
Driving Meditation
To whom who have been practicing
the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Meditation.
I Introduction
According to a study done by the Harvard Health Watch, an average American spends 101 minutes per day driving. We, Vipassana practitioners mostly spend only about 90 minutes a day in sitting meditation. It is easy to double the meditation time by practicing driving meditation.
The following reasons outline the need for practicing driving meditation:
* Maintaining continuity of awareness is vital for meditation progress. Without practicing driving meditation, talking on the phone, thinking of daily business, listening to music or even dhamma talks while driving create a gap in the continuity of awareness and hinder the development of awareness momentum.
* Every day, time spent for driving is unavoidable. When being stuck in traffic, feelings of discomfort and even aversion build up in mind. Practicing driving meditation, accepting the situation, enjoying the opportunity to have more time to meditate will transform an uncomfortable time into a beneficial time.
* Driving itself is not heavy work. Fatigue in driving comes mostly from stress, tension, anxiety and expectation which consume a fair amount of energy. To practice driving meditation, driver consistently maintains awareness of what is coming to the eyes and the ears ( as a cause) then recognizes the arising of intentions to move the hand, foot accordingly (as an effect). The meditation practice will induce a right concentration. As a consequence, a pleasant feeling gradually replaces stress and anxiety. Freshness feeling will be maintained after 3 to 4 hours driving.
* A frequently asked question: is it dangerous to drive and practice meditation at the same time?
Practicing the Fourfold Establishing of Awareness Meditation with a short distance of 50 feet in front and behind the car, as chosen meditation objects while driving increases the safety because it is driving in mindfulness. Acknowledging what is going on the traffic, and being aware of the mind and body reactions, result in a complete control of the car and the traffic situation.
How to practice driving meditation?
Do not let only the conditioned reflexes drive the car while the mind is wandering off with important business issues going with happiness, anger, greed.
Maintain awareness and observe every motion of the body right at the beginning of the drive: take the car key, open the car door, get to the seat, fasten seat belts, start engines.....
Choose a primary meditation object: (this is one suggestion) a short distance of 50 -100 feet of the road in front of the windshield including cars, lane lines, traffic lights and also the movements of the two hands holding the upper part of the wheel. Meditator driver may enjoy observing the meticulous adjustment of two hands holding the wheel with the seeing any slightly curved part of the lane. The coordination is so perfect that the car runs smoothly along the lane by keeping an almost equal distance between the front car wheel and the outer lane line.
The meditating driver may enjoy the opportunity to practice the following foundations of meditation:
1.- Maintaining awareness continuity, especially being aware of the awareness: being aware of the seeing red, green, yellow lights, being aware of the hearing sounds: horn, fire truck and police car sounds...
2.- An excellent repeated opportunities to observe the body, the mind, and the dharma.
Two opportunities to contemplate the dharma are mentioned below:
- Observing the law of causation by recognizing the relation between the cause (seeing the red light) and the effect (the emergence of the intention to move the foot to the brake to stop the car). This is a conditioned reflex learned from driving training time.
- Observing the mind and body relationship by recognizing intentions for movements (for ex. intention to move the foot from the gas pedal to the brake) and at the same time, be aware of the movements of the body part (the moving of the foot to the brake).
3.Practice the right attitude and contemplate the feeling.
Whenever an undesirable situation occurs: being honked, being stuck in traffic, being passed dangerously, being tail gated, being followed by a police car...meditator driver needs to accept the situations then to observe the mind reactions as an object: discomfort feeling, hatred, fear, anger, etc. Being observed as objects, these feelings gradually subside.
4.-Long drive on the freeway from state to state is a good chance to explore all practical aspect of driving meditation. Mostly because the traffic is good from state to state highway, experienced meditator driver will enjoy three or four hours in good concentration by being aware of the chosen primary meditation object.
One more good thing to mention: An observing mind that is seasoned at contemplating activities in driving, will automatically be on to look out to contemplate activities in daily life.
If a driver is new to the practice, he may not be able to recognize and observe any of these objects; it will be good for him\her to have a right attitude to accept the fact and keep in mind that these objects will be encountered again and again whenever he\she drives a car. He\she will have hundreds even thousand similar opportunities to observe them. Just faith and diligent effort are needed.
Conclusion:
In the old time in underdeveloped countries, people, mainly monks and nuns have only one measure to move from one place to another: walking. So the walking meditation becomes a part of meditation training process to offer opportunities to observe some aspects that can not be done in sitting meditation.
We are now living in a country that driving is a part of our lives. Driving meditation will be an excellent addition to sitting meditation in the process of self-training to deal with defilements and get to the path to ultimate truth.
July 11-2015
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