The very same thought evidently occurred to Serena, because she replied, “Actually, there is some advice for which I’d be very grateful.”
Ani Drolma raised her eyebrows.
“Mind-watching-mind meditation. I haven’t practiced it for many years. Can you refresh me on how it’s done?”
“Of course.” Glancing at the banquette, she gestured. “Shall we sit?”
I already knew the instructions for this meditation, having heard them given both by the Dalai Lama and Geshe Wangpo during his weekly classes. But I had come to recognize that every teacher had a different way of presenting things—and fresh insights—so that even the most familiar practices can be presented in a different light. With Ani Drolma having spent so many years in solitary meditation, I was curious to know what she would have to say. It seemed that I had found myself on the magazine rack at just the right moment to receive the benefit of her considerable wisdom.
“Begin with breath-based meditation to settle the mind,” she told Serena once they were sitting on either side of the table and Serena had ordered them a pot of tea.
“As an object of meditation, the breath is a gross object—easy to find. Once your mind has calmed to some extent, say, after five or ten minutes, then change the object of meditation to the mind itself.”
“The problem is that as soon as I try to search for my mind, I start having all these thoughts . . .”
Me, too, I found myself agreeing.
“Of course. This is normal,” Ani Drolma said, nodding. She leaned forward in her seat, and her eyes became bright. “But unlike other meditations, when thoughts arise, they are not considered distractions.”
“No?” Serena’s brow furrowed in surprise.
“Thoughts arise from the mind just as waves arise from the ocean. They are of the same nature. If we sit on a bench above the sea and watch a wave forming, rising to a crest, and then breaking on the beach before rolling back into the sea, we know that the wave is just the sea. Identifiable as distinct from the rest of the ocean for a few moments, but part of it. So too with our thoughts. The main thing”—she paused for emphasis—“is not to engage with our thoughts, which is what we usually do. Our job is simply to observe a thought as a thought.”
Serena was following her closely.
“To do this when a thought arises, we practice to acknowledge, accept, let go.”
“What happens when more thoughts immediately pop up?”
Ani Drolma smiled. “Same again. Acknowledge. Accept. Let go. You see, usually we’re thought-huggers. As soon as a thought arises in our mind, we engage with it. We become absorbed in it, no matter what it is. No matter how badly it hurts us.”
Serena pursed her lips. “I can relate to that,” she said. “I have these thoughts that I know are just making me unhappy. But I keep returning to them.”
Ani Drolma reached over and touched her on the hand. “All the more reason to practice mind watching mind. It helps us put thoughts in their rightful place. A thought is merely a thought. A temporary conception. It is not a fact. Nor a truth. Every thought you’ve ever had
has gone. It isn’t here now, is it?”
Serena was shaking her head with a smile. “But we get so caught up in our thoughts. They can make us so miserable.”
“‘Caught up’ is a good expression,” agreed Ani Drolma. “So much unhappiness is self-perpetuated.”
I thought about how often I was a victim of exactly this, dwelling so closely on the very thoughts that were most likely to make me unhappy.
At that moment a waiter arrived with a tea trolley, poured out two cups of English Breakfast tea, and left a plate with biscotti on the table between them.
“It seems like mind watching mind is a good way to break the cycle of negativity,” observed Serena when they were alone again.
Ani Drolma considered that as she sipped her tea. “Meditation has been proven to help people with recurring depression. Neuroscientists say that the insula, which is the part of the brain where we feel unhappiness, is wired to the executive functioning of the brain, which searches for reasons. Unhappy thoughts lead to unhappy feelings. Then we ask ourselves why we’re feeling so sad and this prompts more unhappy interpretations, beliefs, attitudes—”
“A vicious spiral.”
“Exactly. Meditation can help break the cycle. Yes, we may be overwhelmed with thoughts initially. But as we practice not engaging with them, the curious thing is that they occur less and less. Gradually they cease.”
“And what do we have left?”
Ani Drolma glowed. “Mind itself!”
Serena responded to her enthusiasm with a rueful expression. “On the very rare occasions when my mind has been quiet, all I’ve noticed is, like, nothing.”