What Is This?

“For the sake of my parents, I tried to go to university twice. However, after three months of study, I left… My rebellious tendencies could not accommodate French business practices either, so I abandoned working in France, and decided to try my luck in England… In the end, I found myself working for the Law Society and spent four years living in squats with a diverse population of misfits… Although I seemed to be free in this period of my life, I felt stuck in the grooves of jealousy, despondency and confusion.

In order to find a spiritual solution, I went to any Eastern events happening in London at the time. None seemed to fit: Guru Maharaji — a little too high on his throne; Sufism — a bit too much praying on knees; Rajneesh — too much hyperventilation; Tibetan lamas — too medieval. It was not easy. As a third-century Zen patriarch said: ‘The great way is not difficult for those who do not pick and choose’. So finally I set off for Asia.

After a few months wandering in India and Thailand, I arrived at the monastery of Songgwangsa in South Korea. I went to help in the kitchen, washing vegetables. During a break, a Korean laywoman asked me about my life. When she realised that I had no ties — no work, no husband, no children, no study — she was delighted for me. If she were me, she said, she would become a Zen nun. I pondered this for a while. She’s right, I thought. Why not stay here for a year or two, and do something totally different? Maybe in this place and tradition I could find a way to stop repeating the same painful mistakes. So, I started to ask ‘What is this?’ for 10 hours a day. Rather than experience the ‘whizz bang’ of enlightenment, I simply found that a greater awareness and compassion were growing within me. This is why I ended up staying in Korea for 10 years.

Two things happened early on, which convinced me that this was all worthwhile. A month into my second three-month retreat, I was sitting on my cushion asking ‘What is this?’ when I suddenly became very aware of what was going on in my mind. It was all about me being at the centre of the universe — what I wanted, what I hoped for, what I did not like, and so on. At the time, I was practising with four other young women, and I realised that they too were doing exactly the same thing. Self-interest was the basis of our identity. This clear awareness did not make me sad or upset. Instead, I found it funny. It exposed my fundamental mis-perception of myself as an incredibly compassionate and selfless person. This experiential awareness led to a deep self-acceptance. I saw clearly for the first time the obstacle at the centre of my suffering and what was needed to transform it. This made me feel lighter. I wasn’t in the dark any more about the conditions that had caused me to keep making the same mistakes again and again.

The second thing happened a few months later. This was during the ‘free season’, when instead of meditating one could travel about in Korea and take care of errands in town. I went to a bank to change some money. The bank teller made an error and gave me more than I should have received. My first thought was to take the money, but I stood still, unable to move. I could not do it, could not take the loot. I gave the excess money back. I did not want the bank teller to get into trouble for his error. I was so surprised that I had not reacted in my old habitual way. It had not felt like an intellectual or rational act — forcing myself to do something out of high-minded Zen idealism — but an experiential one. Something seemed to have arisen unbidden as a spontaneous response to the situation.

I came to see that meditation was not about suddenly lighting up like a Christmas tree, but about releasing something and letting go. It became clear that meditation functioned in a subtle subterranean way. At the time, I could not have explained how or why. It was only after I left the monastic life and encountered Buddhist vipassana meditation that I understood how this process worked.

I left Korea when my main Zen teacher, Master Kusan, died, and I met my future husband (Stephen Batchelor). We went to live in England in a Buddhist community where most of the members practised vipassana meditation. This practice consists in cultivating awareness by focusing on the breath, the body, on thoughts or sounds. I was curious to try this form of meditation and did a number of seven-day silent retreats as a layperson taught by other laypeople. It was a very secular context, in sharp contrast to my monastic experience in Asia.

I discovered that although it was a different technique from the Zen questioning, we were actually developing the same things: concentration and experiential inquiry. I realised that the particular meditation technique we used did not matter so much as cultivating these two qualities together, which helped one develop calm and clarity. And this was also my Korean Zen teacher’s leitmotif — cultivate calm and brightness together. This, I believe, is why meditation works for so many people and has become so popular: it does indeed make us calmer and clearer, more stable and open. More than that, it enables us to creatively engage with life instead of grasping at and fixating on things that not only limit us but are painful…

As I started to teach meditation and encounter people privately, I felt I needed some interpersonal training. So I did a counselling course. This was revelatory. It showed me clearly that in dealing with people, meditation experiences were not enough. I needed to cultivate and develop listening skills, and learn how to ask questions and to make suggestions. I have continued this training by myself, and have read many books about, for example, people’s experiences with depression, so that I can know more about what they might be experiencing and be more empathetic.

Meditation is self-driven; it all depends on one’s own effort, dedication and interest. Nobody can do it for you. (This does not mean, of course, that a teacher is unnecessary or that there is no value in meditating with other committed people.) Therapeutic work, by contrast, requires another person. A great deal of its transformative power comes from this interaction. In terms of experiential enquiry, the psychological method at times can be similar to that of meditation, particularly if one is exploring what is happening in the present moment or if one is looking deeply at the impermanence or conditionality of the past. The one major difference I would see between the two approaches is the role of concentration, which is not generally emphasised in the therapeutic context. However, in the therapy called ‘Focussing’, elements of concentrative meditation are used in an entirely non-Buddhist context.

The questioning helps with the energy and the directness. And the listening, for example, anchors it in a wide-open experiential space…

In 1992, I went back to Asia to research a book on Buddhist women, their lives and their practices. I interviewed 40 women from Asia and the West, nuns and laywomen from many different Buddhist traditions. Some of these traditions are sometimes frowned upon as not being meditative enough. But what struck me was that it did not matter what traditions they came from and what techniques they used. What was essential was these women’s sincerity and dedication. From then on, I trusted myself and my practice as never before. Nowadays, I combine Zen questioning with awareness techniques, and they complement each other well. The questioning helps with the energy and the directness. And the listening, for example, anchors it in a wide-open experiential space.

When I teach, my aim is to support people in uncovering and trusting their own wisdom. This is why I am a multi-choice teacher. On a seven-day retreat, I will suggest a different theme each day, as well as several ways to try to cultivate that theme in meditation. This is so that people who come with different tendencies and circumstances can find something that works for them, something that relieves some of their suffering and develops their potential for wisdom and compassion. Moreover, I am fortunate to be a teacher, as I learn so much from the people who attend my meditation courses — how they understand, what works, what doesn’t. It is a mutual process. They are in a constant evolution, and I am too.”

~ Martine Batchelor is a buddhist teacher and former buddhist nun. Her latest book is The Spirit of the Buddha (2010). She lives in France.