Meditation and the Empty mind

“The power of the Universe will come to your assistance, if your heart and mind are in Unity.”

–  Lakota Saying, passed down from White Buffalo Calf Woman

I’ve debated with myself about posting this and decided that it’s something that needs to be said again.  It’s a conversation I have all the time with people when I teach a yoga class and we touch on meditation. Someone will ask “when will my mind empty?”

Well honey, I hate to be the one to tell you this but if your mind is empty your dead…

Somewhere in the translation of Citta has been distorted. One of the first times I heard the word citta it was attached to the phrase monkey mind.

In chapter two of his book “The Path of the Yoga Sutras..” Nicolai Bachman write about citta and he suggests that citta is the outer mind, the inner mind, ego and memory.  With awareness on our inner light (purusa) that we can try to understand citta

The second of Patangjali’s Yoga Sutra is:

Yogas citta vritti nirodha = The restraint of the modifications of the mind-stuff is yoga.

Yogah (yogas) = Yoga

Chitta = the mind-stuff, mind field

Vritti = midifications

Nirodhah = restraint

No were in either of these translations is the word empty.

I remember once being in a class on meditation and the instructor saying to us “Your mind is meant to tell you stories, to solve your problems, to analyses and teach you.”  I loved that your mind is meant to tell you stories because oh my goodness my mind loves to tell me stories, all the time.

Meditation is hard, we don’t need to make meditation more difficult by perpetrating the myth that when we meditate we think about nothing.  I blame Hollywood and its portrayal of eastern mysticisms.  When I meditate my mind is always going if it is focusing on counting my breath, repeating a mantra or letting my mind wander these are all different ways of meditation and learning to restrain the mind stuff.

If I’m taking a class and we are sitting in meditation at the end I try to focus on my breath but inevitably my mind will wander off to what I need from the store, how much is the price of gas, what should I make for dinner.  I try to remember not to feel frustrated when this happens, my mind is doing its job – problem solving and telling me story. But because I’m in a yoga class and trying to focus on this idea of restraint of my citta I go back to my breath. I focusing on the inhale on the exhale maybe say a round or two of my mantra then back to the breath. Once in a great while I get a synchronization a moment between an inhale and an exhale that is quite then poof it’s gone and the thoughts are off and running only to repeat the conscious pause and gentle refocus back to the breath.

Perhaps this is why I enjoy guided meditation and path working so much. Someone is giving you a story for your mind to follow to help you find this purusa, inner peace or enlightenment.  I have just started working with self-guided meditation where you focus on an idea or a deity.  No where in these styles of meditation is your mind empty in both you encourage the story telling aspect of your mind opening again to your inner wisdom your inner peace.

Meditation is a part of daily practice on my yoga path. On some days  I have an easy time meditating other days it’s a struggle and hard work. Learn to accept that my mind will chatter at me has been a delight in this work.

Let your mind tell you a story my friends learn to listen to your inner wisdom.