Various people experience meditation differently. For some people, meditation is initially very comfortable and pleasant, with hardly any distractions and thoughts; then as they continue sitting, they begin to have more thoughts and to feel more disorganized. This may continue to the point that, at the end of the session, they are almost frustrated with all the distractions.
There are many possible reasons for this, but one of the main ones is overexertion: working so hard on the positions and using so much effort that they become uptight. In one sense, they are not paying any attention, but in another sense, in the name of concentration, they are making themselves more tense and uptight. This is not very effective or appropriate; therefore, things do not go very well.
When this happens to you, loosen or relax your positions a bit. What we are looking for is a sense of being well composed and together, both physically and with mental concentration, but also a sense of openness and of being at ease. That is important.
Other people have a different experience of meditation. For them, meditation is initially quite uncomfortable. They feel something is out of balance with the positions, and they have quite a lot of thoughts. Then gradually, as they get toward the end of the session, they have fewer and fewer thoughts and less of a sense of discomfort and inconvenience. At the end, they feel there is good cooperation between mind and breath. Were they to continue meditating, to expand the session, it would be more than appropriate--it would be welcomed. If the meditation is taking this course, with a sense of openness and with fewer distractions, this is generally a sign that things are happening in the proper way. At that point, it is a matter of continuing to work in the same direction.


One very important point is not to leave your meditation practice only to the formal meditation session. When you have completed your session of practice, do not throw it away and go back into your old patterns. If you do that, your experience of the benefits of meditation will happen very slowly and very rarely.
When you have finished your formal practice, you must try to go into the world with the meditation--maybe not fully, but definitely with some element of it, some kind of momentum, some quality of it. For instance, you might go out with some mindfulness of gentleness or softness. Of course, even gentleness can be very aggressive if there is a great deal of stubbornness present. To be strong, to be precise, you do not have to be aggressive. You should go out into the world after meditation with a sense of genuine gentleness and softness.
Once in a while, whenever you can remember, you should alert yourself to the quality of meditation or to some aspect of meditation. You do not have to go through all the positions and follow the breath, but just be with yourself, just rest in some sense of awareness. This is very important to do as frequently as possible. You do not have to spend a long time at it or take on some sort of dazed look, but just for a moment be aware. It could even be at such times as when a cup of tea is coming to your lips. It takes some time until the cup arrives; maybe you could be aware just that time. You could also be aware when you put the cup down, or during any other sort of break.


Some sort of possibility of a shift of awareness is always present, even if you are in the midst of chaos, such as in a crowd, with all kinds of things to figure out, or if you are suddenly subjected to fear or apprehension. In such situations if you could pause just for a moment, it would be like opening a whole new perspective. If there is chaos and confusion, you begin to have a sense of order, or at least some sense of what to do and where to begin. Being caught up in apprehension and fear is actually the opposite of openness. If you are involved in some argument or exchange, being able to come up with a better way of seeing is very very helpful.
Alert yourself to the mindfulness of doing this. If you do it time and time again, you can definitely be assured of having a much clearer picture of things. In this way, meditation practice can help you develop more of a sense of efficiency and precision in your daily activities, your job, career, and everything you do. When some of your chaos and conflict has been cleared away, it is much easier to work with the problems that continue to come up. Even if there is not much profound benefit initially, at least you will have the benefit of getting a sense that if you meditate more, there will definitely be a greater chance of this basic openness developing. Therefore, there is real benefit in terms of clarity of mind and openness. There is more room to work, so to speak, which is very important.


Through disciplining yourself in the formal meditation practice as well as the informal practice of mindfulness, after a while you will experience some benefit. Then you will respond to meditation more easily, so it comes with less effort. In short, in any sort of situation, whether you are writing something or reading a book--even while you are turning the pages--you can come back to yourself and practice this kind of direct mindfulness.
Here is an example of how this recollection of mindfulness can work. In traditional monastic education, memorization (particularly of the different root texts) is very important, so that when the students receive instructions on the various commentaries and meanings, they can quote from many different texts right there on the spot. They have many references for strengthening and clarifying a particular point.
Some younger monks would work very hard during a session of memorizing, but then go off and get involved in playing. Finally, they would realize it was time to get back to work but would have some difficulty getting back to what they had memorized. However, there were other monks who were more responsible and more sensible than the young monks. While they were playing, they would also try to spend a little time recalling the next line, or the next few lines, of what they were memorizing. Afterward, when another session began, they would remember whatever they had memorized in some order, and they continued to remember it.


