The Power of Concentration

I say this because there is a surrender when you are being mindful. You are surrendering the thought -- rather than surrendering to the thought -- yet somehow, that which witnesses -- experiences -- the thought remains without effort. I used to think, being mindful requires a sort of force, a way of isolating what you are doing here and now. That does not work, a good way to make your mind rigid enough to shatter. And thankfully, not something most people can sustain for long periods of time without becoming exhausted.

When you start meditating, a stream of thought shows up like a train wreck and you get carried along with it. You get lost in stories. Stories and narratives about this and that, why you should do this or that, why this thing happened or that person said this. Making up interpretations of things. Correcting and analyzing your practice as you are practicing. Very comfortable for nerds -- very comfortable for most people -- but still lost in stories. That's mindlessness.

In the deeper states, the "stories" you get lost in start taking on qualities of lucid dreams. That's why there are Zen koans like:

  A student was meditating and saw visions 
  of horrors and hell. Terrified, he ran to 
  his teacher. The teacher listened and told 
  him, "Let it go."

  A few days later, the student was meditating 
  and saw visions of heaven. He was blissing out, 
  totally high as waves of pleasure ran through 
  him. Suddenly, he felt his teacher hit him on 
  the head. "Let it go."

That's also why you have quotes from say, the Tao Te Ching, "A journey of ten thousand miles begin with the single step." Americans and the Chinese love this quote, often taking it to mean that to achieve great things, you must start with that first step. It's just that, at a different level, it is also teaching you how to not get lost in stories. The verse runs like this:

  It's easy to keep hold of what hasn't stirred,
  easy to plan what hasn't occurred.
  It's easy to shatter delicate things,
  easy to scatter little things.
  Do things before they happen.
  Get them straight before they get mixed up.

  The tree you can't reach your arms around
  grew from a tiny seedling.
  The nine-story tower rises
  from a heap of clay.
  The ten-thousand-mile journey
  begins beneath your foot.

  (Verse 64, trans. by Ursula K Le Guin)

It is also noting that, as your powers of observation and concentration grows, you will be able to observe these thoughts, emotions, and sensations closer to when they are "born". And releasing them before they become something strong enough that you can only ride out its fury.

There's another side to this. Part of mindfulness, that is, of insight practice (rather than concentration practice), is to probe into the artifacts of your mind. For a stream of thought, you can observe what constitute "thought." You probe into the underlying emotions and the symphony of sensations. If you pay attention, you'll find that emotions and physical sensations precede the "thought", and that the "stream of thoughts" is not as real or tangible as you normally experience it.

See through that bullshit long enough, you start noticing a lot of things in your day to day life are simply BS. Or how you, and no one else, are the one who made yourself unhappy, or fearful, or angry, or sad. Easy to observe when you're sitting still, much harder when you are talking to flesh-and-blood people. Actually applying what you learned on the cushion into day to day life will take lifetimes, more difficult than anything else you will ever learn, and more fun and adventurous.

There is the practice, and there are names like "samatha" and "vispassana". The basic practice is the same, regardless of the tradition. Different traditions will have different maps, different flavours, and some will work better for specific individuals simply because they were designed for that individual's hangups.

About the only thing does not fall into samatha or vispassana is guided meditation. But that's actually samatha in disguise. That is, guided meditations are not as effective without being able to hit some of the deeper jnana. Without skill in samatha, guided meditation is more or less a relaxing daydream.

ALL of them require mindfulness. It's not that you find a specific practice that exercises mindfulness; it is that you are mindful of your practice -- be that sitting on a cushion or coding on a computer.