Lessons from 600 hours of meditation
By: Minty Horseradish
Tags: Mindfulness, Buddhism, Wellness, Meditation, Spirituality

Five Lessons from Six Hundred Hours of Sitting

I first encountered meditation as a young child. I would flick through books about Buddhism and reincarnation, and I became obsessed with Seven Years in Tibet and the plight of the Tibetan people. The whole notion of “enlightenment” and reincarnation was so abstract to me. There was no way I could even grasp what these words meant based on the life experiences I’d had at the time. My initial attempts at meditation were short-lived, sitting for 5 to 10 minutes at a time felt terribly long, tedious and almost excruciatingly irritating.

Then six years ago I went to my first 10-day silent retreat. I came out of it being able to confidently sit for an hour. To scan through any “sensations” I might have on my body over and over again until I had microscopic experiences of what it felt like to just “be me”. To be my body. To be an awareness of my body. To be an awareness. These tiny moments felt like a small wedge slowly forced into a fine crack that had appeared inside the walls of my brain. The wedge was the initial experiences of “presence”.

During this retreat, I started seeing things more clearly. Life became sharper as if the saturation and contrast dial had been turned on inside the brain app running in the background. Lights, colours, details were suddenly spectacular to witness. My body felt alive, and I had the urge to touch the earth beneath my feet.

Since then, I’ve spent 600+ hours training my brain to come back to breathe or sensation. Over and over again. And here are some of the things I’ve learnt on the journey thus far:

Lesson 1: The body and mind are not separate and thus meditation can improve overall health.

There are moments when thoughts arise that then result in a sensation in the body, and there are moments when a sensation in the body arises that then initiate a thought. As much as I have tried, I am yet to distinguish who is the master and who is the slave. These two entities appear to be completely entwined. When I think of this as objectively as I can, the brain generates thoughts, and the brain exists within the body so the connection between thoughts and sensations should be obvious. And although scientists have already proved that meditation is beneficial for health and wellbeing, it was a profound realisation for me. How can the power of thinking change the physical body? I have no doubt now that this is possible (although not always predictable).

Lesson 2: Meditation helps develop concentration and focus.

When you are practising sitting with non-reaction to thoughts over and over again, you naturally develop a better ability to focus. That isn’t to say I don’t procrastinate (I do), but when push comes to shove, I have greater trust in my ability to sit and get the essential things done in life. For example, often on a Friday night when all my colleagues have decided to pack it in to go the pub, my ability to focus on the task at hand kicks in and the extra hour I stay back to finish my work pays dividends all weekend when I can just relax.

What I do notice is that when I am unable to get something “done” it isn’t through a lack of determination or focus. Instead, it is an indicator that something else crucial is missing from the equation, prompting me to take a step back and look at the choices I am making.

Lesson 3: Meditation can help you realise “it’s not personal”

Sitting for long periods will mean experiencing physical pain in the body. I often think that meditation is my brain in a mental boot camp: training the muscle of observation. By not reacting (or moving) I’ve learnt to surrender to uncomfortable physical sensations and thus developed a more profound understanding: ‘this is just pain’.

Sometimes the pain momentarily disappears as my brain attaches its attention to other things (breath, body, thoughts). Other times the pain has completely dissipated. And although this sounds like some form of self-induced torture, this training has allowed me to notice that I don’t need to take things personally. If pain is not personal, if it something I can just observe, then other things in life causing me pain (arguments, conflicts, being robbed etc.) also isn’t personal. It just is. It just exists, and I will be okay.

Indeed this has been one of my greatest lessons. This objectivity has allowed me to see life so differently. It has also helped me develop more patience and a deeper willingness to forgive and move on from difficult situations.

Lesson 4: Meditation can make you more open-minded.

There is something more to “me” than “me”. This one is harder to describe, and I have only felt it a handful of times in my life. The first time this ever happened, I was in a group sitting on an ordinary Wednesday night in a local church. Someone put a tape on of my teacher, and it was just the same guided meditation that I had heard before. Out of nowhere, I suddenly felt a detachment of sorts. I was no longer my body. I was no longer my mind. Indeed I was almost nothing but an observing entity in the room. It felt like it lasted a very long time and also not long at all. By the time I had realised I was in this “state” my thoughts re-emerged and I was back. But this moment felt like the wedge in that crack just had a big ol’ hammer smash it into place.

After reading and discussing with spiritual friends alongside further consciousness exploration over the last few years, I’ve realised I had tapped into an altered state. These experiences have opened my mind to the endless possibilities of our objective reality, making life even more exciting and sacred day by day.

Lesson 5: Meditation helps cultivate more love and compassion.

As the observer, I’ve been able to notice more explicitly my own underlying anxieties and flaws. My heightened sense of awareness has also made me sensitive to the fallibilities of those around me (my best guess is that if the world is sharper with my senses, then my emotional sensitivity app is also dialled up). However, this awareness comes with an understanding that even with our imperfections, there is still so much love.

This is a feeling that can’t be intellectualised, or justified… Physically, I could describe this as imaging my heart space expanding out of the rib cage it lives in and flooding into the world. It feels especially strong after a decent long sitting.

What I’ve also learnt is that this feeling of love can also be intentionally cultivated. My friend Pragnya recently shared with me that she realised all of the love she felt for everyone in her life is just love that she feels within. And in this way, the more we can cultivate the love for ourselves, the more we can feel the love we have for others.

The deeper I swim to the bottom of the river through my practice, the deeper I realise the water of love is flowing. Choosing to see through the brokenness of ourselves and the world, and still deciding to fall in love with it every day — for me, is true compassion.