What is Meditation, Really?

For the last twenty years of so, it has well established in medical research and popular culture that meditation is the cheapest and most effective way to relieve stress, and therefore improve your overall physical, mental and emotional health.

But what exactly is meditation? Most people believe that meditation is a form of self discipline, forcing yourself to sit upright with your eyes closed, in order to will yourself not to think. When people approach meditation this way, they very quickly come to the conclusion that they “can’t meditate” or that “meditation is not for me”.   I approached meditation like this for many years. It did not lead to insight. After torturing myself in this way,i would get up and go about my day taking distinctive pride in having survived yet another sit. Wrongly influenced by images of meditation that we see in movies and magazines, will sit and do deep breathing for a few minutes and then get up, believing that we have meditated. But have we, really?

Meditation is the practice of learning to sit patiently and non-judgemental with your mind, body and breath. It is a practice of learning how to cultivate an clear awareness of how one exists in their body, and how their mind and body interact with each other to either generate a sense of ease and clarity, or more often, a sense of tightness, stress, and mental confusion.  Meditation is not a competition, something you should will yourself into doing, rather it is a commitment to take the time to cultivate a sense of peaceful co-existence with yourself.

So if you want to meditate, how do you get started? Here is a simple breath meditation. First find a quiet place, where you can sit undisturbed for a few minutes. You may choose to light a candle or a stick of incense if you are at home to get you focused. However this is not necessary.  If you are very new to meditation, set a timer for no more than five or six minutes. Sit in an upright and relaxed position. It’s fine to sit in a chair or your couch. You can also on the floor with your legs crossed comfortably, maybe leaning your back against something. Another way is just to sit upright on your bed with your legs crossed.

Breath Meditation for Beginners

Close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths.  After no more than five breaths, simply let your attention move to the feel of the rising and fall of your breath in the back of your throat. Try not to hold the breath or control the breath. Just gently bring your attention to the feel of it in your throat. You might quietly note to yourself if your breath is long or short, ragged or smooth, or even if you are holding your breath or trying to control it in someway.  It doesn’t matter, just gently smile to yourself and continue notice qualities of your breath.

If your mind wanders, relax. It’s okay. Just gently bring your attention back to the breath, and begin again. The most important thing is not to judge yourself if you start thinking, or planning or daydreaming, because you will! Just gently and peacefully return your attention to the breath. Try this once or twice day, gradually extending the time in two-three minute increments until you can sit for a full 30 minutes.

Here are some things that people often notice when they first start meditating: (1) “My mind is often thinking or planning,” (2) “I am trying to control my breath”, (3) “I often holding my breath” (3) “I feel restless, my body wants to move.”  Congratulations! These are the first insights gleaned from meditation. The chances are that when you are not meditating your mind is doing the exact same thing (i.e. thinking and planning, wanting to move, holding or controlling your breath).

Always thinking and planning, distracting yourself, and holding or controlling the natural flow of our breath causes stress and unease in the human body. These practices make our heart rates speed up, increase blood pressure, and cause our muscles to tighten up so that we end up feeling tense. As we learn to meditate, we can practice bringing our awareness back to breath when are minds are racing, judging, planning, and do it is thing. The practice of meditation teaches us to notice when we are relating to our bodies in such a way that causes us stress, or what the Buddha called suffering (dukkha). When notice we are stressed when we are not meditating we can learn to how (1) relax, (2) know that it’s okay (not judge ourselves), and (3) begin again to gently bring our awareness awareness back to the natural rising and falling of our breath.

“We can stop with what occurs and see its true face without calling it the enemy. It helps to remember that our spiritual practice is not about accomplishing anything--not about winning or losing--but ceasing to struggle and relaxing as it is. This is what we are doing when we sit down to meditate. That attitude spreads to the rest of our lives.”  --Pema Chodron

Meditating while Black

In his acclaimed book, My Grandmother’s Hands, Resmaa Menakem argues that we live in a society that is plagued by white body supremacy. By this he means that we live in a society that accepts white people as the standard for all human beings. This is an important insight. Our society is organized in such a way that rewards white skin culturally, economically, politically, and even aesthetically.  Menakem writes, “The cultural operating system of white-body supremacy influences or determines many of the decisions we make, the options we select, the choices open to us, and how we make those decisions and choices.”

White body supremacy still takes a specific toll on black bodies. If your skin is black in the United States you are more likely to be poor, more likely to be incarcerated, more likely to get shot walking down the street, more likely not to have a life partner, more likely not to have a job, and more likely to experience poor health outcomes like heart disease, high blood pressure diabetes, asthma and chronic pain. You are also more likely to know black people who have experiences the same things.  Without doubt, being black in America dangerous to the human body.

It is no wonder why black people have such a vexed relationship to our bodies. Many of us hate the color of our skin, the texture of our hair, and the shapes of our bodies. Some of us try to hide out in our bodies behind layers of skin and fancy clothes that we believe will protect us from other kinds of harm. Some of us try to work our bodies to death because we believe if we work hard enough, then we can avoid some of the more deadly consequences of not having a job while black (i.e. being locked up or shot for standing out on the corner).

