Some thoughts on meditation

Within each moment there arises an invitation to witness an interplay of content and context. David Hawkins called the context ‘the field,’ and identified it as where enlightenment resides. Within the dynamics of meditation, the content or ego transcends, allowing a possibility of recognizing the context or enlightened state.  

It’s important for meditation to be goalless. What arises and what is witnessed when we allow everything to be as it is, a phrase Adyashanti uses, is all that is necessary. Any agenda beyond simply watching what is experienced in the now is a movement away from that, and, as such, is antithetical. When we become aware that the mind attaches goals to virtually all of the thoughts we have, it is dismaying. The gift here is to begin to wonder what aspect of ‘us’ is recognizing this occurrence.  

By its nature, the mind functions linearly. Meditation frees us from this constraint so that a deeper view is possible. It often brings clarity, a sense of peace, and liberates us from identification with thought. Along the way it is possible to become aware that the stillness found in the meditative state is ever present. 

What is almost immediately noticed once the minds persistent dialogue is witnessed rather than being the focus of attention is how still and in-the-moment life actually is. The mind by its nature is either past or future oriented. The transcendent aspects of consciousness are only available in the present moment.

It is perhaps endemic for the mind to think emotions.  How often do we hear someone, or ourselves, say ‘I feel’ and then go on to express a thought? This happens because the mind cannot feel. The body feels, and that begins with the heart. Feeling are aspects of the emotional body, the mind creates a story about what is felt. Spirit is the aspect of us that witnesses all of  this unfolding moment to moment. Heart beat by heart beat, breath by breath. 

Meditation is a vehicle in service to the removal of illusions the mind creates. The world outside of us is a projection of our inner selves. The events happening outside of us are colored by our own inner world. The mind, given its experiences from day one, color this neutral unfolding of life accordingly.  This is the root cause of the confusion our mind often find itself in. The more invested the individual ego is in its ‘rightness’ the greater the suffering that assumption causes. Anxiety and fear are a result of this blindness. Projection is perception.  

In all of our lives we are in this very instant creating and then living what we have created. A critical and valid question is, how conscious are we in doing this? Are we actually living our own lives or has our cultural conditioning, our ‘domestication’ as Ruiz names it, living us? The way out is going inward and downward. Inward to our heart center where we truly reside and where we are free from the distortions of layers of cultural conditioning and life events. In this moment-to-moment experience we can recognize who we are and create a larger awareness.

LABELING 

The mind by its nature is a meaning making machine, or it attempts to be. If it can label an experience or situation and then create a story about that event, it believes it can release its focus there and move on. When it cannot do this it becomes anxious. This anxiety arises because it is left undefended without a method or way to predict the future. I say ‘belief’ because that is all it really has accomplished. A belief is only that. A belief and truth are often not the same thing. Nor is a belief the thing itself. The best the mind can do is create a story about something. The menu isn’t the meal.  

Because the mind believes the label is what is real it begins to think and act as if it were true. And, because it is so susceptible to outside influence, it often too willingly adopts someone else’s point of view. The other person’s point of view is always coming from their own bias,  their own story about reality. The ego-mind is in constant search for, or attempting to, create or maintain its identity.  It often believes the label it either dreams up itself or is given from the outside world.    

An additional limitation of the ego-mind is the way it relates to causation. By design the mind functions linearly, similar to a computer. The brain is the hardware, the mind the software. Content is the mind's world and context is the arena within which life unfolds. There is not a ‘this’ causing a ‘that.’ Life unfolds moment to moment all at once. The mind then must be transcended in order to begin to realize this truth. Meditation is a path toward this transcendence.  

The meaning making machine, or ego-mind, finds itself unable to process life events accurately which, is a direct cause of anxiety and confusion. The ego-mind’s propensity to judge itself and others, to find fault, to blame, means being human is somehow not enough for it. In an effort to gain stability it projects its own insecurities onto others. It attempts to deny what it finds to be less than good enough and at times believes it is unworthy of life itself. 

That is as clear an expression of what the ego-mind does as I have found. To be fully human, one must find a way to ‘being’ so that one can become a ‘human being.’ Transcendent states of consciousness are only seen that way from the limited view point of the ego-mind. Once the doors of perception have been cleansed, the infinite is what is revealed. The veil of illusion can be seen through at any time when the focus of attention is expanded beyond thought. There are no words for this level of awareness as words are only effective at the thought level. The best we can do is use them to point to that which it cannot express. Words such as enlightenment, satori, peace, stillness, silence, God, Spirit, love, are all what is revealed at the deeper levels of consciousness but, as these words are only about something they, too, fall short. The Buddhist statement about the finger pointing to the moon not being confused with the moon, attempts to state this predicament.  

SOLUTION 

How do we solve this conundrum? If the mind is unable to know reality, what can be done? Einstein correctly pointed out “nothing can be solved by the same level of consciousness that created it.” In order to move beyond the suffering the mind creates, a higher level of consciousness must be realized. As long as we are caught in a looping game of duality the ego-mind plays we are lost. As long as you are in prison there is no hope for you, is a statement of truth.  

A higher level of consciousness is closer than the mind can imagine. It is as close as our own breath and heartbeat. Meditation allows for us to relax into depths not accessible by the mind and in so doing new vistas appear.  As our practice deepens we become more integrated. Mind, body, spirit, all with their own wisdoms, create a harmony that allows us to both view and participate in life with more authenticity.  

Suffering is caused by an illusion of separation, a labelling of ourselves as other than life itself. The only way out, the only way to find peace of mind, is to heal this illusion of separation. To become a witness to what the mind is up to by transcending it in a way that allows us to, first, realize we are not our minds, and second, to live from that place transcendent of it. Through meditation, we can begin to unravel the tight knot the mind has created.