Chapter 4 Wrong Methods & the Mind’s Deception

In the course of careful exploration, people often go astray, adopting methods that seem correct but are actually counterproductive. It is crucial for students to recognize these erroneous methods.

First, we must be clear: meditation is not concentration. For example, any kind of meditation that leads you to concentrate is wrong. You will become increasingly closed off, not more open. If you shrink your consciousness and focus on one thing, if you reject the whole of existence and concentrate on a single point, then you will create more and more pressure within yourself. In this way, the meaning of the word "concentration" transforms into "being in a state of tension." The very sound of the word "concentration" already gives you a feeling of tension. Concentration is contracting consciousness, while meditation is openness and relaxation (non-tension concentration).

Concentration is useful, but it's not tranquility. In scientific research—in scientific exploration, in scientific experiments—you need concentration. You must concentrate on one problem and eliminate everything else—concentrate to the point of almost forgetting the rest of the world. Only the problem you are concentrating on is your world. That's why scientists often become absent-minded. Overly focused people are often absent-minded because they don't know how to open themselves up to the world.

I once read an anecdote. A scientist, a professor of zoology, said, "I've brought a frog," he smiled at the class, "It was just caught from the pond. We can study its appearance and then dissect it." He carefully opened his bag; inside was a finely prepared ham sandwich. The distinguished professor looked at it in surprise. "Strange!" he exclaimed, "I remember I already had lunch."

Scientists often experience this. They focus on just one thing, and their minds become very narrow. Of course, a narrow mind has its advantages: it is more penetrating, it is as sharp as a needle tip; it can get to the heart of the matter, but it also misses most of the life around it. Focus leads to tension, and tension is the enemy of tranquility.

The Buddha was not a person of focused attention; he was a person of awareness. He never tried to shrink his consciousness; instead, he constantly strived to remove obstacles so that he could more fully engage with existence. To observe…existence is to be in sync with you. I am speaking here, and the surrounding noise exists simultaneously. Trains, birds, the passing breeze—at this moment, all of existence converges. You are listening to me, and I am speaking to you, countless things are happening simultaneously—exquisitely rich and varied. Focused attention comes at a great cost to gain a tiny bit of something: you therefore ignore ninety-nine percent of life. If you are solving a math problem, you cannot listen to the birds singing—that would distract you. Children playing around, dogs barking in the streets—all will distract you. In order to concentrate, people must escape life—hide in the Himalayas, hide in caves, isolate themselves from the world, so that they can concentrate on God. But God is not a thing; God is this entire existence, is this very moment; is everything. Therefore, science can never know God. The only way to science is through focus, and it is precisely because of this approach that science will never be able to know God.

So how should it be done? Due to objective exploration and the scientific way of thinking, transcendental meditation has become quite important in the West—it's the only form of meditation that can be conducted scientifically. To be precise, it's focus (meditation) rather than meditation, making it more readily accepted by scientists. There has been much practice of transcendental meditation in universities, scientific laboratories, and in psychological research. It's focus, a method of concentration. It should be categorized under focus; there is a connection between the two. But it is absolutely not meditation. Meditation is so vast, so boundless, that it cannot be achieved by any kind of scientific research. Only when a person becomes compassionate can it be said that he has attained it. Alpha waves are of no help, because they also belong to the mind, while meditation is unrelated to the mind; it is something beyond the mind (which can be understood as deep meditation; meditation can ultimately lead to meditation, although some purposeful meditation is necessary for practice, but that's not what we'll discuss here).

Secondly, meditation is not introspection. Introspection is thinking about yourself, reflecting on what you are. You don't need to think about it; you will become aware of yourself. The difference, though subtle, is worlds apart.

Western psychology emphasizes introspection, while Eastern psychology emphasizes self-reflection (Vipassanā). When you introspect, what do you do? For example, if you are angry, you begin to think about your anger, how it arose. You begin to analyze why it arose. You begin to judge whether it is good or bad. You begin to reason that you are angry because of a certain situation. You ponder anger, analyze anger; your focus is on the anger, not on your ego. Your entire consciousness is concentrated on the anger: you are watching, analyzing, associating, thinking about it, trying to find ways to avoid it, how to get rid of it, how not to repeat it. This is a process of thinking. You will judge it as bad because it is harmful. You will say, "I will never make the same mistake again." You will try to control this anger through willpower. Therefore, Western psychology emphasizes analysis: dissection. Introspection is thinking about oneself, analyzing the past.

