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What is Meditation?

On June 4, 2020

Reading Time: 5 minutes

The word meditation seems to be everywhere these days, and it will be a reoccurring topic on this blog. But many people are confused about what it actually is. And then there’s the word mindfulness. These two words are often used in the same sentence and the distinction between the two is easily lost.

People might think that meditation is just relaxing with your eyes closed—sitting down to clear the mind. Or they might think it is about creating a pleasant state of mind. But these are not quite right. Setting aside time to relax and breathe deeply will no doubt benefit you, but there are deeper life improvements that flow from a correct understanding of what meditation is.

“An untrained mind—even a perfectly normal one—can be an extraordinarily unhappy place.”
Sam harris waking up

Meditation is a practice, and so you do get better at it over time. But this is difficult without the right mental framework. This framing is how we understand and interpret our meditation experiences—it is the instruction manual. It is the context through which you can develop and train your mind. Without it, meditation is elusive at best, and at worst, a potentially terrifying endeavor.

Vipassana Meditation

Part of the confusion with meditation is that there are many traditions, each with their own form of contemplative practice. For the purposes of this article—and what is in my experience the most direct path to well-being—we will be discussing a type of practice known as vipassana.

Vipassana comes from the Theravada tradition of Buddhism, but it need not be religious. It is one of the easier methods to practice from a secular perspective. The word itself means “insight”, and it’s in the same ballpark as the modern-day word mindfulness. More deeply, it means insight into the true nature of subjective reality.

The instruction manual is simple, but success can be elusive. Essentially, the goal is to anchor your mind’s attention to an object of meditation. This is something to keep focused on—most often the sensation of breathing—so that you are not lost in thought. If this sounds easy, I can assure you that you have not properly tried it.

This is because the default state of the human mind is being lost in thought—being distracted. In fact, this is called the default-mode network in neuroscience. It is thinking without noticing that you’re thinking. An untrained mind is constantly wandering like this, either lost with external distractions or with internal thoughts.

And the default-mode network has a bias towards negativity—towards being anxious about the past and future. This makes it an impediment to well-being. But scientific studies show that training in meditation and mindfulness reduces activity in the default-mode network. Other studies show that the practice, known medically as mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), can also alleviate anxiety and depression.

But there is a distinction between meditation and mindfulness, and it is an important part of success. It will help prevent you from merely sitting there with your eyes closed lost in thought. So let’s get some definitions on the table.

Meditation: According to French author and Tibetan monk Dr. Matthieu Ricard, this word comes from Tibetan and means “familiarization”. It is a process of becoming familiar with your mind. Joseph Goldstein, a leading Buddhist teacher, states the goal like this:
- “If you want to understand your mind, simply sit down and observe it.”
Mindfulness: This word refers to a state of mind—a quality of mind—that one arrives at through the vipassana tradition. When translated from the ancient languages Sanskrit and Pali, it means “remembering”, “awareness”, or “knowing”. So in one sense, it is remembering the object of our practice (like the breath), and in another sense, it means we know what’s happening in our minds. This is a non-judgemental awareness of the present moment.

Mindfulness and Meta-awareness

So meditation is the method, and the goal is to regularly achieve the state of mindfulness. We begin by stabilizing our attention to the breath because our untrained mind is too accustomed to wandering. You should know ahead of time that you will constantly fail at this—you may only make it a few breaths at a time before getting lost in thought. The point of the practice is to notice when this happens, after which you can bring your attention back to the breath.

It’s also worth noting that this is not a measure of how strong your focus is—the practice is not about willing yourself to stay with the breath. It’s about finding equanimity with your busy mind. Unless you are a meditation prodigy, you are not going to stop the constant flow of thoughts—you are instead going to stop getting lost in them as much. And in my experience, trying to force yourself makes it worse.

“Some people, for example, think that if they get a death grip on their breath their attention won’t wander. In fact, it will wander more. The Buddha said ‘rest your attention lightly, like a butterfly resting on a flower’.”
Sharon Salzberg

With consistent practice, your attention will slowly stabilize. As this happens, you can leave the breathe and graduate to having an open awareness of all things arising in consciousness—sights, sounds, sensations, thoughts, and emotions. Susan Greenland, the author of the book Mindful Games, describes this distinction as the spotlight of attention versus the floodlight of attention.

