Meditation

Meditation
Lorin Peters
2001

The World Trade Towers had just come down two hours ago. It was the morning of September 11th, 2001. Professor Michael Nagler had just walked into his Nonviolence class at UC (University of California) Berkeley. All 75 of us were sitting on the edge of our seats, holding our breath to hear his first words. The rubber was about to meet the road – nonviolence was about to meet an extreme test.

“There is a lab for nonviolence. It is meditation. We meet every morning at 8 am.” He had said the same words on the first day of class, one week earlier. But I had not understood. I had been teaching nonviolence for three decades without meditation, and could not imagine any type of controlled lab experiments on violent people. Suddenly, on September 11th, I understood. The enormous violence of the destruction of the towers was unleashing a ferocious hatred in America that only the most deeply principled nonviolence would be able to resist and turn around. The strength to return love for this profound hatred would be possible only with a deep spiritual practice and discipline. No merely political or social analysis or movement would be capable of meeting such a challenge.

I showed up the next morning at 8 am. I showed up every morning at 8 am until the school year ended the following May. I have continued trying to meditate every morning since. I am not good at meditation. But that does not matter. I am not discouraged. I know in my whole being that I need this discipline.

Professor Michael, as a grad student, was deeply involved in the Free Speech Movement (Wikipedia for details) of 1964. 750 students occupied Sproul Hall, the Administration Building, and were arrested. The university finally granted the right to freedom of speech on campus. But the movement ended in disagreement and collapse and chaos. Many students, including Michael, were in despair.

Eknath Easwaran (Wikipedia) grew up in a truly matriarchal village in the state of Kerala in the far south of India. His grandmother was the deeply beloved spiritual mentor to the entire village, and especially to Easwaran. As an adult he became an extremely successful professor of English literature. When he sat near Gandhi at one of his daily “prayer meetings”, and the words of the Bhagavad Gita were read, he was mesmerized as he saw Gandhi metamorphose into the Buddha.

When his grandmother died, Easwaran found great consolation in sitting and reciting some of his favorite scriptures. So he decided to do it again the next day. And the next day. Each day he could feel his spirit growing deeper and stronger, as all her teaching and the ancient wisdom of India blossomed and grew within him. He began to realize he had stumbled upon a most profound and valuable discipline.

When he moved his mother, for health reasons, to Blue Mountain, in the south of India, he discovered a community of Franciscan monks. St Francis of Assisi (Wikipedia) went with the 5th crusade to the Holy Land in 1219 CE. But when he arrived, he walked, unarmed, into the “enemy” camp. Sultan al Malik recognized Francis’ extraordinary nonviolent spirit, and a deep friendship grew up between them – perhaps the first interfaith relationship between Islam and Christianity.

As the monks shared stories of Francis, they soon recognized that Easwaran also had a deep and related spirituality. One day as he was meditating, Easwaran encountered Francis in a perhaps ultimate way, completely beyond words or images. All he recorded is that their minds melded together, and they were no longer two separate beings, but one.

Easwaran became a Fulbright Scholar at Berkeley in 1959. By 1965 he knew he was being called back to Berkeley to teach meditation. A substantial number of students and instructors began to find answers to their disillusionment. In 1970 forty of them, including Michael, moved to Tomales, an hour northwest of Berkeley, to form the Ramagiri Ashram. Easwaran published “Gandhi the Man”, arguably the most profound book on Gandhi to date, in 1975. By the time he shed his body and returned to the universe in 1999, he had written 20 more books, most related to meditation and his deep spirituality.

Easwaran’s basic work is “Passage Meditation” (Nilgiri Press, 1978), his eight point program. Point one, Meditation. Memorize several positive, uplifting spiritual passages, from different traditions (six are suggested, and printed, in his book). Start with the Prayer of St Francis:

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love,
Where there is injury, pardon,
Where there is doubt, faith,
Where there is despair, hope,
Where there is darkness, light,
Where there is sadness, joy.
O, divine master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
It is in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.”

We sit comfortably with our eyes closed, and our backs erect. Recite the words silently and slowly (imagine watching water drip into a pond, maybe one drop/word each second) for 30 minutes each morning, preferably before eating. One goal is to learn to control our minds, instead of our mind running off on its own and controlling us. The other is to fill our minds with helpful and positive words and ideas.

Point two, The Mantram. All the traditions have mantrams, a name of God/Allah, or some kind of short invocation bringing us into the light or the divine. Easwaran’s grandmother gave him his mantram before he had to speak in public, and taught him to use it whenever he was nervous, or distressed, or having trouble sleeping, or even just walking (caution – never use it driving, or crossing a street).

Repeat your mantram slowly. I coordinate the word(s) with my breathing. Eventually it takes on a life of its own, starting automatically when needed. I have little trouble sleeping. If you do not have a mantram, find a wise person in your own tradition to help you find one that has been tested through the centuries and is appropriate for you (he recommends we not pick our own – after about six weeks, it becomes irreversible).

Something interesting happened one morning in Palestine, sitting alone. I had just decided to go indoors, and was half way across our small patio, when I heard the words, “Sit down.” I glanced to my right, and was startled to see, five feet away, a soldier in full battle gear, his rifle pointed directly at me. “SIT DOWN!” It took a moment for his words to register. I sat down. After some seconds my mantram kicked in. The soldiers were much more frightened than we were – that’s why they carry guns – and why we don’t. Soon I found myself praying for them… When they left, they apologized, for having tracked a little water into our apartment.

Point three, Slowing Down.
Four, One-Pointed Attention (many of my friends believe that multi-tasking is more efficient, but the scientific evidence is totally otherwise).
Five, Training the Senses (our desires).
Six, Putting Others First.
Seven, Spiritual Companionship (weekly meditation group, for continuing growth and support).
Eight, Reading the Mystics (draw inspiration from the scriptures of all traditions).