Mindstuff

Someone had a question about yesterday’s blog post. I’ll do my best to answer it. She wanted to know how someone can meditate, eyes open, in a few minutes’ time, and actually have a legitimate meditative experience.

I think the key to entering meditative states easily is to meditate a lot. Like any practice, frequency draws us closer to perfection. I meditate in the morning for long periods of time, eyes closed, in the still of a quiet house, with no interruptions. But I also meditate in the middle of the day, by stealing away to a private space for a few minutes and letting the mind be still. I meditate on airplanes, while waiting in line, as I take a shower. Once, I saw a Buddhist monk meditating on a city bus.

There’s nothing elite about any form of meditation. Even the deepest tantric meditation is within everyone’s grasp. All we need is a mind.

These minds of ours are so full of thinking. Most of our thoughts seem really important. Things we have to work out, take care of, say to someone, plan to do. Our minds are always engaged in looking for something, solving equations, glancing back, and looking forward. Even in rest, the mind is a whirlpool of thoughts.

We spend a lot of our mind energy trying to solve problems that don’t actually exist. How easily we get caught up and totally absorbed in imagined realities, illusory obstacles, stories we imagine about ourselves, and battles we believe need fighting. Buddhists call this the ‘Monkey Mind’. The ceaseless brain chattering. The incessant internal dialogue. Thoughts upon thoughts upon thoughts that don’t stop until the release of our own deaths and the realization of non-duality.

Meditation is simply letting the mind become still. I say ‘letting’ and not ‘making’, because there is no way to force the mind to quiet. Virtually all new meditators have tried it, and it doesn’t work. Meditation is just being still and learning the skill of allowing the mind to pause, then noticing what’s there when the mind is paused.

With practice, this can happen in a 2-hour yoga sit or a two-minute wait in line at the grocery store. When tension comes into the mind, stop and pause. We can always just pause. Then, we touch something: a greater sense of stillness, spaciousness, and clarity.

Meditation is the end of the illusion of separation and the recognition of the reality of oneness. When the whirling mindstuff ceases, the ego contracts, the heart slows, and impressions of ‘you’ and ‘I’ drop away. It’s a big release, like a long, exquisite exhale.

I believe the meditative state is our natural state of being. The rest is clutter. We can all, whoever we are, wherever we are, for hours or for moments, touch this stillness.

Barbie xo