. Just to get some experience with the process, we might start by spending at least five minutes near the beginning of each meditation period labeling every thought. After that we don’t need to label all the thoughts. For example, when I find myself thinking inconsequential or mundane thoughts, I use generic labels such as “planning,” “fantasizing,” “daydreaming,” or “conversing.” Labeling this way makes it clear to me what my mind is doing. And it usually interrupts the pattern enough to move me out of the mental realm.

However, when I become aware of even the hint of an emotion, I return to labeling the specific thought. For example, I’m meditating and my body is starting to ache from sitting still in a cross-legged position. I become aware that I’m feeling agitated and catch my mind believing that this is too hard. I immediately identify the thought, saying to myself, “Having a believed thought that this is too hard.” “Having a believed thought that I have to move.” After some practice labeling in this way, the unspoken thought that’s running the whole show—if there is one—may gradually become clear. Here I might see my basic underlying belief, “Life should be free from pain,” or “Life should be comfortable.” As this belief becomes clear, I label it in the same way. There’s quite a difference between thinking,
thus believing
, that life should be comfortable and saying, “Having a believed thought that life should be comfortable.”

Although we might label it a hundred or a thousand times, at some point we see that even the most stubborn thought is not necessarily the truth about reality, but just a thought. We might also see that this particular thought has been silently directing our behavior. Here we become aware, where before we were blind. Our blind spots are blind by definition, but with the meticulous application of thought-labeling, the light of awareness begins to clarify the once unseen beliefs that have dictated many of our unskillful behavior patterns.

We often don’t realize the extent of our own blind spots, how we don’t know ourselves, and all the havoc we create—the unending havoc—with both ourselves and others. We can know all about practice. We can know all about the techniques. But sometimes we underestimate the relentlessness and the honesty that are required to really face the fears out of which all our blind beliefs and behaviors arise.

The problem, in a way, is that we know too much. We certainly think too much. We often talk too much. It’s very easy to have knowing, thinking, and talking replace the hard work—the often painful work—of genuine practice. Not to say that practice has to be a dark and grim task. The more honest we are at looking at ourselves, at seeing through our blind spots and cover strategies, the lighter we become. Why? Because in becoming more aware, we can give up our unnecessary baggage—the self-images that we cling to, the pretenses, the someone special we think we need to be.

The first time I met Joko Beck was in a formal interview at a retreat, and I was anxious about how to relate to a famous Zen teacher. I sat down and told her my name. She asked me, “Where are you from?” I immediately froze in fear; I thought she was asking me the ultimate Zen question. When I answered “I don’t know,” she burst out laughing. She meant “Where did I live?”! I had come in with so many assumptions—about what Zen was, what a famous Zen teacher would be like, who I was supposed to be—and it never occurred to me to
inspect these pictures. Because I had not yet learned the value of labeling thoughts, I bought into my pictures as uninspected truths. Since then I have seen time and again how crucial this basic practice of thought-labeling can be in clarifying the countless layers of illusions that silently run our lives.

But sometimes we forget that this process takes time and perseverance. Sometimes we forget about all the basic training we must do, not just in the beginning but throughout the practice life—about how often we have to repeat our efforts, such as with thought-labeling.

Thought-labeling is a primary tool in helping us to see the holes in the Swiss cheese for what they are. As we break our identification with our beliefs, we no longer call them “me.” And as we stop believing in each little hole, we relate increasingly from the clarity of the bigger whole. But we must realize that thought-labeling does not come naturally or easily. The precision, honesty, and perseverance required to do this practice meticulously may take years to develop.

Clarifying our belief systems is about becoming aware. But this approach is just part of our basic practice. The second approach, which is equally essential, is more difficult to describe clearly. This second approach can be called
experiencing
. What experiencing is we will touch on throughout this book, in a variety of contexts. Essentially it’s an awareness of the physical reality of the present moment. In part it’s an awareness of the sensations in the body, including—but not limited to—the sensations of the breath; it’s also an awareness of environmental phenomena such as sounds, sights, and smells.

To get a taste of this, become aware right now. What do you feel in your body? Where are your strongest sensations? Pick one sensation: specifically how does it feel? What is its texture? Now become aware of the environment. Are there any sounds? How does the air feel on your skin? Notice how unfamiliar this experiencing of the physical reality of the present moment may be to you. Notice the sense of presence that comes upon leaving
the mental world and entering the physical experience of the moment. This experiencing is only possible when we are not caught in thinking.

This two-part approach to practice—clarifying our beliefs and experiencing physical reality—allows us to widen our container of awareness to include even our most difficult emotional reactions to life. We can even learn to relate to our worst fears, our deepest shame, our most unwanted feelings—whatever “holes” we’re caught in—in a new way. As we clarify our believed thoughts, no longer taking them as truth, and as we reside in the bodily component of our experience, we begin to see that our experience of these little holes is actually nothing more than a combination of deeply believed thoughts and a complex of subtle and not-so-subtle uncomfortable bodily sensations. Seeing this—and I mean seeing it in the way that fosters real understanding—is a taste of freedom.