Briefly reviewing, one of the essential points to remember is the importance of the positions of the body. For any activity to be effective or reach fulfillment, whatever contributes toward its fulfillment and effectiveness should be incorporated into the activity. From this point of view, the different positions of the body contribute to the calming and taming of the mind. Following the breath is used as a technique for further developing the tranquility of the mind. Also, in addition to practicing this informal meditation sessions, remember to incorporate it into your day-to-day activities. By alerting yourself to situations of mindfulness, you should take a moment to be present with yourself and, in this way, relate to the qualities of meditation.
Next I will briefly explain the benefits of meditation practice. First of all, I must say I cannot explain all the benefits that come from meditation practice at this point, and even if I did explain, it probably would not make much sense. We can discuss it though, in terms of immediate benefit, gradual benefit, and long-term benefit. As you practice the stages of meditation, you will experience these various benefits, and they will be explained. The initial point is that the benefit of meditation practice is not simply limited to experiencing a more relaxed or calm state of mind. There is more than that. It is something for us to commit ourselves to and apply in our lives.


One subject to understand is the effect of meditation on our physical bodies. Our bodies are made up of what are called the five elements. The solid, or heavy, aspect of the body is the earth element. The heat and warmth of the body is the fire element. All the different kinds of fluids make up the water element. The lightness, or movement, of the body is the wind or air element. Finally, the various openings and hollow spaces in the body make up the space element. In the midst of this system is the mind.
From the confused point of view, the mind is a constant pattern or chain of thoughts. Because of these continual thoughts, we find ourselves engrossed in all kinds of emotional patterns and habitual tendencies that bring about indulgences and entertainment. This stimulates further discursive thoughts and makes them more real, resulting in more confusion. This is what is called samsaric mind--mind operating according to samsaric patterns. When the mind is not involved in such discursive thoughts and is beyond being subject to habitual and emotional patterns, we refer to it as the enlightened mind or, from the point of view of the Vajrayana teachings, as the "Buddhanature," whose nature is totally pure.


The elements that make up our bodies are not just elements as we usually think of them. These elements also have the quality of wisdom as their essence. You may have heard of incidents involving the bodies of great masters. For instance, after some masters pass away, their bodies dissolve and disappear into a rainbow body with nothing substantial being left behind. When certain other masters pass away, their physical bodies diminish to a very small size. When the bodies of some meditation masters are cremated, relics or rainbows or showers of flowers appear. These are incidents observed by ordinary people, those who have confused perceptions. Beings who are more highly realized witness different, more profound events.
What happens in these events is an expression of what makes up our bodies. The elements in some sense are not just elements. In the case of these great masters, the occurrences described are an expression of their realization of the insubstantial and uncompounded nature of all things. Because they have transcended the clinging to the illusion of reality, their realization is outwardly expressed in these ways.


As a person advances in practice, in addition to the realization of meditation, many exceptional or profound experiences or attributes of realization occur. There have been many such incidents, and it is entirely possible for them to happen to anyone who meditates continuously and diligently.
For instance, a person who is getting older may begin to put on a more youthful appearance. There have been incidents where hair that had become gray began to turn back to its original or natural color, and the person began to have clearer vision. The physical or outward expressions of our bodies are made of different elements but are not simply limited to the functions of the elements.
Instead of becoming senile with age, losing memory and clarity of mind, a meditator may develop a clearer and more stable state of mind. Sometimes people begin to easily understand and have insight into texts and fields of study they were not familiar with previously. There is also an expression that a practitioner can "live on the food of meditation." This means the person is nourished only through the power of meditation, not by eating some sort of nutritious food. These situations actually happen.
If people are constantly involved in anger or tremendous aggression or tremendous attachment, they are overwhelmed by it. So much is dictated by their aggression and attachment that their energy is completely drained, leaving them feeling wiped out. They have the feeling of being older than they really are, and their minds are more scattered and spaced out than they should be. In relating to the activities in life, whether spiritual or mundane, their sense of workability disappears, and they face a state of bleakness. Because their potential for true wisdom has been mishandled or misused, they bring a kind of destruction upon themselves.


In the past, in both Buddhist and non-Buddhist traditions, it was quite popular to wander into the wilderness as an ascetic. The methods for meditation were limited to techniques similar to shamatha. The ascetics would go out and, with great exertion, meditate for months and years under a tree or leaning against a boulder. For one, two, or even several years they could be seen meditating, their bodies looking very weak and almost taking on the color of the tree or the rock. Unless you got a closer look, you might not be able to make them out. They were practically fading into their environment, but still they were surviving.
Because they were not distracted, they developed a certain tranquility of mind. When a meditator has developed this tranquility of mind but has not been introduced to further development of the meditative state, there is a continuous clinging to this tranquility or blissfulness. All this time, they are nurtured or sustained by the wisdom of the tranquil mind, yet because they cling to this tranquility, the wisdom is not recognized. Something is working even though it is not recognized, so even when there is a limited understanding of meditation, some benefit still takes place.


