![Search Inside Yourself: Increase Productivity, Creativity and Happiness [ePub edition] - Daniel Goleman](/cover_340306.jpg "Search Inside Yourself: Increase Productivity, Creativity and Happiness [ePub edition] - Daniel Goleman")
third thing to do is to become aware of your attitude toward yourself. See how you treat yourself and how often you engage in nasty gossip about yourself. If possible, shift the attitude toward self-directed kindness and curiosity. This shift is, by itself, another meditation. Once again, it is about forming mental habits.
Every time we create an attitude of self-directed kindness, we deepen that habit a little bit more, and if we do it a lot, we may overcome a lot of our self-hatred and even become our own best friend.
One beautiful way of doing this is to create what the Zen folks call the “grandmother mind”: adopting the mind of a loving grandmother. To a loving grandmother, you are beautiful and perfect in every way. No matter how much mischief you cause, you are perfect and Grandma loves you just as you are. It does not mean Grandma is blind to your faults, nor does it mean she allows you to hurt yourself. Sometimes, she even intervenes sternly to stop you from getting yourself into big trouble. But no matter what, you are perfect to her and she loves you.
The practice is to see yourself in the eyes of a loving grandmother.
And finally, return to following your breath and, whenever it is helpful, remind yourself of your intention. Welcome back.
Posture and Stuff
You can really meditate in any posture you want. Traditional Buddhism, for example, defines four main meditation postures: sitting, standing, walking, and lying down, which seems to cover just about everything. Those Buddhists are greedy.
When choosing a meditation posture for yourself, there is only one thing to remember. Just one. The best meditation posture is one that helps you remain alert and relaxed at the same time for a long period of time. That means, for example, you probably do not want a posture where you slouch, since that is not conducive to alertness, and you also do not want a posture that requires you to stiffen your back, since that is not conducive to relaxation.
Happily for us, a sitting posture optimized for both alertness and relaxation has already been developed over the thousands of years that people have been meditating. This traditional posture is sometimes called the seven-point meditation posture. In brief, the seven are:
1. Back straight “like an arrow”
2. Legs crossed in “lotus position”
3. Shoulders relaxed, held up and back, “like a vulture”
4. Chin tucked in slightly, “like an iron hook”
5. Eyes closed or gazing into space
6. Tongue held against the upper palate
7. Lips slightly apart, teeth not clenched
We do not have to go into details about the traditional posture. I found the formal forms of this posture to be initially difficult for most modern people because we do not sit on the floor much. Instead, we are so used to sitting on chairs or couches with backrests that the traditional posture feels a bit awkward for many of us, at least in the beginning. So my suggestion to you is just to be aware that a functionally optimized traditional posture exists. Use it as a guideline, and find whatever posture is comfortable for you and, most importantly, helps you remain alert and relaxed. For example, it does not really matter if you cross your legs or use a backrest. As long as you can remain alert and relaxed, that is good.
Sogyal Rinpoche, a world-renowned Tibetan Buddhist teacher, suggests a fun and useful way to find your own posture. He recommends sitting like a majestic mountain. The idea is to think of your favorite mountain, say Mount Fuji or Mount Kilimanjaro, and then pretend to be that mountain when you sit. And there you are, Mister (or Miss) Mount Fuji, majestic, dignified, and awe inspiring. The nice thing is if you sit in a way that you feel majestic, dignified, and awe inspiring, it may also be the same posture that helps you become alert and relaxed, and it is kind of fun. Try this out and see if it works for you.
Another simple but useful suggestion comes from Search Inside Yourself instructor Yvonne Ginsberg:
Take a deep breath, lifting the rib cage. Letting go of the breath, let the shoulders drop while the spine stays gently in place. Thus embodying the flow of a river and the stability of a mountain, simultaneously.
One question I get asked a lot is whether your eyes should be open or closed when you meditate. The funny answer is: either, both, and neither. The real answer is, each has its upsides and downsides, so it is good to understand and play with the options.
Keeping your eyes closed during meditation is good; it helps you stay calm and keeps away visual distractions. The problem is it becomes easy to fall asleep. If you keep your eyes open, you have the reverse problem. You do not drift into sleep so easily anymore, but you get distracted by visual objects. What to do? What to do? There are two compromises, one temporal and one spatial.
The temporal compromise is to start with your eyes closed and then open them occasionally when you start drifting toward sleep. The spatial compromise is, if you can, keep your eyes half open. I like to joke that this is easy for me because I am Chinese. But really, the idea here is to open your eyes slightly, look slightly downward, and gaze at nothing in particular. In my own experience, this last option is the optimal one. I suggest trying each option out to see what works for you.
Often in our meditation, we get distracted by sounds, thoughts, or physical sensations. I suggest a four-step plan to work with such distractions:
1. Acknowledge.
2. Experience without judging or reacting.
3. If you need to react, continue maintaining mindfulness.
4. Let it go.
Acknowledge
Just acknowledge that something is happening.
Experience, Without Judging or Reacting
Whatever it is that you are experiencing, just experience it. Do not judge it to be good or bad. Let it be, let it be, as a famous song suggests. If it is possible, try not to react to it. If you have to react (for example, you really have to scratch), try to take five breaths before reacting. The reason to do this is to practice creating space between stimulus and reaction.
The more we are able to create space between stimulus and reaction, the more control we will have over our emotional lives. This skill that you develop here during sitting can be generalized to daily life.
If You Need to React, Continue Maintaining Mindfulness
If you need to react, for example you need to scratch or to stand up, maintain mindfulness over three things: intention, movement, and sensation. Remember that the goal of this practice is not keeping still; the goal is mindfulness. So as long as you maintain mindfulness, anything you do is fair game. This means, for example, that if you need to react to an itch on your face, first bring attention to the sensation of itching, then to the intention to scratch, and finally to the movement of your arm and finger and the sensation of scratching on your face.
Nothing more. Nothing less.
Let It Go
If it wants to be let go of, let it go. If not, just let it be.
Remember that letting go is not forcing something to go away. Instead, letting go is an invitation. We generously allow the recipient to choose whether or not to accept the invitation, and we are happy either way. When we let go of something
