My Meditation Journey Thus Far

          The part of this class that most captures my attention is the mediation part. It seems so easy, yet it is so hard to remain focused and redirect my incoming thoughts back to the rise and fall of my abdomen with every breath. My only experience with mediation is lying on my mat after a session of yoga. I found that post-yoga mediation comes easily to me as I was already in a stretched out, calm and relaxed state of mind. I had already spent an hour focusing on my breath. This part of my yoga practice has always been one of my favorites. When we had to mediate as part of class here in Thailand, however, it was much more difficult to get into my element. I think it is because I am so used to mediating after yoga that any other way was just hard to get used to. I also haven’t been fully relaxed and stretched out, not to mention that sitting cross-legged in the lotus pose with a straight back was extremely difficult at 9 am.

            I have heard many benefits to meditation and wished to learn more about this practice, so I participated in Monk Chat at Wat Suan Dok Wednesday evening. The monk I spoke with gave me a brief overview of two different styles of mediation they practice, concentration mediation and insight meditation. Concentration mediation produces strong mindfulness and purifies the mind, which is said to lead to happiness. The main focus of this style is on breathing and how the abdomen rises and falls with each breath. The four most common poses of concentration mediation are sitting, standing, walking and lying down. Insight meditation is the other style practiced. There are four foundations of mindfulness in insight meditation. They are contemplation of body, feeling, mind and matter, and dharma/nature. For the first foundation, contemplation of body, we are supposed to observe, notice and analyze every feeling and sensation that we feel on our body. For the second foundation, contemplation of feeling, we are to focus on the feelings we observe during normal everyday activities. For the third, contemplation of mind and matter, we are to try to understand what we think and feel in order to fully understand our mind. And in the final, fourth foundation, contemplation of dharma/nature, we are to try and understand the impermanent. The intangible come and go and we have to try to understand them such as the nature of our feelings or mental states. Insight mediation is more of an ongoing, life long practice and teaches us to be mindful of anything and everything. Concentration mediation is more of a practice in the moment.

             I also asked the monk his thoughts on the benefits of mediation. He replied that meditation produces strong health and good karma. The anecdote he shared described a man who had cancer at a relatively young age. He had a wife and kids that he could not bare to leave behind, so he went to seek help for his disease. He went to a temple to see a monk, and was told that he had to meditate. After two years of practice, his cancer miraculously disappeared and the man went on to live a long and healthy life. Good karma also comes with meditation. The monk I spoke to at Monk Chat stated that in this world, there is good, bad and purifying the mind by mediation. Purifying the mind produces good karma, which leads to a better next life. Buddhists believe that everyone is reborn until we have reached enlightenment, or nirvana. Once this is obtained, the rebirthing process ceases and we no longer suffer. Although nirvana is the goal of all Buddhists, especially monks, it is very hard to obtain. The monk told us that only three types of people who reach nirvana, the Buddha, monks, and the future Buddha. There is no direct path to enlightenment; all we can do is practice mediation.

Many studies have also discussed the phenomenal effects of mediation, specifically on attention. Attention can be improved from as little as four days of mediation training for twenty minutes per day (Zeidan, Johnson, Diamond, David & Goolkazian, 2010). http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezp2.lib.umn.edu/science/article/pii/S1053810010000681 Within just four days of practice, participants showed significant improvements on visuo-spatial processing, working memory and executive function. The training also enhanced ability to maintain attention compared to a control group. The experimental group also had increased mindfulness scores when compared to the controls. Mindfulness is gained by the balanced between a relaxed and hard working mind as it works to redirect attention back to the breath and practice when other thoughts wander into the mind.

Another way this study supports meditation’s benefit to attention is that the experimental group also had decreased rate in attentional blink. Attentional blink is a phenomenon where when a series of rapidly changing stimuli are presented and someone is to identify a target, the second target is usually missed due to a blink if it follows the first target within 500 milliseconds. With the decreased attentional blink with the practioners, and not the controls, this leads us to believe that mediation does have a positive effect on attention. Moore and Malinowski, 2009 http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezp1.lib.umn.edu/science/article/pii/S1053810008001967 also found similar results in reduced attentional blink with meditators. In addition, experienced meditators had decreased Stroop Task interference. The Stroop Task has been a famous test in the field of psychology focusing on attention and reaction time.  In this task, individuals have to either identify a color word, or the color in which the word is presented. In this experiment, there were three Stroop Task conditions, congruent, where the colors and the words matched up, neutral, where the words were not color words, but common English nouns, and incongruent, where the word color and actual word did not match up. The experimenters were only interested in the results from the incongruent condition, due to the attentional aspects that were important for accuracy.

Kozasa, Sato, Lacerda, Barreiros, Radvany, Russell, Sanches, Mello and Amaro Jr., 2012, http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezp1.lib.umn.edu/science/article/pii/S1053811911007531  also conducted a study using the Stroop Task. Instead of measuring interference, they had participants in an fMRI machine while performing the task to identify brain activation. They found that non-meditators had greater brain activity than meditators for the incongruent condition. This illustrates meditators learned to be more efficient because fewer brain regions needed to be activated for the same task in order to achieve the same performance as novices.

All three studies illustrate the benefits of meditation on cognitive function, especially attention. For some practioners, it may be difficult to notice these changes, as they are subtle and usually hardly noticeable. However, after returning from the meditation retreat, I did notice some slight changes in myself. I definitely have become more mindful and grateful for everything I have and all my experiences, especially those in Thailand. Chanting before mediation, paying homage to the Triple Gems and then chanting before meals has really made me realize that for most of my life, I have taken lots for granted. I never really took the time to appreciate what I have and those around me until this retreat.

            The meditation retreat was a lot different that I expected it to be, granted I did not know what to expect, but I found it to be relaxing and enjoyed all the time I had to reflect. It was a lot easier for me to focus and meditate on the retreat than when we have been practicing as a class in the hotel. I felt more comfortable and relaxed in the calming and beautiful environment provided to us. It was helpful that the monks guided us through our practice and encouraged us to mediate in whichever position came easiest to us. Phra Kavi Piya was so insightful and wise, which really inspired me to continue my meditation practice beyond the retreat and stay in Thailand.