Context Matters to Make Meaning

​“Every time I meditate, I fall asleep.” said a student in a Mindfulness Meditation class. I have heard this comment before. My response was, “How wonderful that you found this out. It can become a valuable subject for contemplation.” Also noteworthy was the detail that other students in the class did not share the same experience of falling asleep while meditating.
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Human learning or experience is an active, ongoing process, and perception is a complex process. How a person makes sense of a phenomenon, like meditation, is not uniform or universal, but rather personal. Taking input from the senses about what is “out there” is not without prejudice. The input includes a “guessing” process, as our senses do not accurately represent reality, but rather interpret it. For example, the eye cannot see without contrast. That is why camouflaging is an effective way of hiding something.

About Context
How information is received and perceived by the brain via the senses depends on context. The same object in a different context may carry a different meaning. For example, water can be perceived as a threat during a flood but as a welcome relief after finishing a long-distance marathon. Blue jeans in Indonesia are thought of as “modern” since their Western influence connotes “an advanced culture.” The wearer may feel proudly fashionable, even though jeans are uncomfortable to wear in tropical heat.
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In the same way, Asian food in the West can mean “exotic” because it comes from faraway and unfamiliar cultures. But how we eat the food is contextual. Americans tend to dunk sushi in lots of soy sauce, while Japanese people know that the saltiness of too much soy sauce on the rice detracts from the flavor of the fish.

Mindfulness Meditation came to the West from the East, a seemingly exotic, mysterious and unfamiliar place to a Westerner. This can mean that the practice is difficult to comprehend and foreign. In this context, if meditation is viewed as something that promotes relaxation, then it makes sense to feel sleepy while meditating.

If we understand how context can influence perception and, in turn, meaning, then it is useful to pay attention to context. Much like learning about swimming, meditation practice can be understood by looking at the plain facts of what is.

In learning how to swim, we learn about buoyancy and treading water. If you can tread water and float in the shallow end, then you should be able to do the same in the deep end (without fear). Different levels of salinity in the water produce different levels of buoyancy. This informs our insight/wisdom/knowledge about being buoyant in water. As we swim in different water currents, we realize that we need more or less exertion to go with or against the current. In lap swimming, if a person swims towards you with a butterfly stroke or a back stroke, you notice that these two strokes produce different kinds of force. You quickly learn how to adjust and maneuver if you are going to swim past these swimmers.

In Practice
If we take Mindfulness Meditation (also known as breath meditation or concentration meditation or Samatha) to be like learning to swim, without any preconceptions, then we can see it just as it actually is. Mindfulness Meditation brings the mind into a state of alertness, with ardent focus and energy (not relaxation). We use the breath as an object to stay focused on exclusively. As we meditate, we allow all experience simply to be — to welcome it without aversion or a desire to change it.

Just as in swimming, insight in meditation comes by doing it. Through meditation you will discover that the mind is unruly: it introduces thoughts that can take your attention away from the breath. You will learn how to navigate and negotiate those thoughts so that you can remain focused on the breath. You will gain insight that the content of that thought is egocentric (about you or relating to you or meaningful to you) and can easily tantalize you to follow it. Basically, meditation gives you the opportunity to exercise controlling your mind so that you can overcome those thoughts while keeping the mind where you want to be — on the breath.

For Daily Life
Obviously, this breath meditation exercise is useful to manage the mind outside of the meditation practice, too, as the mind would behave in the same way. You will discover that aversion or wanting things to be different from what is going on makes the meditation exercise more challenging. In the same way, in our daily life experience, learning “to be” is another option rather than “doing.” There is nothing wrong with doing or being productive. However, by learning to control the mind we can choose the option of just “to be.” To enjoy just where you are, such as lounging at the beach, for example, does not require you to plan or do anything.

By understanding how context can affect perception and meaning, we can change the interpretation of any object and phenomenon. We can see the glass as half empty or half full. Knowing this, we can shift our response or experience from negative to positive thoughts, when appropriate.

​Mindfulness practice has only one goal:  to overcome suffering or to cultivate happiness (two sides of the same coin). Therefore, understanding how context can change perception and meaning, we can use this insight to achieve the goal of life — to be happy.

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