Meditation changed me for the better. It helped calm my mind from the chaotic noise of life, but even more from my own thoughts. This calm rippled over (and continues to ripple over) into other aspects of my life and helps me stay more relaxed and more fulfilled afterwards.
Blank mind meditation, which is also colloquially referred to as Zazen (even though that isn’t strictly correct), is a simple technique to clear your mind and bring calmness and relaxation. The process itself is simple to learn, but extremely difficult to master. It’s easy for a short while, but gets much harder for longer.
Blank mind meditation (among others) centers around controlling your breathing. In the beginning, you use a series of visualization techniques to get control of your mind. As you progress, these techniques get easier and easier to remove so that you can devisualize the process into a truly blank mind meditation. If you have any health problems or suspect problems, see a doctor first and all of that.
Breathing
The basis of all good meditations center around breathing and the control of breathing. Breathing is naturally an automatic, subconscious process which helps the entire body retain homeostasis. When the process runs awry, it causes hyperventilation and affects the heart among other organs. By bringing this process back into the control of your conscious mind, you begin to take hold of the entirety of your body and its processes.
For blank mind meditation, find a comfortable position where you won’t fall asleep (sit down, sit cross-legged, whatever works). Begin breathing in and breathing out slowly and evenly. Observe every effect of every movement as the air enters your nose (or mouth) and as it travels into your lungs. How does your heart react? How do you feel? Let the air linger for a little bit then exhale through your mouth. What do you feel? Fixate on this process entirely.
Become conscious of each step and part of the breathing process but more importantly how your body reacts. Your heart should begin to slow a bit and you should begin to feel relaxed. As you get more relaxed, begin counting your breaths. Once you get into a rhythm, begin counting a second or two in, then a second or two out. The exact number of seconds is going to depend on your health and ability.
As you get to hold your breath for longer and longer, begin counting a waiting period between inhalation and exhalation, and vice versa. You’re not trying to practice for free-diving, you’re trying to get relaxed, so don’t obsess over the number of seconds. Do what you can that you can maintain without loss of breath or discomfort.
Visualization
Even though we’re aiming for blank mind meditation, having visualizations to get there initially in the beginning is extremely helpful. If you’re not used to the meditation process, the jump from all of your head’s natural noise to nothing is going to be jarring. The other issue is that it’s hard to focus on nothing when you don’t really know how. The goal of these visualization exercises is to further our control over our minds.
I tend to split these exercises into several groups when describing this practice. The first exercise sets you up for this type of meditation, the second exercise is done to exhaust your mind to get to a more mindful state, and the third exercise is how to weed out the noise. As you progress, you’ll do fewer and fewer of each exercise in roughly reverse order.
First Visualization
The first visualization in this method is to envision yourself as an avatar. You want to see yourself in an idealized, natural state. You want to view this image as you but disconnect yourself from it. Control it, but do not be it.
Practice merging in and moving out from this figure. This figure is you and it is not you. It is a conception of yourself and it is the seat of your consciousness. Move out of it to transcend your normal thoughts and consciousness. The goal here is to think outside of your normal thinking so that you can control the normal system of consciousness.
Second Visualization
Once you can accept the multiple nature of the avatar where it is both the whole of you and only the reflection of your conscious, move onto the next visualization. For the second visualization, see yourself in a pitch black night. The sky is black, and the horizon is black. Imagine there are no real surroundings. You are standing in (or descend into if it helps) a crystal clear ocean, but everything underfoot is solid but ambiguous. Envisage the sky full of stars. Focus on each and every star you can, make sure they stay in place naturally as you move your focus of yourself.
Your goal here is to focus on the visualization. Lose yourself in this abstract version of yourself. As you get better and better at this stage, begin to see fewer and fewer stars. Lessen the noise of the water, to the point it is eerily calm. Reduce the number of objects you focus on as you advance. We’re trying to overwhelm the mind at this point, but as it gets calmer, you can use fewer and fewer tricks.
Third Visualization
The third visualization is a tool to help with noise which affects the second. The whole point of our last exercise in visualizing the crystal clear ocean is to have water. Water can flow and wash away dirt and grime.
Thoughts are inevitably going to intrude on your meditation. As a thought shows up, use the same visualization you use with your avatar to visualize yourself outside of the thought. See the thought in a ball or whatever shape works which is made out of foam or whatever you want. Imagine it like a crystal ball or flashback from a movie and slowly see the thought get a little less clear and much more cloudy. Pick up the ball and look into it, see the thought, acknowledge it, then set it in the water and let the current take it away.
See the thought slowly fade into the distance until you can’t see it anymore. If it keeps coming back, just keep repeating the exercise. Don’t fully acknowledge the thought but don’t try to ignore it. The more you ignore it the stronger it will get. If you just can’t shake a thought, stop meditating and deal with it or do something unrelated until you can try anew.
Keep doing this for each new thought that enters your mind. Move yourself to a third person view of your avatar if the thoughts get too numerous and let the waters wash them all away. Focus on them but don’t linger.
Devisualization
As you practice these visualizations, you should get to the point where you no longer need the third visualization as much. At this point, let the stars begin to fade and the concept of there being water fade as well. Keep going until you progress back to the first visualization.
Once you get back to the first visualization, see the avatar slowly fade until there is nothing. Imagine it as an outline or similar if the silence is too much. In the beginning, this will be extremely hard to keep this calm state in your mind for any length of time. Thoughts will intrude, so allow either a depersonalized avatar to handle the thought, or revert to the third visualization if the thought is too strong.
Over time, you will need to intervene less and less. If the thoughts are constant, visualize the entirety of the ocean with your mind. See the thoughts as dim and unclear in the black, crystal waters. Watch them wash away into the horizon and see your avatar shrink away as you get higher and higher. Continue to mentally zoom out and depersonalize this conscious battle more and more until you see nothing but emptiness.
At this point, you are doing blank mind meditation. Feel yourself above the conscious struggles of the mind. Feel the abyss you are in without fearing it. Your mind is free for now, learn to keep it so.
Feature image by enriquelopezgarre from Pixabay