“The spotlight of attention is a clear, stable, narrow beam that lights up a single object. The floodlight of attention is a wide, receptive beam that lights up a broad field of changing experience.“
Susan Greenland

In scientific terms, this open awareness—the floodlight of attention—is known as meta-awareness. It means that we are aware of what our minds are doing in the present moment. It is essentially a form of metacognition, which will be an important and reoccurring mental framework on this blog.

To have this mindfulness means that our attention is fully in the present moment. We notice thoughts the moment that they arise—the moment they appear in the space of consciousness—so that we don’t get lost on the trains of association. But again, you should know ahead of time that you will fail at this. The point is to simply notice and begin again.

Why Practice Meditation?

People rightly wonder why they should bother with meditation, and it’s understandable that sitting with your eyes closed can seem like a waste of time. And just to be clear, you will not necessarily become happier, and you won’t get rid of the suffering in life, which is inevitable. You also won’t really change the contents of your mind that much.

But you can change your relationship to those contents—change how you experience that suffering. You can find equanimity with your thoughts, good and bad, and become less reactive towards them. In this sense, meditation is more about increasing your long-term measure of well-being.

And thoughts are not just things we privately suffer with. Without mindfulness, we often act out our thoughts. We spread negativity and cause suffering in others. Imagine how much better the world would be if everyone could become less reactive—if everyone could relate more wisely to their difficult thoughts and emotions.

Meditation is a type of self-improvement, and it’s a central motivation for starting Exploring Kodawari. It’s the idea that perhaps the mission in life is to approach the development of the self with kodawari. This is the circumambulation of self-development, and it’s not a selfish thing. You can’t help others in the world if your mind is a chaotic mess.

Meditation will help you to begin the process of cleaning up your mind. As the metaphor goes, you must put on your own oxygen mask before helping others.

Suggested Meditation Resources

Circumambulation and the Kodawari Approach to Life

By Luke

On May 27, 2020

In Kodawari, Mental Frameworks, Self-Improvement

Reading Time: 5 minutes

“I began to understand that the goal of psychic development is the self. There is no linear evolution; there is only a circumambulation of the self. Uniform development exists, at most, at the beginning; later, everything points toward the centre. This insight gave me stability, and gradually my inner peace returned.”
CARL JUNG MEMORIES, DREAMS, REFLECTIONS

The concept of kodawari, essentially being the best you can be, is most often applied to the development of a craft. These are the projects—or career paths—that we get obsessed with and devote our focused energy towards. But as you zoom out, you might realize that there is a more encompassing mission that is driving you: the path of self-development. It is the drive to keep yourself constantly evolving towards an ideal. But this path is not a straight line—it is instead what Carl Jung called a circumambulation.

Circumambulation

Actually, most types of human development tend to circumambulate. My development in music has never been a straight line. Neither has my development as a person. Why is this? It’s because as you travel you also change. So you wouldn’t even want your development to map out as a straight line—it would mean that you never performed any course corrections along the way.

And course corrections are good. They indicate that your updated self has a better idea about where to aim. Because as you approach what you thought you were aiming at, you see it more clearly. You realize that your model of it was low-resolution—it didn’t account for some crucial details. But you have more wisdom now, and it forces you to update your GPS settings. Reality put some hard limitations on your previous path, and you have to aim somewhere else now.

What do I mean by aiming? It means that something is grabbing your attention, something is pulling your interest. This happens all the time in the physical world when an object entices us to reach for it. Our brains are fundamentally wired this way—to be attracted to or repelled by things. But with regards to your future self, the aim is not a discrete object. It’s more like a vague psychological concept of potential. You haven’t worked out the details, but you have an instinctual feeling of where you should aim.

Okay, so what might be the ultimate thing to aim at, to circumambulate towards?

