It’s Not About Relaxation
I think for this post I’ll get back to basics. It’s in response to a question a friend asked me the other day … a very, very … very … basic question which nonetheless, is one of the most important pieces in the meditation puzzle.
He asked me what the difference is between relaxation exercises and meditation.
A seemingly simple question, but one that is entirely understandable nonetheless, given the way meditation is trivialized by the Western media as simply an easy and efficient way to relax – a kind of natural high.
Even well educated people, on finding out that I meditate, tend to come up with the same question:
“So … what is that? You relax, like … uh … sleep?”
In keener times I’d try to cram a whole meditation lesson into 5 minutes to educate them, because the ignorance seemed so … not offensive, so much as sad … to me anyway. Now I just say, “No, it’s something else,” and leave it at that. Most times then they change the subject – or they ask another question: ‘So if it’s not relaxation, what is it?’
My answer to that question is what this post is about
Meditation is NOT concerned with whether you’re relaxed or not. How you are is how you are. And neither was it in its ancient origins throughout Asia ever about relaxation – it was always seen as training for something much more profound.
For sure, relaxation may well occur as result of meditation. So too it might in just about anything in a life. But relaxation is not the objective, nor is it even considered significant by those who truly understand meditation. Neither is ‘calm’ all that important – though, like relaxation, it well might occur, or it might not. It doesn’t matter either way.
For sure meditation is more pleasant if one is calm and relaxed but, like any skill, it does not require pleasantness to be effective. To use an analogy, calm and relaxation are not the peak of the mountain one climbs in meditation – they are simply possibilities that may happen on the way up.
One of my teachers once told me: ‘Struggle is good! When you struggle in meditation, the mind learns more.’ This was a great relief to me, because each year I came to the monastery thinking that this time meditation would go smoothly, and I would finally discover the peace and bliss I’d always expected. Then, as the first week passed, I’d find myself struggling with the same boredom, restlessness, daydreaming, remembering, wanting, itching and aching I’d experienced last time. I felt like I was failing terribly – (though not as badly as the Englishman in the hut next door, who used to beat his head against a wall, muttering: ‘Thinking! Thinking! Thinking!!!!”)
So it was reassuring when my teacher laughed and said, ‘Calm is for when you are dead,’
Nevertheless, it took many years of practice me for me to lose my conditioned expectations of calm, relaxation and bliss, and see meditation as what it actually is.
So then, what is meditation if it is not about calm and relaxation?
The short answer is, meditation is a way of retraining the mind to use its attention more efficiently – to be aware of what it is paying attention to, and be more discriminating about which things it energizes with its attention. This kind of ongoing awareness and discipline causes the mind to process our life more efficiently – particularly when it comes to our reactions to the natural friction of life.
So, though increased calm, relaxation and creativity may well occur as a result of this, they are not indicators of success or failure at any stage of meditation practice. In fact, as I’ve said in previous posts, there is no success or failure in meditation. Unlike every other activity in our life, from sport, to work, to sex and most other things, meditation has no performance indicator. We simply practice. We do it. And that act of ‘doing’ slowly changes our mental habits, to create a mind that is more agile, clear, and able to see beyond its conditioned reactions.
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Roger’s book, ‘BEING STILL – MEDITATION THAT MAKES SENSE’ is available now. Just click on the links below:
AUDIOBOOK (including ebook & MP3 exercises) – AUD $25.00
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Hey Roger,
Lovely post and as usual I love your artwork.
Would you say (to sum it up very briefly) that meditation is a way to retrain our mind from the habitual ‘push and pull’ reaction from everyday experience? To learn to simply be with what is and get out of our own way?
You mention that meditation isn’t relaxation but II have noticed though in my own practice that when I do relax into whatever I experience (and 99% of the time there is a degree of agitation there, sometimes tremendous. Sometimes very subtle), it helps such friction to slowly dissolve and ironically I do feel more relaxed because I’m not tangling myself in knots like we do unconsciously in life. So maybe meditation is a strange form of relaxation, not in the sense of being a soothing bubble bath but more a slow removal of the splinters within ourself which make walking this earth harder a slightly smoother, slightly more relaxing journey!
Sorry I’m probably just being pedantic, always appreciate your posts!
Benoit
Hi Benoit,
Yes, as you said, ‘meditation is a way to retrain our mind from the habitual ‘push and pull’ reaction from everyday experience? To learn to simply be with what is and get out of our own way?’
One could also say that meditation trains the the mind to gain the capacity to be able to step out of the well-worn path of its habits, stop sleep-walking through life, and experience the experience our body is actually living in.
Not pedantic at all. Nicely written.
cheers Roger