The-Tibetan-Book-of-Living-and-Dying

BRINGING THE MIND HOME 65METHODS IN MEDITATIONIf your mind is able to settle naturally of its own accord,and if you find you are inspired simply to rest in its pureawareness, then you do not need any method of meditation.In fact, it might even be unskillful when you're in such a stateto try to employ one. However, the vast majority of us find itdifficult to arrive at that state straight away. We simply do notknow how to awaken it, and our minds are so wild and sodistracted that we need a skillful means, a method to evoke it.By "skillful" I mean that you bring together your understandingof the essential nature of your mind, your knowledgeof your own various, shifting moods, and the insight you havedeveloped through your practice into how to work with yourself,from moment to moment. By bringing these together,you learn the art of applying whatever method is appropriatefor any particular situation or problem, to transform that environmentof your mind.But remember: A method is only a means, not the meditationitself. It is through practicing the method skillfully thatyou reach the perfection of that pure state of total presencewhich is the real meditation.There is a revealing Tibetan saying, "Gompa ma yin, kompayin," which means literally: "'Meditation' is not; 'getting usedto' is." It means that meditation is nothing other than gettingused to the practice, of meditation. As it is said, "Meditation isnot striving, but naturally becoming assimilated into it." Asyou continue to practice the method, then meditation slowlyarises. Meditation is not something that you can "do"; it issomething that has to happen spontaneously, only when thepractice has been perfected.However, for meditation to happen, calm and auspiciousconditions have to be created. Before we have mastery overour mind, we need first to calm its environment. At themoment, mind is like a candle flame: unstable, flickering, constantlychanging, fanned by the violent winds of our thoughtsand emotions. The flame will only burn steadily when we cancalm the air around it; so we can only begin to glimpse andrest in the nature of mind when we have stilled the turbulenceof our thoughts and emotions. On the other hand, once wehave found a stability in our meditation, noises and disturbancesof every kind will have far less impact.In the West, people tend to be absorbed by what I wouldcall the "technology of meditation." The modem world, after