Awareness

Most of us fill our waking hours with a huge variety of mental activity. Reading a newspaper, talking to friends, driving the car, preparing a meal, writing a letter, watching television, operating machinery, drinking a cup of coffee, having sex, playing with the children, listening to music, doing the accounts, daydreaming, taking a shower, pruning the roses, asking the boss for a pay rise, and so on, and so on, and so on, and so on... All these things (to a lesser or greater extent) require us to use our brains.

The one thing that all these activities have in common is that the brain power we use is focused on something external to ourselves. When reading a newspaper, we are processing the words on the page. When driving a car, we are concentrating on the road, on the traffic and on operating the car's controls. Even when we are daydreaming, we "loose" ourselves in the daydream and forget that it is ourselves who is actually doing the dreaming. The activity always takes over. Because this is the way that we so often use our brains, it is easy to assume that this is the only way we can use our brains; but this is not true.

When you reach the end of this paragraph, stop reading for a few minutes and take a look at the room around you. Pick some object and look at it. Make a point of examining every aspect of the object: its shape, its colour, even its smell, if it happens to have one. As you are examining it, hold the thought in your head that this is me, myself, who is examining this object. I'm not just looking at it. I am present here, at this very moment of space-time, examining this object. I'm making an conscious effort to discover what this object is all about.

Try it.

You may be thinking "So what?" That doesn't matter, we all did when we first started. The point is you did not "loose" yourself as you might have done if you were just daydreaming or watching something on television. That thing inside your head that you think of as "I" was present throughout. This is what we mean by self awareness.

Try this exercise with a piece of music. Listen to every note, every nuance of the harmony and timbre. You may be tempted to "drift off" and simply become absorbed by the music - in fact you will almost certainly will drift off, especially if you are a beginner at the meditation game - however, try to make yourself return to paying full attention. Remind yourself that this is me, a unique human being, who am listening to this music.

Centering

If, by now, you've tried to meditate for yourself, then I am sure that at some point your mind wandered off on a little daydream of its own. You might as well admit it, because I know that it did. Its nothing to worry about. We all do it (even experienced meditators). Daydreaming isn't the same as meditating, but it is all part of the same process. However, you mustn't force the mind to follow a specific path, so if it does want to float away, then you should let it: obviously it has some need to do so.

Well, to a point you should let it. Daydreaming can be fun, and even therapeutic, but remember that you are supposed to be meditating and not daydreaming. Occasionally you do have to haul in the reins and say "Right, you've had enough fun. Now down to business."

Now you're thinking: "But you said in the first paragraph that it's wrong to force the mind to do something that it doesn't want to do." Well, that's true: you're not allowed to force the mind, but you are allowed to persuade it.

How? You give it something to think about, something that will keep it better occupied than a daydream would. The "breathing" exercise does this by concentrating on breathing. The "awareness" exercise does this by concentrating on an external object. But what do you do if all you have is yourself? You use visualisation to create your own object; something that will keep you firmly tethered to the ground and deter you from floating away on a daydream. "What object?" you ask. Actually, it doesn't really matter what it is, just as long as it does the job. Things like hot air ballons and soaring seagulls will not be appropriate, in that case, but tree roots and heavy weights probably are.

So, the next time that you meditate, outwit any latent tendency to daydream by filling your head with something that's going to keep you mentally on terra firma. Imagine yourself sinking slowly downwards. Imagine yourself becoming part of your chair, and then you and your chair slowly merging with the ground beneath. You might find this difficult to begin with (or a little voice in your head will try to tell you "this is stupid") but persevere. If it does become a strain, then stop - this is supposed to be about relaxing, not getting even more stressed - and if you ever had any frightening experiences of sinking into the ground that you'd rather not be reminded of, then you ought to skip this exercise altogether. Instead choose something that's more pleasant for you and use that as your anchor. You will know if it works.

Some people refer to this process as grounding, in order to use the analogy of electrical applications being "grounded" (American terminology - the UK equivalent would be "earthed"). Personally, I prefer the term centering. The effect of centering is to pull all your thoughts into the centre of your consciousness, stopping them from spinning off into the infinite.

We don't force them, remember, only persuade.

"Who am I?"

The hardest question that anyone can ask themselves is "Who am I?" Ask yourself that question now. If your response is simply to answer with your name, then I am afraid that you are not trying. Our names are simply labels, and whether you happen to be called Lord Montmorency or Ho Yip Chin depends very much upon the accident of what their parents called themselves and called you and certainly not who you or they really are. Were you a different person before your parents chose your name? Of course not.

If you answered by stating your occupation, then that is even worse. Although it might be a useful ice breaker at a party to say "I am a journalist," or "I am a farmer," this is still not really who we are at all. It might be what we do, and therefore a useful way of defining ourselves in a social situation, but it is not who we are.

Just as bad is to define ourselves in terms of our family. "I am the mother of three children," might be a truthful statement but tells you only very little about who that person is.

Some of you, when asked the question "Who am I", may have looked in the mirror and said "There I am!" Well, yes, there you are indeed; or at least, there your face is. However, your face is no more you than a movie poster is the movie. You body, all those organs, the muscle, the gristle, the skin and the bones, is just a vehicle that "you" (whoever you are) travel around in. Your body is important, however. Think about your body for a while. Explore it with your mind; from the inside outwards.

When you've done that, then I am sure that you will feel different about your body in future.

So ask yourself the question "Who am I?" again, remembering that you are not allowed to define yourself in terms of any external labels, such as name or occupation or whatever. "Who am I really?" Difficult, isn't it?

Let's try something a bit easier first. Ask yourself the question "How am I feeling?" That's much easier. To that question you would answer something like "Happy" or "Bored" or "Peaceful" or "Depressed" or (if you are still contemplating the "Who am I?" question) possibly "Perplexed." Now how were you feeling yesterday? Or last week? I can guarantee that at some memorable point in the past you were feeling different to how you feel at the moment. So how you are feeling is not what you are; it is a transitory thing that changes over time. So, let's get even deeper. What are you currently thinking? Your reply to that is very probably: "I'm thinking: 'What on earth is this idiot getting at?'," and I think that I can probably understand that sentiment.

So whatever this "I" is, in the centre of your mind, one thing seems to be clear. It never stays the same. What it was five minutes ago is different from what it will be in five minutes time.