Shamta and a Spot on the Wall
By Michael Erlewine
It slowly dawns on me that my very early years as a young boy working with Mother Nature were very formative, in particular as to my ability to give full attention and drill down on fine details.
We lived far out in the country in a house my folks had built, with no others around. I had younger brothers but no neighborhood or kids to play with. So, I spent all my time studying nature and free time back then was what I had.
And my attention to detail only heightened as time went on, and to me this became just normal.
What’s hard to a price and difficult to know how it happened is my detailed focus. Where did it come from?
Yes, I paid complete attention to nature for many years, until my later teens. And later, as a programmer, that demanded all the attention I had. And it got worse. When I began to catalog and archive music and film data, that had no end.
You start out with a performer like “Little Richard,” with all his songs, and then there are the lyrics, the albums, the sideman, who wrote the song, and you are in a downhill slide that keeps extending. Do this for hundreds of thousands of artists and albums, and you are up the creek with no paddle.
The reason I recount all these details relates to learning to practice Shamata, also called Tranquility Meditation. I did that, attempted to ‘learn’ to do Shamata mediation where I focused on a pebble, a spot on the wall, or something.
Only, I did not learn. And I did this for 32 years and never got anywhere. Now, that’s a big pill to swallow, not getting anywhere. I did not give up but neither did I get anywhere. How is that possible? That I can now explain.
When I finally succeeded in invoking Vipassana (Insight Meditation), which is an essential part of Mahamudra, to my complete surprise Shamata rose to meet Vipassana 100% successfully, this after not working for me for all those years. And slowly it dawned on me what the problem had been.
I did not respond to “trying” to practice Shamata when my whole life or most of it had been working in extreme detail in real life with almost everything I did, as a naturalist, as a programmer, and especially as an archivist of music, film, rock concert posters, and Tibetan teachings, all things that I loved to work with and focused on very successfully.
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Trying to watch a spot on the wall just did not make my grade of interest, which is why it did not work. I quite naturally learned Shamata doing things in detail I loved and cared for, which told me a lot about doing anything by rote and force instead of with a natural interest.
Yes, rote is one way to learn Shamata (Tranquility Meditation), looking at a spot on the wall; it just did not work for me. We can’t get around being naturally interested in fine detail work on our own.
If you have that natural interest, watching a spot on the wall probably won’t be something that works is of interest to you.
So, all those years sitting on a cushion I was just bored, because my natural interest in fine details was taken up by all the things I did for a living that I love.
My takeaway: Love and natural interest can’t be matched by rote imperatives like being instructed to stare at a stone or pebble. I tried it and it never worked for me.
You may have a different experience, but after 32 years of trying I came up with a big fat nothing, while my natural interest in what I loved gave me a very functional Shamata (Tranquility Meditation).
And years later when it became time for me to invoke Vipassana (Insight Meditation) as part of Mahamudra training, as the Vipassana arose, Shamata was 100% already there with it, because the two, Shamata and Vipassana, are two ends of the same stick. You can’t have one without the other. They are connate.
I had learned Shamata from love not imperative.
[Midjourney AI graphic prompted by me.]
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As Bodhicitta is so precious,
May those without it now create it,
May those who have it not destroy it,
And may it ever grow and flourish.
