A Meditation on Meditation

I’ve played with meditation for a few decades, since my 20’s, but always half-heartedly, and always with a vaporous, quasi-spiritual, otherworldly desire – until recently. My friend G and I got back last week from a 3-day “Learn to Meditate” retreat at the Shambhala Mountain Center near Fort Collins, CO, and the experience changed my thinking about and approach to the practice of meditation.

On the first day, we were given practical advice for dealing with the altitude (we were at about 8000 feet). Then we were taught a good sitting posture, fairly comfortable from the start even for stiff middle-aged westerners. We tried it out that first night with a brief (10-minute) sitting meditation, but mostly, we were introduced to the intention of shamatha (Shambhala) meditation – to focus attention on the breath. That’s it. No mantras, no contemplating the nature of the universe, no Buddhist dogma, no reaching out for alternate realities – just the practice of keeping one’s attention on the breath. And not thinking about the breath – just experiencing it, being aware of it, in the present moment, as it’s happening.

Shambhala, according to their center in Minneapolis, “incorporates the teachings of the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions of Tibetan Buddhism, with the Shambhala vision of living an uplifted life, fully engaged with the world. According to the Shambhala tradition, there is inherent goodness and sanity in all human beings. This potential can be recognized and developed through…meditation. Its simplest form is rooted in the sitting practice of meditation where one works with the breath. We call this mindfulness/awareness meditation. Developing mindfulness cultivates a mind that rests calmly, and developing awareness cultivates a mind that sees clearly."

Over the course of the next day and half, we practiced sitting and walking meditations several times a day, interspersed with shamatha yoga postures, talks, and readings from Shambhala spiritual leader Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche’s book, Turning the Mind Into an Ally. 

The highlight of the weekend was a 20-minute hike up the mountain to the Great Stupa of Dharmakaya. Stupas are traditionally memorials to great teachers and their teachings, as well as reliquaries (safekeeping for relics, usually bones, of such teachers). The Great Stupa is the only one in North America, and it’s a breathtaking 3-story work of art, both inside and out, with carved statues, marble pomegranates and lotus blossoms in the floors, gilded wall carvings. We got to do a walking meditation around the outside of the Stupa and a sitting meditation inside, in front of a 30-foot golden Buddha. And later, when G and I walked back up and no one was around, I sang in the Stupa, where the notes echoed and hung in the air of that amazing circular space.

Over the years, I’ve spent time around the Catholic church, Presbyterian church, and the Holy Order of Mans (a 70’s San Fran-based group with communities in Omaha and Lincoln, NE). I’ve studied and taught as literature the sacred texts of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism.  Though I’ve never found a spiritual “home” in any one tradition, I’ve always felt that meditation is the key to unlocking direct experience – to knowing. And I believe that no matter what goes on out here in the world, it will ultimately be meaningless without some attention to my own spiritual center. So I’m grateful that I was able to give myself the gift of this retreat.

I know I’ve only peeked through the Shambhala/Buddhism door, and that the mansion goes on forever. But what I love about Buddhism is its philosophy of non-judgmental, compassionate detachment. Detachment isn’t cold ambivalence or indifference – it’s loving and objective. And what draws me to the Shambhala meditation practice is its practical, non-dogmatic “this is a path, not a destination” approach. So I’ve made a little meditation shrine of my own, and I’m delighting in my daily practice. Interestingly (maybe only to me), it’s not a big leap from meditation to poetry – poetry is a practiced craft, not a product. Likewise, meditation is not the answer – not the finished poem. But it is, I believe, the heart of good, hard work that for the present, at least, is moving me forward.