How to Meditate

The Foundation: The Kalama Sutta

Before we talk about technique, there is something important to establish — the ground on which this entire practice rests.

The teachings come from the Buddha. There is a text called the Kalama Sutta, where he visits a village and is asked a very honest question: there are so many teachers out there, each one saying "follow me, not the previous teacher." What do we do? It is a practical question. And it is a question every student should ask — and every teacher should ask themselves.

If the Buddha were an ordinary guru, you would have been told to first qualify yourself before daring to question. But he had gone through his own journey, and he was serious about his teaching. His answer was remarkable.

That last line is what sets him apart from every other teacher. Because in the end, whatever you have experienced yourself is the only thing that will come to your rescue. Whatever you have built through your own practice is the only thing that will serve you when you need it. Everything borrowed will fail you in the moment you need to apply it.

Here in this class, things seem easy. Nobody is attacking anyone. It is a safe environment. But when you go home — when traffic is terrible, when things go wrong, when someone says something that cuts — that is when you need to apply what you have actually built. Not what you have borrowed.

This is why the Kalama Sutta is the foundation of this technique and not just an opening story. Every part of what follows is built on this: test it yourself, experience it yourself, and let go of it if it does not serve you.

What This Practice Is

The physical entry point is sitting — sitting comfortably, and observing your breathing. This sounds simple. As you may have noticed, it is not. The mind wanders. That is exactly what we work with.

The meditation has two phases. The first is concentration — collecting the mind. The second is insight — shining light on your emotions, beliefs, and patterns.

For concentration, this technique uses the breath. Not a chant, not a visualisation, not a religious symbol — the breath. The reason is simple: the breath is universal. It belongs to no religion, no culture, no tradition. If you are comfortable with one kind of music playing, and not another — that is conditioning, not truth. The breath does not divide.

This technique, from its very first step, is built on what does not divide.

Getting away from beliefs is not about becoming empty or indifferent. It is about gaining the clarity to see why your mind behaves in certain ways — and to actually do something about it.

How to Recognise a Belief

A student asked: can you give an example of a belief?

There are simple beliefs and subtle beliefs. Simple beliefs are easy to see — going to a temple to strike a deal with God, doing a ritual because your parents did it. You already know it is a belief. Everyone in the room knows. But you do it anyway. These are not the dangerous ones, because you can see through them.

The subtle beliefs are more important. And the yoga class is a good example.

You come to practice. You see improvement. You feel — this is good for me. And then, without understanding what the system is, you keep doing the same things. You stagnate. You cannot learn a new asana. You feel you are going in circles. But you continue, because you believe the practice is helping, even when it has stopped.

Here is a very specific version of this that I see regularly in class. A student is good at headstand. So they keep practicing headstand. "Sir, can I get a picture? Am I standing straight?" But their Trikonasana has fallen apart — and they never work on it. They are using the yoga class to reinforce what they are already comfortable with, and avoiding everything that is uncomfortable.

That is a belief. A preconceived notion. And it means the yoga class has become a mirror for your ego rather than a tool for growth.

Notice: I am always next to you when you are uncomfortable. If you are comfortable, I am not there. Because the question is not whether you can do the headstand. The question is whether you are learning to explore what feels difficult. Simply, physically.

So when you examine your practice — asana or meditation — ask this: am I going toward what I am good at, or toward what I do not yet understand? Am I using this class to feel capable, or to learn something?

The day something stops helping, see it. Name it. The belief is not that you practiced for years. The belief is that you continued after it stopped serving you — because you could not ask the harder question.

There is a simple test. If every day you come to class and something — even something small — opens up, then your body will wake you and bring you here. You will not need a belief to get you through the door. When you need a belief to get you here, that is the signal worth paying attention to.

How to Know You Are Meditating Correctly

Imagine you are on the street and two vehicles collide. The drivers start arguing, it escalates. As an outsider, you can see clearly — why is this person getting so agitated over something so small? You can see the truth of the situation because you are outside it. You are observing, not participating.

