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When I sit down to meditate, the first thing I think is "how will I accomplish this task of meditation." Usually, it's automatic and I don't even realize I'm trying at first. So I'll sit, and try and do something. I'm trying to get somewhere, to this state of peace or bliss or contentment or open-heartedness.
It's a total scam.
It's a scam in the sense that you can't find things like that. Those things are not "out there" somewhere else. Ajahn Chah, a great Buddhist teacher, said trying to find peace is like trying to find a turtle with a mustache -- it doesn't exist. As I understand it, Ajahn Chah wasn't saying that there is no such thing as peace. He was saying that you can't discover peace. You make it.
Meditation is like a laboratory for experiments in peace.
When I first sit, I am not at peace. I'm in a state of conflict with myself. There are things in my experience I find unsatisfactory, and in response, I try and affect them, manipulate them, change them, and meditation is going to be my tool.
But there comes a point where I begin to realize how ridiculous that all is, and how my "meditation" is a disguise for yet another conflict with myself. Then something happens. Instead of fighting, and instead of fighting with the fighting (I'll explain in a sec), I just listen to it. I listen to the thoughts, I listen to the feelings, I listen to the sensations and tensions that surround my chest. There's no objective. I'm not trying to get rid of anything. I just realize that fighting with it is stupid. Trying to manipulate my experience and tweak it is stupid. That's what I do all day. In that moment, I start to relax. I'm at Rest.
It's not that I've gone anywhere. I haven't found peace in some secret psychological enclave. I've just admitted what I'm feeling. In that moment, I was feeling tension, discomfort, and inner turmoil. I was trying to get somewhere, and at the same time, realizing that trying to get somewhere was futile. Okay, interesting, that's where things are right now. Then I feel tension in my chest. Interesting. A thought drifts by and I get distracted. Interesting. There's no need to fight and no need to resist; there's no where special I have to get to. It's simply listening to what's here with no special agenda.
11 comments:
I strongly dissagree with your post. Mediation is a very important legal procedere which helps people settle there differences. I dont know why you dont like mediation but its NOT A SCAM.
I wished that the first comment on here wasn't a person that didn't read what was said. The article never says he stopped/discontinued/or speaks out against it. He is stating some of the ideas that he was lead to believe would be given to him from meditation are not that at all, in fact he must produce them, there is no inner peace with out him making it, in the simplest motion he fights, then he fights the fighting, then he realizes there is no fight, he lets go allows it to be there, and now he has created peace.
"This inner peace of mind occurs on three levels of understanding. Physical quietness seems the easiest to achieve, although there are levels and levels of this too, as attested by the ability of Hindu mystics to live buried alive for many days. Mental quietness, in which one has no wandering thoughts at all, seems more difficult, but can be achieved. But value quietness, in which one has no wandering desires at all but simply performs the acts of his life without desire, that seems the hardest."
— Robert M. Pirsig
Fixed tag. Thanks!
Whatever dude. I still think mediation is an important legal tool. If you are in conflict with yourself, a mediator can help you sort things out so you can achieve inner peace.
Ba dum chhhhhhhhh
um sometimes I wonder if meditation was made to busy the mass poor and general humanity to sit and do nothing and leave less of a carbon footprint... Why can't I comment from FB?
So you're saying that meditation is like television? My old Zen Master would agree with your s3x1@$$$37F.
Uh.... hey there "annonymous", you need to refer to your dictionary, and look up "mediation", which is what you're talking about here, and then look up "mediTation", which is what Adahn is talking about. Two different words with Totally different meanings. *still laughing*
*oops*
Sorry Edahn, here I am talking about word spellings and then I misspell your name *sorry!*
Ha ha ha ha roflmao...
Thats mediTation with a T dear...
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