“To calm your mind is to give your mind a rest that it needs in order to proceed with the work at the level of wisdom.”
If you don’t have a lot of time for Dhamma practice and you can gain some result from sitting meditation alone, then just keep doing that for the time being. When you have some free time, such as on weekend or during a retreat, and you have a lot of time to practise, you can alternate sitting meditation with walking so that you don’t waste any time.
This is for when you sit for a long period of time and feel tired and uncomfortable and would like to change your posture. If you don’t alternate and only wait to meditate while sitting, then your mind can slip back and go unruly during those breaks. So you won’t make a steady progress as you keep slipping back and forth.
To make sure of a steady progress, you have to cultivate your mindfulness in every posture. If you can’t sit, then get up and walk. Change your posture and then keep on practising.
You can also use ‘Buddho’ with the walking meditation. Or if you’re too tired and don’t feel like reciting ‘Buddho’, you can also focus on your feet. For instance, you can be aware of your left foot when you’re leading with your left and you can be aware of your right foot when you’re leading with your right, just like marching soldiers. You can just be aware of each step that you make.
You can do whatever you like to stop your mind from thinking about other things, which would give rise to emotions and prevent your mind from calm. But if you keep focussing on your step, your mind will eventually calm down while walking.
There are many senses to the so-called ‘calm’. There’s a complete sense of calm. There’s also an incomplete sense of calm; that is, you can still sense your body and feelings but your inner state of mind has changed. It’s just like after a storm comes a calm.
If you meditate for a while, and your mind is still and not proliferating, then don’t think. Try to maintain that focus for as long as possible. This is to give your mind a rest—to nourish your mind, to reinvigorate your mind. Wait till your mind withdraw from that calm.
Once you start thinking, then use those thoughts (saṅkhāra) for your contemplation. If not so, your mind will not have the strength it needs to do according to whatever you’ve contemplated.
‘To start contemplating once your mind is calm’ is to leave that state of calm (samādhi) first and then cultivate your wisdom. But when your mind is in samādhi or absorption, it is like someone is sleeping and so you shouldn’t wake them up. You should let them have the rest that they need, because if they don’t have enough rest and you wake them up to start working, they’ll get irritated and lack the energy. But if you let them have their proper rest and get up on their own, then they’ll be able to do things according to your command because they’ve recharged and are full of energy.
To calm your mind is to give your mind a rest that it needs in order to proceed with the work at the level of wisdom (paññā). But while your mind is in that state of calm, don’t venture out to do anything. Just stay put and leave it alone until it is ready to withdraw from samādhi.
This state of calm can last less than half an hour, sometimes just five or ten minutes. It depends on each of your own strength of concentration. If you keep practising and become quite good at it, then it will last long. If you’re new at it, it won’t last very long.
By Ajaan Suchart Abhijāto
Youtube: Dhamma in English
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