Pollution in the Mental Environment

I've been starting to practise Zazen lately, which is the meditation practice of Zen Buddhism. Zen's appeal to me, as for many other Westerners, is its 'clean' nature and the relative absence of the deities and rituals associated with many other forms of Buddhism, which in my case at least seem to get in the way of fully connecting with the practice.

When in Zazen, as with the other meditation practices I've performed many times in the past, I do find that my mind is often far from quiet when I sit - it might be a musical riff or lyric, other times a replay of past events, perhaps meticulous planning for some future event. Since beginning Zazen, something that has become very clear to me is just how much my mind craves stimulation and distractions in normal life. Now, intellectually I've long known this to be common in the Internet age (it's a regular topic on Slashdot), but in doing the practise it has become so much more discernible in my own life.

I don't know how long this has been going on for, but even before becoming interested in meditation I had started to become increasingly conscious of this appetite for 'information'. In particular, I'd noticed I often spend a lot more time on the Internet than I had planned to.

Now, not only is there a craving for mental stimulation of some sort, but there also seems to be a threshold for stimulation to be 'satisfactory' to me. For example, when eating a meal alone at home I often find that the eating in itself does not provide sufficient stimulation for me, and that I am compelled to read something (whether a random magazine, newspaper or something on the web), and often listen to music at the same time. It really takes a concerted effort of will to simply sit with my food and eat it - to do so would leave me feeling that something was missing.

Of course the multifarious distractions of the 'always on' age are for the most part relatively benign in themselves - all part of the process of osmosis by which human culture every day cross-pollinates, grows and mutates - perhaps I read someone's blog posting about hang-gliding and decide to try it; Mary reads a book of poetry and is inspired to write some herself; Joan listens to a favourite album as she taps out instant messages to her friends.

The problem for me, as someone trying to meditate, comes when my waking hours are filled with so much stimulation, so many distractions, that I simply don't make any space to do the thinking I seem to need to do every day. What tends to happen is that this thinking, which is apparently quite vital, then spills over into my meditation practice, making it difficult to be present and mindful. Intentional, directed thought, by which I mean just taking time to think about the things I need to, plan etc, isn't something I tend to do often. So when I sit down to meditate, the mind - finally given peace enough to cogitate - seizes the opportunity to grind its gears, think through my plans, reflect on some passage of something I've read, replay a catchy bit of music over and over, make sense of past interactions with others etc. Quite often, the traditional objects of attention in meditation practice such as 'watching the breath' and 'being in the body' seem not to provide enough mental stimulation to overcome the succession of thoughts which invade the stillness, each one demanding my attention.

I really think this is it, because what often happens when I sit down to meditate is that instead of being mindful and present, my mind actually works stuff out, spots flaws in plans etc - there's a real sense of important work being done and my benefitting from it. Nothing wrong with that, except the reason I sat down was to meditate and that's what then becomes rather difficult. It's starting to look like I might have to make time for both.

As an aside, another time I'm often aware of this extraordinary and kind of involuntary activity of working stuff out is when I'm dozing in bed sometimes, half asleep. Again, plans are fleshed out, things are sorted through and it's usually only on rising that I realise my mind has been doing all of this processing, with myself a mere spectator. I wonder if others have experienced this also.

I'm experimenting with reducing my exposure to these ubiquitous stimuli - I've blacklisted many of the websites that eat up my time so well, and am only listening to music for an hour or two each day. Already I notice that I'm able to become aware of the impulse to play this album or visit that website and not act on it, which is encouraging. I'm very interested to see if giving myself more space to just think on top of the space to just be will continue to open new doors into the inner workings of my everyday experience.