Another hard fact living in a black body is the high likelihood of having to live with a constant sense of being threatened. When our friends, families and communities die prematurely, we very reasonably, come to believe and act like the same thing might happen to us soon. We begin to see everything and everybody as a real threat. When humans, like other animals, encounter a threat we typically experience one of four responses:  freeze, flight, fight, or try to annihilate the threat . In order do any of these things our body goes into a state of hyperarousal. This is characterized by (1) holding the breath, (2) tensing the muscles, and (3) acting out quickly and decisively on instinct. Psychologists call this the “fight or flight response”.

Walking around society with an sense of eminent danger is very hard on the body. We tend to overreact to small everyday annoyances. We get enraged when someone cuts us off, disagrees with us, or looks at us funny. Although these things might “get on our nerves”, causing our bodies to react to even slightly stressful situations as if our life is on the line!  The terrified body has overridden the rational mind.

One symptom of this problem is when begin to see every person we don’t 100% know to be non-threatening as a potential enemy we have to defend ourselves from, get away from, or when we get really upset, to actually try to fight or kill. This kind of existence is wreaks havoc on our communities. It keeps our communities in a perpetual state of conflict, and makes it difficult for us to be better people and interact with other people with patience, kindness and genuine respect.

Practicing meditation can help us become aware of when we are getting triggered because when we meditate we learn how to become attuned in small changes in our bodies. When we sit in meditation we learn to pay attention to something as slight and non-threatening as our breath. We actually begin to notice how certain thoughts changes the way our bodies feel. When we meditate and we begin to think about some recent injustice, we notice that our chest gets tight, we hold our breath, and our heart aches. When an image like laying on a warm sandy beach, or eating our favorite dish at our grandmothers house, we notice that the body feel relaxed and light. We can learn to take this attention, this mindfulness of the relationship between the body and mind, with us to other parts of our life.

When we are at the grocery store waiting in line and we are mindful, we can notice when our chests gets tight and then choose to relax and breathe. When realized that we have unconsciously clenched our fists because of someone says something that offends us we can choose to relax and breathe. We when we hear the sirens roaring and the police cars speeding down the street, we can choose to relax and breathe. When we hear about another black youth being shot and killed we can CHOOSE to relax and breath and get real familiar with how anger, grief, disbelief or rage is moving through our bodies. Remember, getting tense, holding our breaths  and overreacting on instinct will not help us make better CHOICES. Relaxing and breathing gives us time to think and respond with wisdom. Choice gives us freedom. Reactivity and tension keeps us locked in unproductive patterns. Meditation helps us to cultivate the practices of freedom.

“If you keep trying to go around our feelings,

avoiding, looking for distractions,

consider stopping,

Let the train start back when it does.

You will get there but for now, the most important place to be

Is in your own heart.”

-- quote taken from Dr. Joi Lewis’ new book, Radical Healing: The Act of Radical Self-Care

Death of a Rose

She died, naked.  With a room full of strangers, pulling and tugging and beating on her frail body while I offered up prayers, fought back tears, and broke her ribs.  In my fraternity, there are many unspoken rituals and hallowed rites of passage.  Few sear themselves into the consciousness of each doctor to be as profoundly as the first time we are honored to bear witness to the death of a patient.

Her name was Rose.  And when medics wheeled her into room 3 of my emergency department I had just come from a conference on the other side of the hospital.  Looking forward to 2 minutes of settling in prior to the start of my shift, I wanted nothing to do with the new admission who looked in pretty bad shape.  When the nurse receiving Rose called for a ‘code red’, my concerns were assuaged.  Code red meant that the patient was in poor enough status that a full-fledged, attending physician had to be present immediately to manage this patient's medical needs.  The last thing you wanted around was a bright-eyed 3rd-year medical student checking his pocket textbook every 2 minutes to remember what the names of the 5 parts of the heart were…atricle? ventrium? Wtf.

Still, as Rose was being wheeled in and writhing back and forth on her gurney I looked up.  For a brief moment amidst her thrashing back and forth and quite literally fighting for her life, she paused.  Our eyes met and something in her spoke to something in me saying, “please my friend, come, abide with me a while”.  Knowing the still, soft voice of Spirit when I hear her beckon, I stood, took a deep breath, asked for my creator's guidance and stepped into room 3.  With at that point, with very little actual know-how on what to do in such an acute situation, I did what I was trained to do… I pulled out a piece of paper and started asking Rose questions.  Where did she live? When did symptoms begin? How did this happen? Does she have family in the area?  Between her shrieks and gasps, and as the rest of the medical team was assembling, Rose told me that she was homeless.  Estranged from most of her family, she had a liver condition that triggered an underlying stomach condition, and she feels like she is about to die.

Over the course of the next hour, I was tested and Rose fought. 

During that time, room 3 would be transformed from the non-descript stabilization room with bad fluorescent lighting at the end of the hallway to the threshing floor where I would take my sacred rite.  And there… there we would have church. What began as a trio composed of myself, a nurse and a paramedic would soon swell to become a congregation of nearly 20 children of God all there to assist, abide, and bear witness.  When Rose left this world, two doctors served as deaconesses at her feet orchestrating the team and directing our choir.  Three nurses by Rose's side passed syringes and paddles over her fadding physical form.  Simultaneously fighting to save her life and holding her hand in comfort as they midwifed her spirit from this world.  I was amazed at how this frail body, six or seven decades long on this earth laying there bare, naked, unclothed, was at the same time so completely shrouded in the care and affections of a room full of strangers.