An archival Ram Dass clip in which he describes his 'Mickey Mouse, absurd' meditation technique — following the rising and falling of the breath in the abdomen, the southern Buddhist instruction his teacher gave him — and the predictable mind-commentary that arises within the first cycle.
Transcript
Like I go into meditation and the meditative technique I use which is so Mickey Mouse it's absurd is I follow the breath. This is a a southern Buddhist terrain meta technique. It's ancient. It's an ancient technique. I follow the breath rising and falling in my abdomen. I there's a little muscle that goes up and down when you breathe. You can feel it. Now I start in and my instruction from my teacher is follow the breath, follow the rising and the falling and when it rises notice it rising and when it follows notices it falling. So I start rising falling rising falling rising falling and the first thing that my mind says is this is never going to work. [laughter] Now what happened was you see my mind just said my mind came up with a thought and said think of me this is never going to work and if you buy into that thought you say you're right this isn't going to well thank you very much for the teaching and you're off see if however you just agreed that for 20 minutes you follow the instruction of the teacher and he says every time a thought arises notice that it has arisen allow it and then very gently return your awareness back to the rising and falling. So you say okay thought see you later and you go back to rising falling falling then a thought comes in for this I got a PhD you know like here I went and got all this training and all this and I'm you know I'm this intelligent person and I'm following the breath oh my god I better not tell anybody I mean it's an embarrassing well what'd you do all summer well I followed the muscle rising and falling my abdomen don't you have anything more important to do you see I mean you can feel where that is in relation to the cultural context. So I notice that as another thought and then I go back and then rising, falling, falling. Wonder if the 20 minutes is up yet. Notice it. Rising, falling, bending. I'm hungry. Rising. My knee hurts. Each one just comes up and it grabs you and says, "I'm real. Think me. I'm real. Think me." And each time you notice the thought, allow it, and you go back. The one that really sucks you in is rising, falling, rising. My god, I think it's happening. That one really gets you. [laughter] That takes you every time, you know. Oh yeah, it's happening. You know, [laughter] I remember going to one of my teachers and I said, oh, I've just experienced such peace. I am feeling the peace I've always yearned for all my life. Oh, thank you so much. Oh, this is just so wonderful. He listened. He said, "That's fine. Now, go back and watch your breath." And that's called spiritual materialism. When you get caught in the experiences that happen along the way. Now, what a simple exercise like that does, which has no religious overlay of any stuff. It's just a mechanical method is it's allowing you to see the way in which your thoughts keep capturing you into being identified with them by giving you a focal point around which you can see your thoughts grabbing you and pulling you. And just doing that simple little exercise allows you to see your thoughts grabbing and taking you until pretty soon you begin to see that the thoughts are an ocean of continuous thinking. It's like sitting on the edge of a stream and watching the water go by and leaves come and little fish go by and all kinds of things go and twigs and every now and then something catches your consciousness and your head turns to follow it. And when you're meditating you just keep it right there and the stuff comes in, exists and goes by. And what happens just from that little mechanical method is you start to develop a connection to the awareness. It's like the sky that's behind the clouds instead of just transferring your identity from being one cloud to the next cloud to the next cloud which what happens is I'm hungry and then you're focused on the refrigerator and then as you're eating you think I'm missing the game and then you're focused on the television set and then you're in the middle of the game and you I got to go to the bathroom and you're focused on and your mind is just constantly you watch from the minute you wake up like the alarm goes off or somebody nudges you or you wake up and you say, "I could sleep 10 more minutes. What was I dreaming last night? I've got to go to the bathroom. That's what I need to do. Oh, it's so warm in bed. Gee, I can smell coffee." [clears throat] What was I dreaming? What was I dreaming now? Boy, do I need to go to the bathroom. Oh, I got to do the laundry later. Oh, I forgot that appointment. Oh god, I got three more minutes. And your mind starts, you see, and each one is grabbing you d and it goes all day long. It's just all day long. And each one grabs you and you do this and then this. And if you would watch it from any vantage point other than being in it, you'd be absolutely amazed at what's happening that you're you're at the mercy of these thoughts that just grab you and invest and invest you with reality. And only when you even have a context that it's possible to stand behind your own thoughts in just presence. All you are to define who you are is you just awareness. You just is.