Social Distancing Diary: On Meditation

Bapak sent me a picture from 1983 of the Nimun house under construction. The house in which I grew up in. 

A Daihatsu 600cc van is on the foreground.

My earliest memory of life is riding shotgun in that car. It had no air conditioner, it had a latch below the dashboard to let the wind into the cabin for cooling. I remember that, as a baby or a toddler, I gazed at the wind latch and was mesmerised by the optical illusion of the road passing by like a reel of images—as if we were stationary and the world is moving by.

I was too young to have an idea whether the Daihatsu was a nice car or not. No sense of shame in riding on a beat up motor vehicle. All I cared about was the paradox of perceptions; the subject-object dissonance.

I was ignorant of the concept of consciousness. I have not even been introduced to Allah, soul, sin, paradise, and hellfire (or perhaps understood any of those). But I innocently was aware that there is this blurry line between the sense of self and the world.

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I started meditating in September 2019. I am not sure when I started to remember and be aware again of the subject-object dissonance; the perceptions I had in my earliest memory.

I have been aware of the benefits of Oriental meditations for a long time. However, I didn’t know where to start. I am suspicious of gurus or spiritual teachers. They reek of cults–the non-mainstream organised religions. I am also skeptical with guided meditation apps. Using the smartphone, the main source of distractions of our time, to be more mindful seem to be a counterintuitive approach.

I tried to read The Attention Revolution. The book gives step-by-step instructions on how to meditate. However, it’s like reading a book on riding a bicycle. Not very helpful for me.

I postponed learning to meditate, until I worked for a sociopath and an extremely dysfunctional firm. I have worked for and with bullies and less than pleasant corrupted people, but it was a whole new level of experience (I am a litigator in a jurisdiction with a high corruption index, for your information). The tools I had—the consolations of philosophy and art, the Occidental meditation of journaling—were insufficient to cope with the challenges of that phase.

I got professional help. My therapist recommended the Waking Up app as an additional tool in helping me progress.

I have read Sam Harris’ book with the same title before. I have always been interested in spirituality, but I am prejudiced against religions. Waking Up suits my temperament (its extended title is A Guide to Spirituality Without Religions). Most of the books I read about secular spirituality (or other buzzwords for exploring and improving human psyche) typically emphasise on European enlightenment tradition of meditation; of analysing and examining one’s own thoughts. However, in Waking Up, Harris narrates his spiritual pursuits under the Eastern tradition of meditation and posits that such a path can be a secular one (despite Hinduism and Buddhism roots). 

I admit Harris’ credentials as neuroscientist and persona as one of the so-called ‘The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse’ and ‘New Atheists’ provided me with a certain assurance that this is not just a New Age-y self-help book. This helped me in opening up to the idea of a secular approach in Oriental meditations which sound juxtaposed at the beginning. 

I have also been initiated to minimalism, courtesy of The Minimalists. From them I learned the importance of being more intentional in life. Decluttering our smartphone is one way to be so. Not all apps are equal; only download value adding apps. Audit how often we use the apps, delete the ones we are not using (we can always download again later if we need them). If an app adds value to our life, keep it. After all, they are tools to help us live better.

When I downloaded the app, I had a good first impression. The user interface is friendly with tasteful aesthetic design. We can start with free introduction sessions. When I have finished all of the free sessions, I decided to pay the subscriptions to force my commitments in meditating (like most people, I’d appreciate something more if I pay for it).

The sessions are not ambitious. The default guided meditation time is 10 minutes. You can extend it to 20 minutes, but I stick to the default time. I thought if I can spend hours on Instagram, I should be able to spend 10 minutes daily on another app. 

Harris delivered the promise of meditating: I feel I have less things to do now. I am still insecure and anxious and restless, but at least I know how to stay still for 10 minutes. Having the control over my physiology despite the tumults of my mind is empowering.

Harris also reminded me to be more open minded; among those charlatans and false prophets, there are real gurus who are well intended and competent in helping you progress to the next plane of existence (see On Gurus). Therefore, after this quarantine, I am planning to go to a meditation retreat. To meditate under instructions of a guru.

As any good resource, Waking Up expanded my references to other resources. The app also offers a lot of valuable theoretical contents. I enjoyed Harris podcasts on various topics related to consciousness. His recorded conversations with experts on the said subject matter–neuroscientists, poets, philosophers, Zen masters and, yes, gurus– are intellectually stimulating. 

Recently, the app just added Contemplative Action in which David Whyte read his poems. I have always loved words and languages, but found difficulties in appreciating poetry. Whyte’s reading and narrative actually guided me how to do so.

The meditation practices have been particularly helpful during this quarantine time. As in exercising and investing, the only regret I have is not to start doing it earlier in life.

I am grateful to discover this resource. Whether you are a spiritualist like Descartes, a materialist like Oliver Sacks, or somewhere in between like most subscribers of mainstream religions, we can agree that consciousness exists. Therefore, I recommend anyone who wants to start their meditation training using this app.

You can get a free month of the app by clicking this link. If you are unable to afford the subscription price, you can send an email to Waking Up requesting a free subscription.

This is not a sponsored article. I do not receive any benefits from endorsing this app (other than helping people be kinder to themselves and each other).