How about aiming at who you could be? Hopefully, you are not completely satisfied with who you are. There are at least a few things you could probably do today to improve. But ultimate improvement—actually achieving your full potential—is an intimidating project. Where the hell do you start?

The Labyrinth of Circumambulation

The problem is that you probably don’t know where to start, but you have to move somewhere. So you start to move in a chaotic way as best you can. Then you make too many mistakes and get stuck. You have to make a course correction in order to continue. This process repeats and repeats, and eventually, you realize that the chaotic path is actually circling something. You can’t define it but you can feel a magnetic pull towards the center.

This is the psychological conception of circumambulation that Carl Jung wrote about. The word generally refers to the act of moving around a sacred object and is present in many religions. Psychologically, though, you can think of the path as being like a labyrinth:

Or as Jung described it:

“The way to the goal seems chaotic and interminable at first, and only gradually do the signs increase that it is leading anywhere. The way is not straight but appears to go in circles.”
Carl jung

Circumambulate the Center with Kodawari

Approaching a project or a craft with kodawari is one thing. It means that you are aiming at perfection and attending to the details. It’s a great starting point, and the momentum will encourage more and more kodawari.

But having a kodawari approach to life is the real goal. It means that you are applying this perfectionist energy towards the ultimate project of circumambulation. You are aiming at your ideal—who you could be— in a steadfast and committed way. You don’t know who you could be (or if success is possible), but you don’t need to justify the effort in some grandiose way. Respect for kodawari is enough, it can be your axiom.

In circumambulating, perhaps it is a leap of faith to insist that there even is a center. Maybe it’s all made up. Perhaps the center is a vague conception of who you would be if you developed maximally. But you can’t define it or penetrate it. You can only think about it, only move around it. You spiral around the center trying to see it from different angles—sometimes closer and sometimes far away. And instinct of meaning kicks in when you feel closer to the center. And when far from the center, you might feel ashamed of the mistakes that led you there. This is the path though.

The Temptation of Nihilism

Kodawari, as a life philosophy, can give you the discipline to keep going no matter what—to keep your sight set on the transcendent ideal. It is attempting to do your best at everything you do, even if you know ahead of time that you will fail. It requires optimism that, despite short-term failures, you will move closer to the center in the long run.

But optimism isn’t easy. The reality of our situation is that much of life is both mysterious and tragic: we don’t understand the universe or our place within it. And consciousness itself—your experience of understanding these very words—is fundamentally still a mystery. On top of that, everyone dies and will experience suffering along the way. Nihilism, on a small and large scale, is therefore always tempting us.

And serious people should struggle with nihilism. It’s a result of taking the deep questions about life seriously. When you’re willing to look at the world honestly—to look at your own mind honestly—it’s not always easy to find a happy conclusion.

But succumbing to nihilism—giving up on your ideal—only makes life worse. It leads to a life of distraction, and it is, unfortunately, the easier path. Because staying connected to that deeper part of yourself—the part that seeks answers and wants to live in a meaningful, honest, and ethical way—comes packaged with a certain amount of sadness. There’s true darkness in honestly contemplating the human condition, and you have to be willing to deal with that. It’s a more difficult path, but it’s infinitely more meaningful.

Kodawari as a Philosophy of Life

In our article exploring the philosophy of Stoicism, we stressed the importance of having a philosophy of life to guide you. And I’ve found that this kodawari philosophy of self-development is one option that is strong enough to combat the dark moments. Marcus Aurelius, in his Meditations, said this about one’s personal philosophy:

“Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth.”
Marcus Aurelius Meditations

So for me, the zoomed-out concept of kodawari is to apply it to circumambulation— to the quest of life itself. You engage with, instead of hiding from, the deeper parts of yourself that seek answers and truth. You want there to be a jewel at the center of the maze, but either way, you will assume that there is and take the quest seriously.

Even though the path is wandering, it is the honest attempt—knowing that you did your best—that can give your life meaning. What other choice do you have?

What is Kodawari?

