Concentrative Meditation
Committed to the practice of meditation but not getting anywhere, a disciple approached his master and said, “I’m feeling really bored and restless. I’m unable to meditate.”
“Don’t worry, don’t react. It’ll pass. Don’t lose your resolve.
Stay course,” the guru said.
Another few weeks later he sounded really excited and said, “Oh, I’m having the greatest time of my life. Meditation has never been so good.”
“Don’t be so pleased, don’t react. It’ll pass too. Don’t lose sight of your path,” warned the guru.
Yet, another week later a dejected disciple stood in front of his guru lamenting he was experiencing none of the meditational equipoise and bliss he had been enjoying until last week.
“Please tell me master what should I do?’
“Nothing at all, this too shall pass. Stay course,” said the guru calmly.
This is how your sessions of meditation are going to be like for the first few thousand hours. There’ll be good days and there’ll be bad days. There will be days when you’ll have had perfect sessions of meditation and there will be days when you’ll want to give up altogether. The key is to persist. As you gain perfection though, the act of meditation begins to disappear. It metamorphoses into a state, it is no longer an act but a state – the meditative state. You remain in a meditative state regardless of what you may be doing. In that state, you experience the same stillness, quietude and alertness that you do at the peak of your meditation practice. Of the six types of meditation, concentrative meditation is the hardest of all. It specifically works on breaking the hardened tendencies of mind, and our mind loathes nothing more than being tamed. It wants to be free and dictatorial. Concentrative meditation turns the mind of a meditator into a genie – available
to serve you at your command, however you please.
One of the greatest rewards of concentrative meditation is the irreversible transformation it brings in you. Your habits, thoughts, emotions no longer provoke you like the earlier times. Internal or external triggers don’t throw you off balance.
Imagine someone is attacking you verbally, they are saying things that are untrue and they are trying to hurt your sentiments. If they succeed in such provocation, you may yell back at them or get angry yourself. If you get angry, you have lost the battle. What if you just didn’t feel angry at all? There is a subtle difference in not feeling angry versus not expressing it. If you get angry but don’t express it, such suppression causes emotional damage.
What if you just didn’t feel angry, what if no undesirable reaction sprouted in you? Essentially, this is what concentrative meditation does. Your mindfulness and alertness rises to a degree that you are able to choose your response at all times without falling prey to negative emotions. It comes naturally from the stillness of body and mind. The noise of thoughts become feeble and they lose their steam.
In concentrative meditation, you settle your mind on your chosen object of meditation which could be an image, breath, a mantra or plain void. While the other five methods of meditation are a lot more lenient about your body posture, concentrative meditation requires complete mastery of your posture. This is mostly because success in this form of meditation demands complete stillness of the body.
Until you are able to achieve perfect stillness, you will not be able to lose body consciousness, that is, you will continue to have distracting awareness of your body during your sessions of meditation. And till the time you are able to completely rise above your body, you are not going to experience any cosmic oneness. Until you are able to achieve perfect stillness, all your experiences are going to be mere intellectual fabrication, they will have no intrinsic value and will remain mostly meaningless. Such experiences are not replicable. They do not purify, cleanse, guide or strengthen you; this is the harsh truth. An intense practice of concentration stills the ten vital energies in your body helping you gain complete control in sitting still like a rock with ease.
How to Do It Right
Stillness of the body and mind comes with great practice. Here’s how to perform concentrative meditation:
Sit in a comfortable posture, preferably crossed-legged.
Keep your back and head straight. Neck, slightly bent, just only.
Abandon all body movements.
Yoke your focus on any object.
Maintain great mindfulness.
Please review and follow the eight elements of a yogic posture and the six principles of meditation. They are entirely applicable to the practice of concentrative meditation. Once seated comfortably but correctly, start building your focus on your chosen object of meditation with complete alertness and mindfulness. Your mind will go north and south, but you must bring it back to your point of concentration. You’ll be hit by thoughts, just gently bring it back. Images will flash, emotions will rise – let them. You just gently bring your attention back to your point of focus.
Madhyamaka Hridya states, “If one is overcome with distraction, one should retreat and regard it as being a harmful sign of perceptive diversion.”26 Thus, whenever you discover that your mind is getting bombarded with other thoughts and emotions (which it will), simply understand that they are distractions. Ignore them and carry on with your concentration. Remember that thoughts are merely thoughts, devoid of any essence. Don’t analyze, pursue, accept, process or examine any thought whatsoever. Our goal is to build non-discriminatory, unblemished, sharp and lucid concentration. If you are meditating correctly, the craving for sensory pleasures will disappear on its own.
Each time your mind wanders off, bring it back to the point of focus. Over time you will develop razor-sharp awareness; so that, you will become aware of each emerging thought before it turns into a distraction.
If you find yourself slouching or leaning in any of the four directions, just gently correct your posture. Don’t forget to maintain a gentle smile and steadily retain focus on your chosen object.
I must reiterate that it is absolutely critical to note that during concentrative meditation, you must stay away from all intellectual examination, contemplation and cogitation. For example, let us say, that you are meditating on a form, of Krishna’s idol in front of you. Do not start examining the characteristics of the idol or start thinking about Krishna, his pastimes, his life and so forth. Just keep your attention focused at his form. In the initial stages, if you start contemplating before attaining one-pointed concentration, your mind will wander off and you may not even realize.
Do not accept, reject, examine, follow, engage in or pursue your thoughts. Simply do not act or react. Just gently maintain your concentration. Maintain short but crisp and lucid sessions of meditation. An untamed mind cannot stay on a thought for any longer than a few seconds. I would recommend that rather than doing one session of 45 minutes, do three lucid and crisp sessions of fifteen minutes. They will bring much greater benefit. Over time, as you get better, you can gradually increase the duration. I would also like to tell you that there is no joy in concentrative meditation, in the actual practice. But once you start to experience a quiescent mind, you will be addicted to meditation.
Four Types of Objects to Meditate On
Repeatedly, I’ve used the term ‘object of meditation’. What do I mean by that? This brings me to the four types of objects to choose from when it comes to concentrative meditation. You can pick any of the four and you should also feel free to switch from one to the other, either to find out what suits you better or to give your mind a break. For example, if you are meditating on a form and are tired after 60 minutes but you wish to continue your session for another half an hour, you could meditate on your breath or anything else. Change refreshes the mind and brings the lucidity back in meditation.