There have been many such incidents in the lives of hinayana practitioners. The view or understanding of those on the hinayana path is that there should be an absolute renunciation and an absolute revulsion toward the pain and suffering of cyclic existence, as well as a tremendous longing for the bliss and tranquility of meditation and for what might be beyond cyclic existence. These practitioners also go into places of isolation and solitude, meditating there for so many years that physically, or outwardly, it is difficult to determine whether they are animate or inanimate, yet a sort of awareness and consciousness continues.
In the mainstream of Buddhist practice, there also have been people who had the good fortune of encountering an outward situation in which the benefits of meditation were manifested. In one particular incident, one meditator's only source of food for three years was the liver of a sheep: Certainly he lost some weight, but other than that, his mind was clear and continuing. Then, of course, we may be more familiar with the great meditator and yogi Milarepa. For many years, Milarepa meditated continuously in the mountains. There is a story about how he lived on nettles, but even that is uncertain because it would have been quite difficult to get nettles in the summer, let alone in the winter. Yet, after many years he was continuing, and with great realization!
If you think practicing meditation brings something profound into your life from outside yourself, you are totally off the track. That is not the correct view, understanding, or reality. The point is to work on the abilities or potential you have within. You yourself have everything needed to develop the very basic and preliminary benefit, as well as the most inconceivably advanced benefit. It is just a matter of recognizing it and being able to tap into it.


I have introduced you to the positions of the body, such as sitting in the vajra position (or if that is not possible, in the cross-legged position), then placing the tips of the thumbs on the first or second joints of the ring fingers and bringing the focus of the eyes down about an elbow's length in front of you. The reason for this is that actually there are five winds that operate within our being.
Each of these winds has wisdom as its essence. When these winds, or wind-energies, go out of our bodies, we begin having all kinds of distractions, all kinds of thoughts in the areas of ignorance or aggression or attachment. This brings us a lot of confusion, because the wisdom quality of these winds is diminished or weakened. The three positions just mentioned keep the" All-Pervasive Wind," (one of the five) in proper control. When the All-Pervasive Wind is kept in good control, the wisdom is also kept in, nurturing our development. These three positions of the body are outward positions, but inwardly they help retain the All-Pervasive Wind.
Another of the seven positions is known as "drawing in." After you have settled into the first three positions, you reestablish the sitting position, bringing in the flesh of your bottom by closing and tightening the sphincter muscles somewhat, as well as pulling in the whole of your abdomen and organs with a certain amount of effort, and then very gently relaxing everything. This is the outward position of the body, but inwardly it contributes to keeping intact what is called the Lower, or Abdominal, Wind and helps retain the wisdom related to this wind.
Our body has certain potentials. For instance, it has the potential to experience the state of well-being and also the potential to keep itself warm. How much of this heat and well-being we experience depends on how well we have tapped into these potentials. By retaining the Lower Wind with this particular position, we are retaining the potential of well-being and the potential of heat. This nurtures the body physically and in turn nurtures the mind toward the development of greater wisdom and sanity.
In the higher tantric traditions, there is a vehicle of meditation known as the Heat Yoga. Doing this practice properly, a person could be in the middle of a cold and snowy place--even naked in the snow--yet feel very warm. At some later time, we may receive the core instructions for doing this practice according to the Vajrayana methods; now I am just presenting some background so you can acquaint yourselves with this possibility.


Another of the positions is keeping the back straight and erect, with the vertebrae of the spinal column in a straight line. By using this position, you provide adequate room for the wind that operates around the navel area, known as the Wind of Metabolism. Indigestion and similar physical ailments are due to a lack of or a weakness in this particular wind-energy. Giving the Wind of Metabolism room to operate helps keep it intact and inwardly, or internally, contributes toward the nurturing or development of the mind.
The next position of the body is to let the tongue rest flat against the palate. The explanation given for this on a physical level is that it helps prevent the need to swallow saliva again and again, which is desirable because the effort and sound involved in this could be a distraction. In addition, if you are coughing, resting the tongue like this could prevent or lessen the coughing.


Once you are sitting with all these other positions intact, you still might be craning your neck a little bit too much either backward or forward, so the last position is to bring your chin a bit back and in until you feel a slight pressure on the voice box, then easing up a bit so there is no tension or pressure, and remain in that position. The outward purpose of this is to bring the neck vertebrae into alignment with those of the back. Inwardly, the wind related to these positions is called the" Up-Going" or "Up-Running" Wind. Letting this wind-energy wander causes many kinds of distractions and therefore stimulates habitual and emotional patterns that give rise to numerous indulgences. Keeping the Up-Running Wind intact is important because this wind-energy contributes toward the realization of the truth of the mind.
By using the physical positions of the body, these four winds are kept in proper control. The Lower (Down-Moving) Wind, the Up-Going Wind, and those in between are kept in their natural or proper places.
The fifth wind is referred to as the "Life Wind" and could be called the Home of Wisdom. It is where the essence of wisdom is found. When the other winds are kept intact, they feed this central or Life Wind and thus expand wisdom.