By Luke

On May 27, 2020

In Kodawari, Mental Frameworks, Self-Improvement

Reading Time: 4 minutes

“Well, here we are Mr.Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.”
Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five

**You can listen to this article’s corresponding podcast episode here.**

As a concept, I knew about kodawari long before I learned the word. My mental model of it was admittedly fuzzy, but as a performing musician, I definitely understood discipline and the relentless struggle towards an ideal.

Most musicians—at least those that weren’t coerced into music from a young age—can pinpoint a moment in their past which set them on their path. This was an inspiring event, such as a concert, that gave them a glimpse of the ideal. The music itself made them feel alive (perhaps for the first time), and the prospect of being able to make those sounds fueled their motivation.

As this often occurs at a younger age, you might not even understand what is happening to you. What you feel is more of an instinct that you are looking in the right direction—you are at the head of a path that will lead somewhere meaningful.

But as beautiful as these inspirational moments are, they aren’t enough. The fire created by that initial spark fades and needs more fuel, and the reality of life is that sometimes you can’t find that fuel. You need a different mental model, a discipline, that will keep you moving forward no matter what.

Kodawari is such a discipline.

I discovered the word kodawari in graduate school, and it stuck with me. In short, kodawari ( こだわり in Japanese) means the pursuit of perfection. It is passion, persistence, commitment, and attention to detail. But it is so much more than that. It is an entire concept whose definition requires at least a few paragraphs. It is so beautiful because, once you have truly connected to it, one word can be a placeholder for an entire world view.

The key to kodawari is that it is personal in nature. It is partially rooted in pride, but not the petty kind. It is the kind of personal pride that you feel when you are alone and you know that you tried your best. It comes from that deeper presence inside your head that watches you and knows when you are cutting corners. Whenever you ignore this discipline you feel weaker, and when you engage with it you feel stronger.

Such discipline is not rooted in some grandiose scheme to impress others or to achieve external validation. It is your personal standard, and it is how you foster self-respect. While you appreciate the beauty it creates along the way, you also realize that you never fully arrive anywhere.

We are, after all, prisoners in the present moment, and it is unclear where our path leads. Kodawari is not justifying your hard work and effort for the temporary external gains. It is realizing, as Kurt Vonnegut says, that there is no why. Or rather, the hard work—being the best you can be—is itself the meaning in life, the why.

So embedded in the kodawari meaning is the knowledge that perfection cannot be attained. Yet you pursue it nonetheless.

Sure, it is cliché to express the sentiment of “life is about the journey, not the destination”. And clichés do have a bad reputation for being shallow—unworthy of deep reflection. But the problem with clichés is that they are true, but people have forgotten why. They are overused and uttered in careless ways, rendering them empty.

So kodawari is the life philosophy stating that one should pursue perfection, even while knowing from the outset that perfection never arrives. There’s nothing wrong with the inspirational spark that sets you off in pursuit of your craft. You want to play the most beautiful music, cook the most delicious meal, and stop people in their tracks when they taste your wine. It guides your path, but it is also a carrot on a stick.

So instead, make kodawari itself your inspirational fuel. In one sense it’s practical—your motivation to work hard has to be deep if it is to survive your inevitable failures. And in a deeper sense, it can give your life meaning.

Perhaps this is the axiom—the leap of faith—which underlies my claim: the meaning in life comes from taking on the responsibility of trying your best. Because however good you are at lying to yourself, that deeper voice inside knows whether or not you worked hard enough.

And although you can enjoy the checkpoints along the way, the knowledge of kodawari is your real fuel. Arrivals and temporary gains cannot counter the tragedy and suffering in life. But kodawari can.

The kodawari energy is a leap of faith that tomorrow could be better than today if you do your best at something. It is optimism mixed with the knowledge that hard work is also required. Optimism without hard work is naive, but together they have enormous potential.

And kodawari tends to spread. It will spread throughout your own life, and you will inspire it in others. Begin by engaging with it in a small way. It could be a hobby or even something as trivial as washing the dishes. Attend to whatever you’re doing with full focus and persistence. You will enjoy the sense of pride at knowing that you were thorough and attentive to the details.

Seek out people who exhibit the kodawari energy, and foster it in yourself. Who knows how it will change you.