Steve Hagen – Meditation: Now or never

Page 15: In the remainder of this book I’ll refer to these techniques by their more specific names – Relaxation, Visualization, Trance etc. – and save the word meditation and its Japanese translation Zen for the practice of awareness, openness and direct experience of here and now.

Has very good clear instructions for meditation including as regards posture and mudras and things like that

Page 41: With practice over time your trips away become shorter, less frequent and not as absorbing. Gradually you learn to reside where you actually live here and now.

Page 51: If you don’t attempt to eradicate the pain you’ll learn something vital; that your ability to deal with pain increases if you don’t put energy into ending or avoiding it. You’ll see that it’s not pain that’s causing you difficulty it’s your resistance and your fighting with it.

Page 52: With careful and honest examination we will eventually see that what we’re actually resisting is our idea of pain not pain itself. As we resist pain, pain only seizes us with greater force but if we’re fully present with the sensation of pain and if we notice our resistance we can learn the let to let the desire to escape weaken and wither away

Page 59: Discouragement is unfulfilled expectations. It results from getting stuck in how we think things ought to be. To the extent that we are discouraged we are not actually present we’re caught up in our ideas. If you’re discouraged just return to right here. This place right here is where we can have no expectations

Page 60: If we’re stuck in our problems it’s because we’re trying to run from them and from our life. If we feel frustration or desperation it’s because we’re trying to push our problems away. Sooner or later however we’ll hit a wall and we’ll have no choice but to face our problems. Our only way out is to take in our problems and be nourished by them.

Page 60 and 61: And then as we watch they begin to weaken and dissipate and we can see that the very things we’ve so desperately avoided are nothing more than phantoms, mirages and unpleasant dreams. In other words what we habitually react to is not reality but our take on reality. It’s within our own hearts and minds where our problems are created and it’s within our own hearts and minds that we can find freedom. Ultimately in seeing clearly the workings of our minds and the ephemeral nature of our ostensible problems we’ll find a profound freedom that will never depart

Page 66: One reason why it’s important to meditate with others is because it reminds us of how we actually live in this world. It shows us how our life is interdependent with the lives of all beings. In meditation we step outside of ourselves and into the vast open space of selflessness.

Page 68: In refraining from judgment we find a flexible open and tolerant mind. The awareness we develop by practicing in this way gradually expands to reach out all around us. Ultimately it includes everything. Thus we learn to live with a magnanimous heart

Page 70: Meditation is a commitment to reality. It is the pure desire to engage in life as it is not as we hope or wish it to be.

Page 76: Uniquely breath rests on the apparent boundary between the inner personal subjective world, the world in here and the objective world out there. Why is this so important to meditation? Because we can learn to place our attention on this supposed boundary line. As we do this over and over gradually that line begins to blur. We begin to see that there isn’t such a clear distinction between inside and outside, between me and not me.

Page 145: When you genuinely practice meditation you’re not practicing for yourself. Though it may look like you’re simply sitting or walking quietly, meditation is anything but a selfish act. It’s an act of generosity and virtue. When we are non-grasping, non-judgmental and not occupied with self or gain, this is a gift to others and to the world. And this activity makes the world a little more peaceful.

Page 158: It’s all very simple. Either you’re present or you’re not. If you’re genuinely present there’s nothing to see. If you’re not then you’ve lost your way. In which case simply come back. Don’t think there’s anything more to meditation than this

Page 160: First of all there’s no continuum of life running from past to present to future. Life is all at once, not stretched over time but now. This is after all what we actually experience. At one o’clock it’s now. At nine o’clock it’s now. It’s forever now. It’s never then.

PAGE 162: Meditation involves putting your energy into the entire field and fabric of life rather than burning it out in points and particles of self-interest. Most of us focus habitually on the particles, the specifics that make up our world. In meditation however we learn to do the opposite. To see the field of life as well as the particles that make it up.

Reference to book Kosho Uchiyama, How to Cook Your Life from the Zen Kitchen to Enlightenment

Page 163: In meditation however when we slip into self-interest and lose sight of the whole, we just bring ourselves back to reality, to wholeness. We learn to notice when we’ve entered a narrow space where me, my and mine become our focus. And we also begin to see that our true interests lie not within the narrow confines of the self but with the whole

Page 166: Gradually as we become more experienced with meditation we start to realize that awareness isn’t just gathered around a me here. Awareness includes everything. It’s more an awareness that there’s no around and nothing particular that is you. It’s all here in the experience of this moment. Thus we eventually see for ourselves that we never meditate alone. In fact there is no by myself. In fully realizing loneliness disappears and our meditation no longer has any taint of ego or greed.