Halvor Eifring
General Secretary of Acem International. Professor of Chinese, University of Oslo.
A young woman had begun to doubt how she should repeat the sound. Perhaps fear of what a more open awareness would bring?
At a guidance seminar in Acem, a young woman asked a question about the repetition of the meditation sound. When she learned to meditate, she found the technique simple and straightforward, but now she had entered a period of doubt. Would it be best to help a little with the muscles of the tongue and throat, almost as if she were going to say the sound aloud? Or would it be better to think the sound in her mind without any attempt to make it clear? The first solution made her more certain that she was repeating the right sound, while the second made her more relaxed.
I did not know the young woman. But the little she said during the seminar still gave a kind of picture of who she was. It is easy to recognize oneself in her dilemma. She is not the only one pulled between two ways of saying the sound - one light but fleeting, the other clear and firm, but with a touch of effort.
MORE SUBTLE, LESS CERTAIN
In the weeks before she came to the guidance seminar, the young woman had gained a choice she had not had at the outset. To begin with, the somewhat heavy-handed but safe and straightforward repetition of the sound with the speech organs had felt completely natural. But now she had become able to repeat the sound more lightly in the mind. She no longer needed to involve either tongue or throat.
It was a state with more nuances and more subtlety, but the price she paid was increased uncertainty. Was it really the sound she was repeating? And what should she do with a sound so light that thoughts could blow it away almost for nothing? She alternated between the two ways of repeating the sound and could not decide which was best.
BETWEEN FOCUS AND PERIPHERY
The woman's dilemma reflects different ways of using attention. When the meditation sound is articulated clearly, attention has a strong and clear focus, and the contrast to the thoughts passing in the periphery is obvious. At work and in other demanding everyday situations, one will undoubtedly benefit from focusing clearly on tasks and goals. When the young woman learned to meditate, it was at first natural to bring this way of functioning into meditation as well.
When the sound is repeated lightly in the mind without the speech organs being drawn in, the focus of attention also becomes far more fleeting, and the contrast to thoughts passing in the periphery of the mind is almost erased. This was what was now beginning to happen in the woman's meditation. It gave greater room for impulses at the edges of consciousness, perhaps on the border of the unconscious. But it also required her to let go of some of what otherwise gave her a safe point of support.
At the guidance seminar, she received help in putting words to the contrast between strong and more fleeting attention. It was clear that it was a good experience to formulate what she experienced and to receive a response to what she said. When she began to speak, she first seemed a little uncertain and groping, but gradually her face took on a greater calm and clarity. Something was beginning to open. It resembled the feeling one may have after a good conversation or a quiet encounter with nature - experiences that bring promises of something new.
LISTENING WITH THE MIND
The woman's dilemma also reflects different ways of using the senses, in this case the sense of hearing. Sensory impressions can be hard and intrusive or so light that they almost disappear from the field of awareness. Both ways of listening have their place in both everyday life and meditation, but the clear and hard way may win a little too often, because insecurity makes us mobilize.
The meditation sound is not heard with the ears, only with the mind. But when the woman articulates it clearly, it is brought closer to a physical form of hearing. This increases the feeling of clarity and certainty, but at the same time means that she remains on the surface, close to the physical sensation of her own body. The less the body is involved in the repetition of the sound, the more freedom the mind has to move in depth.
This also gives the woman's mind an opportunity to take in a wider spectrum of impulses, not only when it comes to sound, but also feelings. Perhaps the woman's everyday life relies a little too much on the known and familiar, so that she takes too few chances on allowing a living flame that burns best when one does not try to maintain control.
EXPANDED SELF
The woman's dilemma also reflects different ways of being present in oneself. When she repeats the sound almost physically, she is present in only a rather small part of herself, above all the part that acts actively, and on which attention is focused. The mind's spontaneous and often more fleeting impulses may move at the edge of awareness, but are experienced almost as an irrelevant appendage.
Meditation makes clear that it is not only external things that make the experience of self so narrow, but also the personality's tendency to grasp at what is safe rather than letting oneself into something uncertain.
When the repetition of the sound moves towards deeper and more subtle layers of the mind, the woman's presence expands to include larger parts of herself. She becomes more sensitive. With this comes a richness and fullness that is absent when the narrow self dominates. But perhaps there also comes an encounter with painful and confusing feelings she previously kept away. It is not without reason that she has kept to the safe repetition. The doubt connected with the repetition of the sound was perhaps an expression of fear of what a more open awareness would bring.
NO STRIVING
Let us be realistic. Neither the young woman nor the rest of us can always repeat the sound in this light way. It is not a norm or an ideal we should strive to reach - then the result easily becomes the opposite. We must accept that the meditation sound is sometimes closer to physical articulation than to a light thought in the mind.
It is rather a kind of moment of grace, an opening for new possibilities we may choose to seize - or let pass unused. The most important thing is that daily meditation habits are maintained, and that we put words to our own doubt, as the young woman did at the guidance seminar. Then we may come to a point where we recognize a touch of hardness in our safe and familiar way of meditating, and we can begin to move in the direction of the mind's gentler winds.
The article is from Acem Magazine no. 5, 2012.
Halvor Eifring