Approach Your Practice With a Smile
How we start out is very important. We should engage with our meditation with enthusiasm, feeling it to be something wonderful and very beneficial. We should not start out with fear and anxiety, feeling ‘I’m not able to do this.’ We can be fearless because there is nothing to fear or worry about. It’s a matter of doing only as much as we decide we can do, and after that there is nothing to worry about.
Whether it’s the placement methods of the body, or of the mind, if we can do just one minute then that will bring us a minute’s-worth of benefit. If we don’t do that one minute then we lose the possibility of that benefit. So we start with an easy-going mindset of doing what we can, and in that way we will gradually develop our practice.
To take an example: if we approach someone with a smile then they are very likely to smile back – it just naturally puts them at ease. Whereas if on encountering someone we shy away from them, then that will put them on edge or make them feel anxious about talking to us. And it’s exactly the same when it comes to meditation and the body and mind.
It’s not that the body and mind are actually two separate things and with the right approach there can be this friendly coming together of the two – a smile returned with a smile. Just like two people meeting, when they smile at and say ‘hello’ to one another they can end up having quite a nice time together! Like this, with the correct approach to the meditation, the body and mind can come together in a harmonious way and the practice can develop. But if we approach the practice with a degree of anxiety, holding back a little or being a bit fearful, thinking ‘this is going to be difficult’, then we won’t engage with the practice fully.
It’s important to keep in mind that nobody is forcing us to do this. So when it comes to the physical posture, if it starts to become painful we can let the posture go. Same with the mind – if it becomes tired or tight then we can also let that go for the time being. So there is nothing to fear and we should approach the practice with a smile and the thought ‘I am at least able to do something!’
People are amazingly capable. You can do almost anything when you set your mind to it. So we should come to the practice with the right attitude, being joyful and positive. If we think about what we want from practice, it is something by which we will experience peace and joy. So we should approach and enter into the practice in that way.
It’s really important not to let the other aspects or the whole practice go, just because we can’t manage one part. By doing what we can, even if we can only do a few minutes of any part of the posture, doing those few minutes each day will enable us to gradually get used to it and improve.
Having this approach means that our mind will be very open. This way of thinking is very free and will lead to a very healthy state of mind. It is a way of thinking that’s conducive to having self-control and for developing good mental habits because a relaxed mind has freedom. Whereas if we are very tight minded thinking ‘I can’t do that’, we lose our freedom and fall under the sway of fear and anxiety which hold us back and breed poor mental habits. So what we need is a mind that is free – free in the sense that we are in control of it, we are calling the shots.
We tend to have the habit of being anxious or fearful, which takes away our inner freedom. So we should take a relaxed approach in which we are in control. This kind of gentle approach is conducive to our meditation practice and it means we don’t let the physical aspects of the posture overwhelm our mind before it even starts to settle. Instead, our body should be naturally placed, at ease and controlled. Our mind is filled with enthusiasm and joy and that’s very, very helpful.
To read the transcription of the whole teaching session, please follow the link: https://www.facebook.com/notes/drupon-rinpoche/meditation-retreat-calm-abiding-1/653791174806046