Meditation should be easy - Tilopa's 6 Nails.

I read something earlier this week about Meditation. It said something along the lines of: Meditation isn't about being intense. Meditation is about letting go and settling the mind and body into ease. Thoughts on ease and meditation:

I really like meditation and I generally don't find it very difficult, but there are days when I just don't feel like sitting at all. Reading that, I recognised that when I don’t feel like sitting, it’s also usually the time when I feel as if meditation is going to be intense or hard work. At times like that, my mind doesn’t think of sitting as being easy. To develop or maintain a regular meditation practice it's really important to make it feel easy. Meditation shouldn't be about being difficult; meditation is all about settling into an experience that feels open and relaxed.

To stand a better chance at developing or maintaining a regular meditation practice, we need to learn how to be comfortable in meditation and think of a way to make meditation enjoyable.

If we could generate the same kind of enjoyment about meditation as we feel about our favourite thing, we would never miss a day! So this leads me to a thought I had about enjoyment: What do I do every day which I really enjoy, which makes my heart sing?

What is enjoyable for you? What do you do every day that is enjoyable, that you love? That you look forward to? Or, to use other words: what do we appreciate?

Perhaps it’s the first cup of coffee in the morning? Or reading a book or a magazine. It could be playing an instrument or game, or watching a favourite t.v show. It could be something very simple like taking a walk in the garden, listening to birds sing, watching the sun set or feeling the sand and grass in between your toes.

Think about it: do you feel the same way about your meditation practice as you do about the one enjoyable thing you do every day? Imagine if you thought meditation was just as enjoyable as that? It could be. It reminds me of the old saying "Fake it till you make it" If we can learn to generate the same kind of feeling of enjoyment in our heart for meditation as we have for that cup of coffee, it will make sitting really much easier.

While dabbling around and thinking about how to make meditation easier, I came across 6 simple instructions known as "Tilopa’s Six Nails" Tilopa gives us 6 really concise instructions on how to meditate. I'm hoping you will find some ease in this. :)

Tilopa was a 'mahasiddha', a master teacher, from India or present day Bengal. He lived in around the 11th Century. By all accounts he was a bit of a rebel. He was expelled from his monastery for engaging in relations with a woman. He profited from his expulsion by travelling throughout India, searching out many teachers and learning their methods.

Although he chose to live his life in remote and inhospitable regions, in the end his teacher sent him to live with a prostitute and earn his living grinding sesame seeds to make oil. In Sanskrit the word "Til" means oil, which is where his name Til-opa comes from, by which he became known.

Over the course of his life he became a very experienced meditator with a profound understanding of the mind, and one of his students was the prostitute he worked for.

Tilopas original 6 nails or 6 instructions are still found in written form in Tibet. The translation of his instructions for sitting in meditation are:

When you sit:

Don’t remember.

Don’t imagine.

Don’t think.

Don’t examine.

Don’t control.

Rest.

This is what the experience of meditation is all about. Don't do anything, just sit and rest. Can we just be with what arises during the sitting and at the same time leave it alone?

What does it all mean?

1.) Don’t recall or remember - Let go of what has passed. Don’t replay old scenarios, don’t worry about things you may have said, done, left undone.

2.) Don’t imagine - Don’t plan, don’t scheme - Let go of what may come.

3.) Don’t think - This is a difficult one for me, because what constitutes thinking? To my mind, a thought arising is thinking. And our mind can’t stop thoughts arising. And we shouldn't want to stop thoughts arising. So perhaps we could elaborate on this instruction by using a different set of words, yet sticking to the principle: When a thought arises: Don’t judge. Don’t try to change the thought or push it back – don’t try to change the present by adding anything to it, no likes, no dislikes, but simply sit with the present moment and experience it. Just as it is.

4.) Don’t examine - Don’t try to figure anything out, don’t analyse it, don’t give space to your mind for questions, don’t follow doubts.

5.) Don’t control – you can’t project manage meditation. Don’t try to make anything happen – don’t try to formulate a special state of mind, don’t direct your mind, don’t have expectations of a specific outcome.

6.) Rest. Relax, right now, and rest. We have such a habit of restlessness, that for some it is often a very difficult thing to rest. People can make their life so complicated, so busy, that the nervous system almost collapses under the strain, creating all sort of illnesses. We can become so over-stimulated, that it’s challenging to come into a state of rest and stay there.

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Thank you, all, for a wonderful year of meditation sittings. 2019 was a remarkable year. I appreciate everyone's energy and input and wish you all a peaceful slide into 2020.

Metta

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