Meditation: What Is It?
the art of not knowing
There are many different kinds of meditation. In some sense, it’s best to not know what meditation is—to simply be still and find out!
For me, the word points to the simplicity of doing nothing other than being here, present and aware, which is effortlessly always already the case. But usually, the bare simplicity of aware presence is not noticed because attention is focused on thoughts, typically centered around the apparently separate, encapsulated “me” that we believe ourselves to be. Meditation invites something else to emerge into awareness, a different sense of what we are and what this whole happening is. Not a new idea about it, but a different experiential felt sense.
Meditation begins with being still and silent, fully present to what is. It’s not about manipulating or resisting what is, but simply being it. Seeing the habitual thoughts and the headlines, storylines and beliefs they assert without instantly believing and getting hypnotized by the content—and when that entrancement and caught-up-ness does happen, simply noticing that—letting it be and letting it go. Meditation is about discovering, realizing and resting as the open, spacious, boundless awareness beholding the whole show and the seamless presence at the heart of all experiencing.
Meditation is not knowing what meditation is. Open wondering, listening with no agenda.
People will often say they can’t meditate, or they’re no good at meditation, or they’ve failed at meditation, by which they usually mean nothing spectacular has happened and/or they can’t stop thinking, as if not thinking and having some spectacular experience were the goal. People will report great difficulty with an imagined task, such as “trying to stay present without the constant intrusion of unwanted thoughts."
But “trying to stay present without the constant intrusion of unwanted thoughts" is an impossible task. As has often been noted, what we resist, persists. Meditation is about relaxing all our efforts to be other than exactly how we are, and actually discovering how and what we are by not deliberately doing anything other than simply being here and seeing what reveals itself. Awareness is what transforms and liberates, not will or effort.
Being here is simple. Feeling the breathing, the bodily sensations...hearing the bird singing or the traffic whooshing or the dog barking...feeling the breeze on the skin or the sensations of heat or cold. Simply being this one bottomless moment. Thinking will almost certainly happen as well. But instead of trying to get rid of thoughts, or trying to stop thinking them, meditation is simply seeing them for what they are. Yes, sometimes the attention will be caught in a mental movie or a train of thought, but eventually the attention will spontaneously wake up from that hypnotic trance all by itself. Thought may then pop back up with a judgement about what just happened and a whole new train of thought about how "I" shouldn't have been thinking, and “I” must stop doing that from now on. But who or what is this “I” who supposedly needs to stop thinking and who should be in control of all this? Isn’t that thinker-controller just another thought, a mental image, a bunch of sensations, an idea?
Thinking isn't the enemy, so we don’t need to go to war with it. Thinking happens. What is it actually? Isn’t the bare actuality of it simply little bursts of energy, gone before they’ve even fully arrived? And isn’t it amazing how these little amorphous bursts can spin out whole movies, belief systems and identities? Can thoughts be seen as thoughts and not as objective reports on reality or commandments that must be followed or believed? Can thinking be recognized as just another passing shape that presence sometimes takes?
Thinking may stop for periods of time, but it will always pop back up again. And that doesn't need to be a problem. Just be aware of the whole happening. Awareness is what liberates, seeing the false as false, not the willful efforts of the little me to grasp what is true. The “me” is only a powerless thought-image, a kind of mirage. And any spectacular experiences that show up will disappear—having amazing experiences is fundamentally no different from being lost in thought—it’s all just passing weather, impermanent kaleidoscopic shapes, impersonal appearances empty of substance.
Of course, meditation isn’t just sitting in silence once or twice a day. Meditation is really about our whole life, and ultimately there is no boundary between formal meditation and everyday life. But taking (timeless) time to sit quietly can be very helpful, revelatory, enjoyable and liberating in my experience. And it can happen informally throughout the day as well—on the bus, on a park bench, in a waiting room. Simply being here without pulling out our phone or picking up a magazine. What is learned by the whole bodymind in this kind of silent presence translates into all aspects of everyday life. We become more sensitive, more compassionate, more alive.
