Meditate better than your Guru? This title is no joke. Read this and you"ll have what it takes to meditate better than Gurus past and present. You"ll know something they don"t know: how to tame the restless mind. You"ll have the key to consistent success -- something traditional methods lack. The key to success is feedback. Let me explain what feedback is and how to use it.
Meditation: What"s Missing?
In all forms meditation, the objective is attention. Some methods sit, some move, some are vocal, some silent, but each attends to something (a mantra or the breath, for instance). Attention makes meditation work. It is the "active ingredient." With attention, meditation moves mountains. Without it, however, you while away time.
Meditation methods (regardless of tradition) fall short here. They fail to harness attention. Using these methods it is close to impossible, even with the best intentions, to sustain attention. Instead of attending, much practice time goes to daydreams and drifting, maybe even dozing off.
Why is attention so hard to hold on to? As a research psychologist this question drew me. I found that the answer was simple. In meditation, attention slips away unseen: you set out to attend but you lose attention without knowing you are losing it. When the task is attention, you literally can"t see what you are doing. Put another way, meditation is like shooting darts blindfolded. Your target is attention, but if you can"t see your target, you can"t correct your aim. In meditation, it"s as if a blindfold is in place. Practice skill (as in shooting darts blindfolded) develop develops very slowly if at all because you can"t see what you are doing. Meditation needs a way to observe and monitor attention. I looked deeper into this and found one. We can observe, monitor, and hold on to attention with "feedback."
A Guru's Dream Come True: The Feedback Solution
Psychology defines feedback as "knowledge of results." It is known that feedback is necessary for skill learning. Developing meditation skill (skill at attending, like skill at darts), requires feedback.
How do you add feedback to meditation? The answer here too is surprisingly simple. Indeed, visual feedback has been right before our eyes all along and unrecognized. Those who meditate with open eyes often report seeing "light." Light is present at the breakthrough to enlightenment. This light is caused by receptor fatigue. As such, it is caused by attention itself. It works like this. Attention holds the eyes still. This creates a fixed retinal image, using up photo pigment (as in exposing photographic film), causing visual distortion. Halos of light (and other distortions) mean attention. Thus they are feedback signals. Zero in and focus on the light and you literally pay attention to your attention!
The How-To Of Feedback Meditation
Focusing discs specially designed to facilitate feedback can be found online at
Straight Line Meditation. They can also easily be made at home. Draw a circle about two inches in diameter in a sheet of paper. Add a pea sized bull"s eye and you have a focusing disc. Simply focus with a gentle gaze on the bull"s eye. Soon distortion (usually light) will appear, signaling attention. Now shift your attention to the light. When your mind wanders, your eyes too will wander, and distortions will vanish. That"s your (feedback) signal to re-focus on the bull"s eye.
With feedback, attention can no longer slip away unseen. Instead you have continuous self-monitoring: a technical advantage your Guru only dreamed of. With feedback you can mind your mind! Now consider the advantages of feedback.
The Advantages of Feedback
First and foremost: with feedback, practice skill develops fast.
Fast Practice Skill Development.
With traditional meditation, practice skill improves slowly. You might even get even less effective over time. A Zen Master said: "After twenty years you can finally say you have begun to learn how to sit." Feedback changes this. When you can see what you are doing, skill improves automatically, and great gains come from doing this better, not necessarily longer.
Accelerated Progress.
Buddhist tradition says: "Just sit" and eventually, maybe after many lifetimes, you will come upon the truth." This assumes many lifetimes of drifting and dreaming. With feedback however, a butterfly mind takes a bee-line. Quality, not quantity of practice counts most here, not hours spent meditating, but minutes on target. Beginners have instant success. Advanced practitioners have breakthrough intensity. Feedback prevents wandering and when you don"t wander you cover ground fast. This is straight-line meditation -- the shortest distance between you and your goal.
Complete Self-guidance.
Meditation students are often taught there is no right or wrong way to do it. They sit passively, hoping for luck. Why is meditation so passive? Because it has to be. Being aggressive would be like running full speed when you"re not sure where you are going. Feedback lets you see where you are going and lets you correct your course. With it you can run full speed to your goals.
Attainable Goals.
With a wandering mind, it"s easy to meditate in circles and get nowhere. Meditation teachers sometimes encourage students by saying there is no goal. Some even say there"s nothing to be gained, but this puts a damper on motivation to practice. Who wants to work toward no goal? Feedback takes care of this too. You can set goals and you can aim high.
You Can Aim High.
In Hindu tradition meditation is acclaimed to bring "perfect mental balance" a balance of mind never upset by any event under the canopy of heaven." In Christian and Buddhist tradition, human perfection is seen as an attainable goal. In light of this, meditating for relaxation is like attending a banquet and eating crumbs off the floor. With feedback, however, you feast at the banquet. Traditional methods get you into the banquet hall, but feedback sits you down at the table to feast. You can aim high, and most important of all, you can count on success.
Feedback Guarantees Success.
Meditation is a trial and error process but with traditional methods, most error goes undetected. Without confirmed attention there"s no guarantee of success. With feedback"s precision guidance every second of practice time counts. Your success is assured.
The feedback method is now fully developed, researched and presented in Straight Line Meditation: How to Restore Awareness and Why You Need to by Carol E. McMahon, Ph.D. with Master Deac Cataldo. Focusing Discs are freely available at
Straight Line Meditation. See the light and you"ll meditate better than your Guru.
