Q: I am perplexed at how when I am faced with life’s presentations, a possible answer comes most unexpected. Today was a day of choice for me. I didn’t do the difficult thing that was good for me, I did the easy thing that was not as good for me and possibly bad in the long run for me and other and by default others. I’m frustrated with myself. I try to lead a disciplined life and practice discernment… it’s very challenging. Even to do the thing that is good for me, that I enjoy, can sometimes feel like a chore… I would like not to waste what I have been given but to grow into the most complete version of me possible in this life time. I am now challenged to do something I don’t want to do that will be good for everyone, myself included and that makes me feel not so good… I am a little sad. Very grateful for this teaching today.

A: I sympathize with the picture you paint of the struggle. I think there is plenty of corroboration that an intentional, spiritual life, in some regards, gets harder instead of easier. By definition, we will face harder choices, and sometimes choose poorly. It’s ironic maybe, that our search for happiness opens our eyes, and therefore they see more difficulty at times. My feeling, and to some degree my experience, is that though we are tasked with the hardship of choosing the good, it leads us to some plateaus and higher vistas, and the beauty of the fruit of our efforts can be felt. Hang in there, and so will I. 🙏

Q: I’m not sure if my question is relevant. However it is something that I struggle with. I have a degenerative spine and getting into the correct posture is difficult and often painful. I’m concerned that the pain is sometimes distracting. Also I worry that if it m not in alignment that this may detract from my meditation. How might I resolve this issue. I’m grateful for your teaching and hope that you may help resolve my problem.

A: This is absolutely a relevant question. Discomfort in meditation posture is fairly common, and there is a wide range of degrees of difficulty and solutions. In the type of meditation I am generally talking about, there are no specific alignment requirements like there may be in forms of yoga. It is said that meditation can be done sitting, standing, walking, or lying down. While I sometimes give specific instructions about the sitting posture because it is most common, they can be generalized to any of the other postures. In general, the state of the mind is the mot important thing. So if it’s an upright posture balanced between alertness and ease, if you happen to be lying down, you don’t need to worry about the upright part, but you can still bring alertness and ease to the body and mind- feel the energy of the meaning of those words in the body and mind. If you feel that you can take a sitting posture without doing harm to yourself, it’s ok to meditate with some pain sometimes if you’re up for working with it in the meditation. One of my meditations on insight timer is called “body sensations meditation” and it is partly oriented to working with pain in the body. The general idea of pain in meditation is that it is one of many phenomena that present themselves to the mind. Sometimes we can develop a new relationship with the pain by observing it in the context of meditative mind states. We might notice that the pain is not as concrete as it seemed, that it comes and goes more than we thought, that it’s location is sort of non-specific. One image a teacher of mine uses is to look at pain as going away from you, as if you were on the last car of a train watching the receding horizon, instead of watching the pain in anticipation coming at you. I hope some of these suggestions are helpful, and I’m more than happy to follow up with you either here or you can send me a private message. Thanks very much!

Q: I’m on Day 2 now, and have followed your instructions. My question arises from something I’ve read in the Anipatanasutta, where the Buddha teaches on taking a long breath and discerning it in awareness, and taking a short breath and discerning as a short breath. My question is in regards to this teaching and your instructions on Energy: is the purpose of taking long and short breaths to merely discern them, or is it meant to become more sensitized to the breath and body and even to promote having a more energized awareness and practice? Thank you for your kind response to my question. I’m enjoying your course and your guidance in understanding the Buddha’s teaching on these qualities and skillful practice. Thank you

A: I think that “discerning breathing in and out, long and short,” represents a spectrum of possibilities in the breath, and that theme is carried on in the sutta. I interpret it to mean that we have an intimate awareness of what’s going on with the breath, no matter how the breath is behaving at any moment. But you’re right, it doesn’t stop there. The sutta goes on to encourage the practitioner to become sensitive to the entire body, to calm bodily fabrications, to sense rapture and pleasure, gladden the mind, release the mind, etc. I believe that the implication is that within breath meditation, yes we can get more energized awareness, but also ease, focus, sensitivity to the body and mind, happiness… the nutshell that is the 16 steps of the anapanasati sutta points to the enormous potential of breath meditation. My teacher will sometimes say, play with the breath. I find this encouraging, to break down the barriers of what my common conception of the breath is- to make the breath my playground.

Q: I’ve been meditating for years; your perspective brings a freshness to my practice, allowing me to deepen into the experience of the present moment. Question: how does one discern when faith (as you have very ably described it) slips into blind devotion or unquestioning habit-formation? How to stay in “ middle way” awareness of one’s practice, not to get swept up in blissful or calming experience? Thank you.

A: The first thing that comes to mind is one of the refrains from the Satipatthana Sutta “A monk remains focused on the body- ardent, alert, and mindful- putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world.” In particular, the quality of alertness seems relevant- both to the idea of blind devotion and getting swept up in a blissful and calming experience. We know that all of these things have positive aspects: devotion, good habits, calm, and bliss- but we don’t want to get into what a teacher of mine calls “delusion concentration”. His suggestion is making sure to keep the breath in mind, even when it feels like a very powerful concentration has come. It can be tempting to let go into these sensations, and this is where alertness is helpful. While there are many things we allow to be let go of, we can keep the breath in mind while continuing to refine the practice; an image he uses is sifting flour- getting more and more refined in the breath. Even if you think it’s already refined, know that it can go further. It might be helpful to have the question at hand, “is it time to let go of the breath, too?” I would say that if that question can still be asked, the answer is, no. So, especially when some powerful concentration arises, check in with your alertness, notice if you still have access to your discerning mind. Nothing needs to be taken for granted, like blind faith, and you won’t get swept away, as long as you maintain access to the mind returning to the breath. I don’t want to go on too long, but I would love to hear any followup questions, and I’m always interested in some discussion. I have a group on insight timer called the Mark Zelinsky Live Group, and we have live sessions most Sundays. You can also reply here and/or send me a private message.

