Since I started my Meditation and Mindfulness Teacher Certificate Program, I have come across the same remark over and over again.
The assumption is that meditation is a sitting practice. We all have the image of a monk sitting in a lotus position and we imagine that this monk’s mind is absolutely empty. The practice of mindfulness in a formal sitting situation is probably the hardest of all the meditation practice there is. Being still and letting the mind wander, and trying to take it back to focus, again, and again, and again, and again. Trying to stop judging the practice, stop our expectation of what the practice should look or feel like, try to quiet our planning and calculating mind. It is hard.
I’m not sure why we all hope for an empty mind. But let me talk about some of the ways I meditate and practice mindfulness.
When I started formal practice, I didn’t expect my teachers to tell me that I was already a meditator. It appears that I am highly trained as a movement meditator: I trained as an athlete in my early age, and when I left sport I continued with music. I have been practising the violin for 30 years and have recognise that state of flow many times while practising or playing in concerts. Mihaly Csiksgentmihalyi’s research on the state of flow fascinated me when I was doing my Masters as a violinist and I tried to get there through music, through sound again and again. That state of being is mindfulness practice, in movement, with sound as an anchor.
So - what is meditation?
Formal meditation practice traditionally uses an anchor to develop your sense of focus - usually the breath is the first anchor one explores. I personally couldn’t start with the breath - I had past issues to uncover with breathing. Something to do with wanting not to be heard and seen as a child, not wanting to bother and be a burden for my already traumatised family. So I breathed as shallow and little as possible. The plus side of that weird unconscious training was that I was a very good swimmer and could hold my breath under water for a long time. The down side is that when I started meditating, I was suffocating.
I was invited to use other anchors. I explored sound, bodily sensations, taste, smell (trying to bypass the breathing through smell) - basically using other senses - and the one that worked best for me was sensing my hands. As a violinist, sensing my fingers and hand felt very natural and slightly strange at first. I could feel how alive they were - tingling, heart beating in my fingers, warmth, restlessness…
I started practicing mindfulness when I was washing the dishes, doing the laundry, cooking - practices suggested by Thích Nhất Hạnh. Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist monk, peace activist, and founder of the Plum Village Tradition, historically recognized as the main inspiration for engaged Buddhism, Thai’s traditions and practices have had a huge impact on me. They simply manage to lift me out of depression and helped the process of recovery alongside therapy. The retreats I did with the community of Monks in Plum Village introduced me to what it meant to be mindful in every moments of the day. May I be eating, walking, talking, watching, observing the world, waking up or trying to fall asleep.
I struggled with formal sitting for a long time. I couldn’t sit for more than 10 minutes, the noise in my mind would just grow so much it would overwhelm me. Incapable of taming the madness in there. But little by little, with guidance and perseverance, like any practice, my practice evolved.
I found my way back to playing the violin with pleasure during the summer. From opening the case, smelling the varnish and rosin, touching the beautifully crafted instrument, connecting to its history, sensing its vibration on my collarbone and in my chest. Finding more acute sensations in my body, everywhere, through sound.
Being the sound… there is something inexplicable about music, you can’t touch it, but it physiologically changes you from within.
It’s exactly like finding yourself in a deep formal meditation - it literally turns your skin inside out.
You touch what makes you, you - as scary as it may be!