Eastern psychology emphasizes: "Be aware. Don't try to analyze anger; it's unnecessary. Just observe it, but observe it consciously. Don't think." In fact, once you start thinking, thinking becomes a major obstacle to your awareness of anger. Thinking will cover it up; thinking will surround it like a cloud, and clarity will be lost. So don't think at all. Be in a state of no-thought; observe. Decentralize! When there is no longer even a ripple of thought between you and anger, you are fully facing anger, embracing it. You no longer dissect it. You no longer bother to find its root, because the root belongs to the past. You no longer judge it, because once you judge it, thinking begins. You no longer swear, "I will not repeat it," because that vow will lead you into the future. In awareness, you are with the feeling of anger, in the here and now. You are not concerned with how to change it, you are not concerned with how to think about it—you are concerned with looking at it directly, face to face, directly observing it. This is Vipassanā. Vipassana is the awareness/perception of oneself, and the awareness of facing the present moment.

This is its beauty: if you can observe (be aware of) anger, it will disappear. It disappears under your gaze, thus giving you a revelation—no need to use your will, no need to make any decisions about the future, no need to return to its origin. There is no need. You now have the secret: observe (be aware of) anger, and anger will disappear. And this observation is possible. Whenever anger arises, observe it; and that observation will become increasingly profound.

There are three stages of observation (awareness). First, when anger has arisen and subsided, it's like watching a disappearing tail—the elephant has gone far away, leaving only the tail visible. While the anger is present, you are unaware of it because you are so engrossed in it. When the anger is almost gone, ninety-nine percent has passed—only one percent remains, the last part slowly fading into the distance—and then you become very aware. This is the first state of awareness—very good, but not enough. The second state is when the elephant is there—not just the tail—when the time is right, you are truly furious, your blood is boiling, you are burning with rage—and then you can be aware. Then there is a third stage: anger hasn't arisen yet, but it is about to arise—not the tail, but the head. It is entering the realm of your consciousness, and you begin to become very aware, and the elephant never appears again. You have nipped it in the bud before it was born. This is a kind of birth control. This phenomenon did not occur; therefore, it leaves no trace (no karma).

On the path to tranquility, the mind is not only an obstacle, but also a masterful deceiver. It sets traps to make you believe you have arrived, when in reality you are still going in circles.

First, do not be deceived by experience. All experience is merely a deception of the mind; all experience is simply an escape. Meditation is not experience; it is enlightenment. Meditation is not experience; on the contrary, it opposes all experience. Experience is something external, old, past, but the one experiencing is your being, not the experience. This is the difference between true spirituality and false spirituality: if you are seeking experience, that is false spirituality; if you are seeking the one experiencing, that is true spirituality. Then you will no longer care about kundalini, no longer care about chakra, no longer care about all these things. They will happen on their own, but you will not care, you will not be interested, you will not focus. You will continue to go to your inner center, where nothing exists, only you are completely alone. There is only consciousness, but no content.

All experience is a deception of the mind. Content is experience; whatever you experience is content. I experience suffering; therefore, suffering is the content of my consciousness. I experience joy; therefore, joy is the content. I experience boredom; therefore, boredom is the content. You can experience tranquility; therefore, tranquility is the content. You can experience happiness; therefore, happiness is the content. And so you keep changing the content—you can change the content endlessly—but none of this is real . The real is those who experience these experiences—those who experience boredom, those who experience happiness. The question explored in spiritual research is not what happened, but who experienced it. Then the self cannot be generated. The experiencer is real; experience is false. Therefore, the pursuit of the experiencer is true spirituality. Content changes, but consciousness remains constant.

During meditation, you may sometimes feel a sense of emptiness, yet not truly emptiness. I call this "like emptiness." When you meditate, there will be moments, even seconds, when you feel your thought processes seem to stop. These gaps begin to appear. You feel as if your thought processes have stopped, but that is also a thought process, a very subtle one. Your mind is saying, "The thought process has stopped." But this is actually the beginning of a second thought process. And when you say, "This is emptiness," and "Something is going to happen," what does that mean? Another new thought process begins. This is the deception of subtle thought processes, the very idea that "your thought process has stopped" is itself a thought process.

Whenever it happens again, don't become a victim of the mind. When you feel peace descending, don't describe it in words, because you will disrupt the peace. Experience without describing, for no reason other than to wait and experience. Don't do anything, don't say, "This is emptiness." Once you say it, you destroy it. Just observe it, merge with it, encounter it—but wait, don't describe it in words. Through description, the mind will enter through another path, and you will be kept in the dark. Be wary of the mind's tricks. It will happen in the beginning, whenever it happens, you just need to wait. Don't fall into the trap.