Q: I’m not sure if my question is relevant. However it is something that I struggle with. I have a degenerative spine and getting into the correct posture is difficult and often painful. I’m concerned that the pain is sometimes distracting. Also I worry that if it I’m not in alignment that this may detract from my meditation. How might I resolve this issue. I’m grateful for your teaching and hope that you may help resolve my problem.

A: This is absolutely a relevant question. Discomfort in meditation posture is fairly common, and there is a wide range of degrees of difficulty and solutions. In the type of meditation I am generally talking about, there are no specific alignment requirements like there may be in forms of yoga. It is said that meditation can be done sitting, standing, walking, or lying down. While I sometimes give specific instructions about the sitting posture because it is most common, they can be generalized to any of the other postures. In general, the state of the mind is the mot important thing. So if it’s an upright posture balanced between alertness and ease, if you happen to be lying down, you don’t need to worry about the upright part, but you can still bring alertness and ease to the body and mind- feel the energy of the meaning of those words in the body and mind. If you feel that you can take a sitting posture without doing harm to yourself, it’s ok to meditate with some pain sometimes if you’re up for working with it in the meditation. One of my meditations on insight timer is called “body sensations meditation” and it is partly oriented to working with pain in the body. The general idea of pain in meditation is that it is one of many phenomena that present themselves to the mind. Sometimes we can develop a new relationship with the pain by observing it in the context of meditative mind states. We might notice that the pain is not as concrete as it seemed, that it comes and goes more than we thought, that it’s location is sort of non-specific. One image a teacher of mine uses is to look at pain as going away from you, as if you were on the last car of a train watching the receding horizon, instead of watching the pain in anticipation coming at you. I hope some of these suggestions are helpful, and I’m more than happy to follow up with you either here or you can send me a private message. Thanks very much!

Q: My mind tends to go with the thoughts lately and I disconnect. Do you have any thoughts about this?

A: If you find that you are having thoughts that are hard to ignore and that you do not think are useful, and as you say, are disconnecting you from the practice, I usually take the fight fire with fire approach, meaning I use thoughts to break the pattern of unproductive thinking. It can sometimes be useful to focus on different areas outside of thought like mind states or body and breath or feeling tones, but when the thoughts are very persistent I find it useful to bring in thoughts like, I am here for the benefit of my well-being; my well-being serves the interest of the well-being of others; when I am calm and happy I can bring calmness and happiness into the world. These are just some examples and you can also feel free to use thoughts to direct your attention to the breathing and the body. Let these thoughts be obvious, even loud, so that they are the dominant thoughts in your mind at the time. After using skillful thoughts for a while your mind won’t need them as much to stay with the breath and the body and the feelings of goodness that come from the meditation, and then you can gradually allow them quiet down again.

Q: What would be an example of why a monk might choose to meditate on right thinking? I understand what it means and strives for, so my question seems obvious. But what might prompt one to focus again on a refresher on right thinking so to speak? The reason I’m asking is, I often hear of the more trendy (is it?) “mindfulness “ way of accepting your thoughts and not judging thoughts… we might feel like we are slipping at times into negative thought; judgment, jealousy, attachment or anger, etc. acceptance and then moving on. Is right thinking here saying we must acknowledge (versus accept) a slip or habit of unskillful thinking and consciously practice right thinking?
I read an article last year that suggested that mindfulness as the wider public knows it, reads about it, is not the true mindfulness of Buddhist teachings. Is true mindfulness a practice that does allow/ encourage digging into practicing the opposite of “wrong” thinking? I’m curious why the word “right” was selected for this type of thinking. I’m interpreting it to mean “skillful thinking.” I may be too hung up on the word “ right”.

A: We’re trying to get the practice in a place where we are continually refocusing on these everyday activities of the mind (ie right thinking). We try to get still enough, concentrated enough to notice these things. In a way, there is some acceptance- we could call it acknowledgment as well- but you’re right, we don’t just move on. If we don’t accept that something is there, we might miss it. Once we accept that, say, the mind has a bad habit- something that we’ve actually identified as harmful to us- we have our work right there. And we are offered many ways of dealing with it. As you mention, in the face of harmful thoughts, we can try to cultivate the opposite- like cultivating good will when we are feeling ill will, or cultivating the pleasure of our concentration practice if we are too caught up in sensual pleasure. As far as the last part of your question,you’re not alone in putting a question mark in front of the word “right”, although I’ve become accustomed to it personally. Wise and skillful can be helpful alternatives. But you are also correct that sometimes the definition of mindfulness that’s put out is much more passive than what is described in Buddhist scripture. The simile of the gatekeeper is a perfect illustration- while the gatekeeper might look passive at times, if he’s doing his job well, he will be quite active in his attentiveness, and take action if the wrong sort of crowd tries to enter. The other less-than-passive simile for right mindfulness is the goad- a pointy tool to prod oxen. This is useful when our mind becomes sluggish and tends to slip into bad habits. This is not to say that the practice is about beating ourselves up- this is why we’re offered many balancing measures of cultivating a greater happiness- but it does contain strong language and imagery at times, I think because it’s what is needed at times to get through to us.