Of course, everyday life is more challenging than sitting alone in silence— we’re engaged with other people, there are stressful situations, our buttons get pushed, we have deadlines to meet and so on. But ALL of that is grist for the mill—seeing how we get triggered, how we get stressed out, how suffering and confusion get created and sustained—seeing the thoughts and storylines, feeling it all in the body, and perhaps increasingly, not needing to go with the old habitual reactions. But the emphasis is always on what is, not on achieving some imagined future purification or perfection. As soon as the focus is on getting somewhere, acquiring something, or improving “me,” consciousness is caught up in another me-centered thought-story. Can that old habit be seen that for what it is whenever it shows up?
Presence-awareness is never really absent. We’re never really separate from, or other than, this seamless, boundless awaring presence that includes absolutely everything.
So-called awakening is very, very simple. It’s already right here. It’s nothing more or less than being here now, being this one bottomless moment. And ultimately, we see that everything is this, that this includes everything— even needlessly checking our phone, being lost in thought, biting our fingers, getting drunk, feeling confused, fighting wars, getting angry, expanded experiences, contracted experiences—the whole dreamscape, which is never what we think it is. Meditation includes it all.
From Toni Packer:
Awareness, insight, enlightenment, wholeness—whatever words one may pick to label what cannot be caught in words—is not the effect of a cause. Activity does not destroy it and sitting does not create it. It isn’t a product of anything—no technique, method, environment, tradition, posture, activity, or nonactivity can create it. It is there, uncreated, freely functioning in wisdom and love, when self-centered conditioning is clearly revealed in all its grossness and subtleness and defused in the light of understanding.
Can the inner noise be entirely left alone while attending? When the changing states of body-mind are simply left to themselves without any choice or judgment—left unreacted to by a controlling or repressive will—a new quietness emerges by itself.
Sitting motionlessly quiet, for minutes or hours, regardless of length of time, is being in touch with the movements of the body-mind, gross and subtle, dull and clear, shallow and deep—without any opposition, resistance, grasping, or escape. It is being in intimate touch with the whole network of thoughts, sensations, feelings, and emotions without judging them good or bad, right or wrong—without wanting anything to continue or stop. It is an inward seeing without knowing, an open sensitivity to what is going on inside and out—flowing without grasping or accumulation. Stillness in the midst of motion and commotion is free of will, direction, and time. It is a complete letting be of what is from moment to moment.
Sitting quietly, doing nothing, not knowing what is next and not concerned with what was or what may be next, a new mind is operating that is not connected with the conditioned past and yet perceives and understands the whole mechanism of conditioning. It is the unmasking of the self that is nothing but masks—images, memories of past experiences, fears, hopes, and the ceaseless demand to be something or become somebody. This new mind that is no-mind is free of duality—there is no doer in it and nothing to be done.
— Toni Packer
Excerpted from the current Home page of my website:
We habitually search for special experiences, for certainty and something to grasp. But in holding on to nothing at all, there is an immense openness and freedom.
We can doubt all our ideas about what this is and what we are, but not the bare actuality of present experiencing and being here, present and aware.
The beauty we see, the love we feel is in the awareness, the listening presence that we are.
There is no finish-line in awakening, no formula, no method, only this one bottomless moment, this aliveness, just as it is.
Love to All….
Possibly the best piece on meditation I have ever read. Excellent! Thank you.
Ah yes. Very well said, thank you. When people ask "Do you meditate?" and you say yes, the next question often is, "What kind of meditation do you do?" Although I've written on this subject, I find this question always hard to answer--likely because the kind of answer I think they're looking for I can't give them. (Like maybe, "TM," "Kriya," etc.) Rather it's: "The kind that permeates my day." "The kind I do while I'm sitting on the toilet peeing." "The kind that's an ongoing practice of presence." "The listening kind."