When you sit and a thought arises — something from ten years ago, someone who hurt you, something you lost — if you notice that the thought arose, you are meditating. If you are pulled into it — feeling relief, regret, desire, or anger — you are not meditating. You are reacting. Whether the reaction feels pleasant or unpleasant does not matter. You are in the fight, not observing it.

This is why one day feels like "beautiful meditation" and the next feels terrible. Because on the good day you were floating in pleasant thoughts, and on the bad day the difficult ones came. Neither is meditation. Both are reaction.

The technique is not "let go, let go, let go." It is to observe what arises, understand what it is, and apply the appropriate response. That requires intelligence throughout — this is not a passive practice.

Fermentation and Its Antidotes

When a thought or emotion arises in the mind, it ferments over time. Guilt ferments. Hurt ferments. Desire ferments. Every unresolved thing builds. Distraction does not stop the fermentation — it only delays it. The next time you sit, it returns more powerful.

You have seen people who chant for years. Basic anger has not left them. Basic jealousy has not left them. That is because chanting is being used as a distraction — a way to discharge discomfort without actually looking at it. Every time they became angry, someone said go chant. After chanting, they said "you also didn't chant." Nothing was learned. Nothing changed.

The Buddha identified five kinds of hindrances, and for each there is a specific antidote. When these arise in your sitting, you do not suppress them and you do not follow them. You observe, identify, and apply.

The key is to be intelligent about what is arising. I cannot tell you exactly what to apply — what is running in your mind is not running in your neighbour's mind. You have to observe what you are actually facing, and find the antidote for that. Some things will need to be addressed many times before they begin to dissolve. That is the work.

The Question of Timing

Meditation is not time-based. There is no required duration. We set an hour in class because training yourself to sit is itself part of the work — but 10 minutes done well is enough. 15 minutes is enough.

Think of water settling in a glass. The longer you leave it undisturbed, the clearer it becomes — sedimentation happens, things settle. Sitting longer allows you to go deeper into that settling. But even two minutes of stillness does something. Do not dismiss shorter sittings.

The timing is a training tool, not a rule. Once you have learned how to sit, you can bring that quality of observation to walking, to working, to any moment of the day. The goal is not to be someone who meditates for one hour and then returns to exactly the same patterns. The goal is for the observation to become continuous — woven into how you move through life.

Sitting itself is not the point. What the sitting teaches you about how to simply be present — with nothing to achieve, nothing to do — that is what carries over. When you are walking, just walk. When you are working, just work. The anxious, goal-chasing quality of the mind is what the practice gradually reduces.

How to Measure the Benefit

There are two kinds of benefit, and you should be tracking both.

The first is what you notice when you sit. Less disturbance than before. A greater capacity to stay with what arises without being pulled away. The emotional ups and downs settling. If this is happening, even slightly, the technique is working.

The second — and more important — measure is your life outside sitting. The same stimulus causing a lesser reaction. Someone says something that would have made you very angry before. The anger arises, but it is smaller, and it passes faster. That is the technique working. A situation that would have generated significant anxiety before. The anxiety is lighter. That is the technique working.

You should be able to point to it. Not vaguely — specifically. "I used to respond this way to this kind of thing. Now I respond differently." That specificity is the sign that the technique is reaching the right places.

If you are finding it difficult to point to anything, that is important information. It does not mean you are incapable. It means the technique is not yet connecting in the way it needs to. Something — a belief, a misunderstanding, a habit of distraction — is coming in the way. That is worth examining.

And equally important: do not develop the ego of being on the path. Saying "I have found something, everyone who is not doing this is missing out" — that is itself a new belief. Fifteen days before, you had not found it either. The path is yours. Let others have theirs.

A Final Word

We began with the Kalama Sutta. The Buddha said: do not follow something because I am telling you. Test it. Experience it. And let go of it if it is not serving you.

That is how I want you to approach this practice. Not as a class you attend, not as a credential you accumulate, not as a belief you have adopted.