Mediation Anytime

by Tom Silex in Spirituality, August 6, 2009

What is meditation and how do you do it?

What Meditation Is Not

The practice of mediation is neither spiritual nor religious; although to some people it is (it certainly doesn’t have to be). It is not prayer. It is not a way of cutting yourself off from the world, nor is it a mystical exercise designed to channel you to a 5th dimension. Mediation is not a form of stress reduction or relaxation training. In all probability, you mediate many times a day without consciously being aware of it.

Image via Wikipedia

The Rules Are:

None. If you make rules for mediation (‘I won’t think about work this time’) you are not meditating. At this point, you are trying to narrow your mind, not open it. You meditate by falling out of the cognitive driver’s seat. Don’t try to “clear your head”. Think about ANYTHING you want or will, just watch and listen to it as it passes. Do not debate, do not counter, do not resist your thoughts. Just let it go. If you think about something and it makes you nervous, let it. Get nervous when you meditate, that will happen. Nothing is ever supposed to happen in an alternate state of consciousness; things just happen or do not happen.

The Results Will Be:

Why Meditate Then:

If you gain nothing, you solve no problems and you might not even get the chance to relax, why meditate? Is there a reason why someone should become as aware as you possibly can of their mind and world? I would answer in this way; people meditate for the same reasons birds sing and children play. We may infer that these activities have meaning. After all, birds sing to communicate and children play to develop their minds and bodes. Yet these reasons not the sole force behind birdsongs and hide & go seek. People meditate because they can, and this is why it may be “helpful” from time to time. Yet you never can tell, you may feel good when you meditate, you may not. It may frighten you, scare you and make you conscious of the most horrible thoughts imaginable. The inverse is also true. What will happen will happen.

Meditation simply lets you become aware of what is already in your mind and in the world. It is an attempt to help you see that there is no barrier between yourself and the world. Duality is not true.

How To Meditate:

You just do it. Sit, stand, walk, run. Let go of your will, let go your desire to start and stop what you think about or how you selectively observe in the world. You cannot try to do it, you just do it.

For The Cynic:

If you are anything like me, you hate it when someone tells you to “let go”. I detest granola eating tree huggers who tell me how I am my own fault for getting so anxious or uptight. But once I was taught the following notion about control it changed my entire point of view on the topic. The notion has never left me. You can never “let go” completely. It can’t be done. You can’t stop stopping anymore than you can remain completely and entirely motionless. Meditation is a way of watching, observing. You don’t have to “let go” or give over your willful control/attention in order to meditate. All you have to do is watch. Trying to “let go” only makes you hold on tighter. Once you see that there is nothing to hold on to, you are meditating without trying.

Post-Script:

If you have read this article and have the general notion that this is easier said than done, then you still have not grasped what meditation is. This maybe my fault, I’ve used far too many words to describe the ultimate slacker hobby of nothing. Here it is in a nutshell, a’la Seinfeld. Meditation is NOTHING. You do nothing but watch your mind and environment the same way you would watch a rolling hillside looking out a train window. But you must experience it yourself; no one can tell you what a mirror reflects when it faces another mirror.

It’s not easy to do. It’s not hard to do. It’s not even something to do. It just is.