More on Vipassana
I thought that meditation was a simple thing. But seeing people doing Vipassana, I am losing all hope of ever becoming a successful meditator. Please give me a little encouragement.
Meditation is simple. Precisely because it is simple, it looks
difficult. Your mind is accustomed to dealing with difficult
problems, and it has completely forgotten how to respond to the
simple things of life. The more simple a thing is, the more
difficult it looks to the mind, because the mind is very efficient
in solving difficult things. It has been trained to solve difficult
things, it does not know how to tackle the simple. Meditation is
simple, your mind is complex. It is not a problem that meditation is
creating. The problem is coming from your mind, not from meditation.
Vipassana is the most simple meditation in the world. It is
through vipassana that Buddha became enlightened, and it is through
vipassana that many more people have become enlightened than through
any other method. Vipassana is the method. Yes, there are other
methods also, but they have helped only very few people. Vipassana
has helped thousands, and it is really very simple; is not like
yoga.
Yoga is difficult, arduous, complex.You have to torture yourself
in many ways: distort your body, contort your body, sit this way and
that, torture, stand on your head - exercises and exercises... but
yoga seems to be very appealing to people.
Vipassana is so simple that you don′t take any note of it.
In fact, coming across vipassana for the first time, one doubts
whether it can be called a meditation at all. What is it? - no
physical exercise, no breathing exercise; a very simple phenomenon:
just watching your breath coming in, going out... finished, this is
the method; sitting silently, watching your breath coming in, going
out; not losing track, that′s all. Not that you have to change your
breathing - it is not pranayam; it is not a breathing exercise where
you have to take deep breaths, exhale, inhale, no. Let the breathing
be simple, as it is. You just have to bring one new quality to it:
awareness.
The breath goes out, watch; the breath comes in, watch. You will
become aware: the breath touching your nostrils at one point, you
will become aware. You can concentrate there: the breath comes in,
you feel the touch of the breath on the nostrils; then it goes out,
you feel the touch again. Remain there at the tip of the nose. It is
not that you have to concentrate at the tip of the nose; you have
just to be alert, aware, watchful. It is not concentration. Don′t
miss, just go on remembering. In the beginning you will miss again
and again; then bring yourself back If it is difficult for you - for
a few people it is difficult to watch it there - then they can watch
the breath in the belly. When the breath goes in, the belly goes up;
when the breath goes out, the belly goes in. You go on watching your
belly. If you have a really good belly, it will help.
Have you watched? If you see Indian statues of Buddha, those
statues don′t have real bellies - in fact, no belly at all. Buddha
looks a perfect athlete: chest coming out, belly in. But if you see
a Japanese statue of Buddha you will be surprised: it does not look
buddhalike at all - a big belly, so big that you cannot sec the
chest at all, almost as if Buddha is pregnant, all belly. The reason
why this change happened is that in India, while Buddha was alive,
he himself was watching the breath at the nose, hence the belly
was not important at all. But as Vipassana moved from India to Tibet
to China to Korea to Burma to Japan, slowly, slowly people became
aware that it is easier to watch in the belly than at the nose. Then
Buddha-statues started becoming different, with bigger bellies.
You can watch either at the belly or at the nose, whichever feels
right for you or whichever feels easier for you. That it be easier
is the point. And just watching the breath, miracles happen.
Meditation is not difficult. It is simple. Precisely because it
is simple you are feeling the difficulty. You would like to do many
things, and there is nothing to do; that is the problem. It is a
great problem, because we have been taught to do things. We ask what
should be done, and meditation means a state of non-doing: you have
not to do anything, you have to stop doing. You have to be in a
state of utter inaction. Even thinking is a kind of doing - drop
that too. Feeling is a kind of doing - drop that too. Doing,
thinking, feeling - all gone, you simply are. That is being. And
being is meditation. It is very simple.
In your mother′s womb you were in the same space. In vipassana
you will be entering again into the same space. And you will
remember, you will have a deja-vu. When you enter into deep
vipassana, you will be surprised that you know it, you have known it
before. You will recognize it immediately because for nine months in
your mother′s womb you were in the same space, doing nothing, just
being.
You ask me:
I thought that meditation was simple thing, but seeing people doing vipasssana I am losing all hope of every becoming a successful meditator
Never think about meditation in terms of success.
Because that is bringing your achieving mind into it, the
egoistic mind into it. Then meditation becomes your egotrip. Don′t
think in terms of success or failure. Those terms are not applicable
in the world of meditation. Forget all about that. Those are mind
terms; they are comparative. And that′s the problem: you must be
watching others succeeding, reaching, ecstatic, and you will be
feeling very low. You will be feeling silly, sitting and looking at
your breath, watching your breath. You must be looking very silly
and nothing is happening. Nothing is happening because you are
expecting something to happen too much.
And in the beginning, every new process looks difficult. One has
to learn the taste of it.
A lady′s husband was a souse, yet she had never in her life
tasted alcohol.
"Here, you souse, give me that bottle. I want to taste whatever it
is that has made you the bum you are."
Taking the bottle of cheap whiskey, she took a good gulp of it.
"Aargh... glompf... breecch... fuy... brrrit... ptui!" she gasped.
"That is the most vile-tasting liquid I have ever had the misfortune
to let pass my lips. It tastes terrible!"
"Y′see?" said the old man. "An′ all these years you thought I was
having a good time."
Just wait a little. Just a little patience. In the beginning everything looks difficult, even the simplest thing. And don′t be in a hurry. That is one of the problems with the Western mind - hurry. People want everything immediately. They think in terms of instant coffee, instant meditation, instant enlightenment.
A city slicker had just inherited a farm full of cows and, being
a shrewd operator, decided to increase his herd right away.
Accordingly, he imported three of the finest bulls in the area and
locked them in the barn overnight with the cows. The next morning he
called the owner of the bulls to complain.
The stud-man laughed. "What did you expect?" he asked. Did you think
you′d find calves the next day?"
"Maybe not," retorted the city slicker. "But I sure did expect to
see a few smiling faces on those cows!"
No, not even that is going to happen soon. Just sitting for one
day in vipassana, you will not come out of it smiling. You will come
out utterly tired - tired because you were told not to do anything,
tired because you have never been in such a silly thing ever before.
Not doing anything? You are a doer! If you had chopped wood the
whole day you would not have been so tired. But sitting silently,
doing nothing, just watching your silly breath going in, coming out, many times the idea arises, "What am I doing here?" And the
time will look very, very long, because time is relative. The time
will become very long. One day′s meditation will look as if years
and years have passed - "And what has happened? Is not the sun going
to set today? When is it going to finish?"
If you are in a hurry, if you are in haste, you will never know
the taste of meditation.
The taste of meditation needs great patience, infinite patience.
Meditation is simple, but you have become so complex that to
relax it will take time. It is not the meditation that is taking
time - let me remind you again - it is your complex mind. It has to
be brought down to a rest, to a relaxed state. That takes time.
And don′t think in terms of success and failure. Enjoy! Don′t be
too goal-oriented. Enjoy the sheer silence of watching your breath
coming in, going out, and soon you will have a beauty, a new
experience of beauty and beatitude. Soon you will see that one need
not go anywhere to be blissful. One can sit silently, be alone, and
be blissful. Nothing else is needed, just the pulsation of life is
enough. If you can pulsate with it, it becomes a deep inner dance.
Meditation is a dance of your energy and breath is the key
(Osho - The Guest #15)