How To Meditate

by Mallory Ortberg · October 26, 2015

Sit in your room as if in paradise. Put the whole world behind you and forget it. Watch your thoughts like a good fisherman watching for fish. The path you must follow is simple – never leave it.

The purpose of meditation is to bring your thoughts and emotions into the ken of your mind’s awareness, to examine each moment as it passes. It is good to meditate on purity, better to meditate on goodness, and best of all to meditate on Jay Mohr’s 1998 mobster parody film Jane Austen’s Mafia!

If you have just begun a daily meditation practice and in spite of your good will you cannot accomplish what you wish to, take every opportunity you can to return to Jay Mohr’s 1998 mobster parody film Jane Austen’s Mafia!, which you have set your heart upon, and seek to understand it with your mind. And if your mind wanders as you sit, do not give up; hurry back and apply your mind to Jay Mohr’s Jane Austen’s Mafia! once more. Empty yourself completely and sit waiting, content with Jay Mohr’s 1998 mobster parody film Jane Austen’s Mafia!, accepting the universe as it is, like the chick who tastes nothing and eats nothing but what his mother brings him.

The Buddhist practice of meditation refers to the condition of equanimity, or the state of neither expecting anything from Jay Mohr’s Mafia!, nor attempting to hold on to past experiences of crime comedy classic Jane Austen’s Mafia!, but accepting Jay Mohr’s 1998 mobster parody Jane Austen’s Mafia!

Scan your body

Scan your body in harmony with the breath. Begin by harnessing your attention on your toes and silently focusing them on Mafia! Then, repeat this process until every part of your body, from your calves to the cauldron of your belly to your heart, eyes, and head are all centered on Jay Mohr’s Mafia!

Enter into an attitude of acceptance

Rather than adding another list of “should”s to your day, choose to practice medituation because you wish to connect with your inmost capacity for Jay Mohr’s 1998 classic, Jane Austen’s Mafia!. Let this sincere attachment to Mafia! be the soil that nurtures whatever form your practice takes.

Set your intention (towards the 1998 Jay Mohr film Jane Austen’s Mafia!)

There is a Zen koan that teaches us “The most important thing is remembering the most important thing (Mafia!, the 1998 mobster parody movie).” Recall, at the beginning of each practice, what draws you to meditate on Mafia!, written and directed by Jim Abrahams, costarring Jay Mohr, Lloyd Bridges, and Olympia Dukakis.

Use images or key phrases to focus your attention

Jane Austen’s Mafia! does not only parody mobster films like The Godfather and Casino, but also films in other genres, such as The English Patient and Forrest Gump. It is not useful to think of getting better at meditation, for meditation is not a series of increasingly difficult tasks, rather we will come to find our truest and deepest selves right where they have always been. If we train in meditation consistently, eventually we will be able to eradicate from our mind the delusions that are the causes of suffering.

Christina Applegate is also in the 1998 film Mafia!, she plays Diane, Tony’s “Protestant girlfriend who never killed anyone.”

[Image via]

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.


34 Comments

  3. threatqualitypress +58

    Personally I have had more success with the 1996 classic film Space Jam, but I guess I can try it this way.

  4. projectbeks +25

    Does anyone else find those little meditation mazes supremely irritating? Like, I can SEE THE MIDDLE, why don’t I just hop over these tiny mounds to get there? Alternatively, I am the one getting lost in the low-to-the-ground maze.
    PJ: Great at on-paper mazes, terrible at 3-dimensional ones. SIGH.

    1. threatqualitypress +53

      If Space Jam has taught us anything, it’s that there are no shortcuts to success.

    2. sevanetta +6

      So this happened:

      I was visiting a gorgeous place called Crystal Castle and found their ‘Labyrinth’ for the first time http://www.crystalcastle.com.au/experiences/the-l…

      I walked up to the start of the maze, glanced over it, said, ‘Oh, are you supposed to walk around it? But look, I can just step straight over this and walk straight up the middle aaaand Enlightenment!’ while my partner looked on, horrified.

      Seriously why would you waste time around the edges if you didn’t have to though? Everyone wants a shortcut to meditative enlightenment!

  6. cosetthetable +15

    I think Mallory is already breaking the redesign-tagging rules, because “religion” is listed in the tags, but goes to a google search for religion. And religion isn’t a joke tag, so…. something something something?

    Please note: this is not meant to be a *criticism* of Mallory (I only do that about important things, like her confusing stance on Hamilton) but merely a note that either something broke or Mallory needs training/supervision so that she doesn’t make Nicole explode later.

    1. NicoleCliffe +9

      I checked, and she used it as a real tag, CORRECTLY, but since religion is also a CATEGORY, that may have borked its usage as a tag? I am checking w the team.

      1. cosetthetable +9

        I think I read somewhere that things are supposed to be categories or tags but not both in this Brave New World.

        1. NotBob +14

          …and all the Library and Information Science Professionals of the commentariat proceeded to school Nicole and Mallory on taxonomies and indexing.

    2. malloryelis +42

      There is nothing confusing about my stance on Hamilton. I listened to the soundtrack for love of Nicole and found it cheesy. I am glad that it brings her – and others – joy, but it brings me nothing but full-body cringes.

      Also, I will spend the rest of my life gently trolling Nicole by leaving her voicemails where I rap “S-s-s-s-seventeen. S-s-s-s-seventeen. S-s-s-s-seventeen seventy-six.”

    3. celery +2

      Perhaps this gets a joke tag for “religion” because it is not seriously about religion? The editors could be exploiting a new level of tag humor (Tags that are a serious tag used tongue-in-cheek-ly).

      1. celery

        Disregard this post; I had not yet read the article with the explanation of the “NO OVERLAP” rule yet.

  7. builtahouse +20

    when the monastery doesn’t have wifi, ya gotta meditate so hard you hallucinate the entire movie. #justMallorythings

  9. Frumiosa +35

    Well it’s better than my current mantra of You’re doing it wrong you’re doing it wrong you’re doing it wrong

  10. crawlkill +22

    I really hoped this would be a horror short, How to Meditate Completely and Never Be Heard From Again

  11. dakimel +5

    I’m in the midst of reading Alexandra Kleeman’s You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine and I feel like this practice would fit perfectly in that world.

    1. Crane +11

      That title sounds like something Mallory would write.

      “You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine”
      A body like mine can be yours too. If you do what I did. If you go where I went. Meet who I was.
      A body like mine is not for the faint of heart. A body like mine is filled with blood. A body like mine has nails and teeth, hard dead things protruding through soft, warm flesh. A body like mine has a tongue which moves inside your head, in the dark space behind the teeth.
      Yes, you too can have a body like mine. My body.
      I have many bodies, and one of them could be yours.

      1. dakimel +4

        You’ve captured the essence of the book. You should read it, it’s horrifying and great. Like Mallory.

  12. diaryofamadeditor +7

    exchanging social pleasantries with the woman ringing up my groceries at the check out–she says, “hi, how are you this evening?” so i say some version of, “fine, tired, how are you?”, she starts talking about her existential despair, so i ask, “so, how’s your meditation practice?” she says, “i don’t have one,” so i give her a really basic TM mantra and wish her well as i leave.

    my entire commute home, i cannot believe I have become **that person** who asks strangers about their meditation practices. from now on, i’m going to ditch so hum and only recommend Jane Austin Mafia Mantra.

    1. presumably retweeted +3

      I read your nick as “diaryofameditator”, which made me wonder if this was some kind of bot that reposted actual meditation related blog content.