As our container of awareness enlarges, we find that we can now be with these little holes while not believing in them quite so solidly. With awareness, our artificial, self-limiting view of who we are becomes more porous. We can then begin to connect with the reality of life as it is. It’s like taking off our colored glasses and seeing without the filter of our conditioning, desires, and judgments. It’s like taking our foot out of a tight shoe: the sense of restriction and boundary disappears.

But of course, within no time at all, we reclaim our colored glasses and tight shoes. For though we sense the freedom of living with what is, we still prefer our familiar patterns, tight shoes and all! The process of settling into the willingness to just be is slow and halting. Resistance within the process returns again and again. As we practice, we continually struggle between the yes and the no, between residing in the struggle and spinning off toward our illusion of comfort and security.

But somewhere along the way, the gradual shift from unwillingness to willingness may take place. It is this crucial shift,
to
the willingness to just be
, that finally allows us to be with life as it is—holes and all. Again, the holes don’t necessarily go away; we simply see them for what they are, no longer investing them with solid belief. This transformative process is both the heart and the fruit of practice.

4

Experiencing and the Witness

A
S WE EXAMINE THE PRACTICE LIFE
, a word that will keep coming up is
experiencing
. What exactly does it mean, to experience? Can we define it? Can we describe it?

Unfortunately, “experiencing” can’t be adequately described, and it certainly can’t be defined. We have to learn what it means from the inside, as a living reality. At first we might equate it with bringing awareness to particular sensations, such as those of the breath. We focus on the coolness as the breath enters the nostrils or the feeling of the upper body as it rises and falls with our inhalations and exhalations. And bringing awareness to the breath in this focused way grounds us in physical reality. Entering the world of physical reality takes us out of our spinning mental world and provides a taste of experiencing.

But experiencing cannot be reduced to just single sensations, although it is only by starting at this end of the awareness continuum that we can begin to approach the depth and breadth that the process of experiencing can be. Often, on this end of the continuum, we can experience the concentrated states called
samadhi
, in which we become fully absorbed in the object of concentration. By fully focusing on the breath or the light of a candle or sounds (such as chanting or music), we can sometimes even lose our sense of “self.” But again, these focused states are only preliminary ones. What is important about them is that they ground us in the physical reality of the moment rather than in our thoughts. However, in terms of
experiencing, they are still very limited, in that they are mainly shutting life out. Experiencing always entails being awake and aware, and we can’t be awake and aware when we are absorbed in a narrow band of sensory input.

In approaching the gestalt awareness that we call experiencing, many have found helpful the meditation exercise called the Three-by-Three. In this practice you bring three different aspects of sensory input into awareness simultaneously and hold them for three complete breaths. For example, you could first bring awareness to the sensations of the breath and then, while staying with that, begin to include the sense of touch in your hands as they rest in your lap. And then, while staying with awareness of breath and touch, expand your awareness to include the perception of sound, and then hold all three together for three complete breaths.

To get a taste of the Three-by-Three, try this: first bring awareness to the sensations of the breath. Be sure you are feeling the physical quality of the breath, not just the thought of the breath. Now add to awareness the feeling of the air on your skin. Feel the temperature and the texture of the air. Now, while maintaining awareness of the breath and the air, expand your awareness to include the feeling of presence in your posture. Hold these three components—the breath, the air, and the posture—in awareness for three full breaths.

You can do this for several rounds of three breaths, using a variety of focal points: your feet, the top of your head, your mouth, back, or buttocks. You can use sight (shapes, colors, shadows) or any prevailing sensations or tensions in the body. The point is to expand the awareness,
based in physical reality
, and hold it without slipping back into thought. In directing awareness to the three different points of focus, we experience more fully
what is happening right now
. This can be difficult, especially in the beginning, but when you do this exercise over and over, the container of awareness gradually widens. At some point you may experience a literal jump into “witness” space,
in which you no longer identify solely with the sense of “me” that is our usual orientation.

In this wider container of the witness awareness, there is a strong sense of attending but not to any particular thing. Awareness simply moves to whatever presents itself to our field of sensations and perceptions. We go beyond intentionally directing awareness, as in following the breath or practicing the Three-by-Three. The awareness moves from one point of focus to another, often attending to several aspects simultaneously. Without attempting to hold any of these aspects as a reference point, we witness the sensory world from a clear, alert perspective. This is “experiencing.”

Students often get confused with the different terminology. Certain questions often arise. How does the “observer” fit in? Is the observer the same as or different from the witness? Generally there is no witness, just as there is no observer. These are simply descriptions of different stages in the continuum of widening awareness. The observer is a description of the stage at which we begin observing ourselves as if from outside ourselves. But there is still a strong sense of a “self” who is doing the observing. As we approach the witness stage, we experience a sense of stillness and spaciousness and less sense of a “self” witnessing. It isn’t that we are distant from our experience. In fact, in witness awareness, we feel a strong sense of presence and connection. But these descriptions of the continuum of awareness are only theoretical. The point is to experience this continuum for ourselves, from the inside.

One essential aspect of experiencing is that the more we are experiencing, the less we are caught in thinking. The reverse is also true: the more we are caught in thinking, the less we are capable of actually experiencing. That’s why the technique of thought-labeling is preliminary and complementary to experiencing: as long as we believe in our thoughts, we remain locked in the mental world, cut off from the physical reality of the moment.