meditation

The truth is, you already are, it is finished.

It is absolutely and totally possible, and freely available, to step out of this limitation of the Self and rest as your true nature right now.

This is NOT some stale old chore which you have got to 'do'.

The true beauty of realizing your true nature is in the freshness,
peace and deep bodily relaxation which touches to the core of your
being, flows into your everyday life and bursts forth naturally
into blossoming from within itself. Without you 'doing' a thing
about any of it.

It is very important to note that this is NOT a limited
meditation 'practice' or 'technique'.

The day to day chores and mechanical flow of life all continued as before, but with no energy going into them. Pushing through in some moments and melting into the abyss in others, no choice in any of it. During sittings it was felt that the body and all of existence was melting and would never return again. When the end of the session came and the responsibilities of life started up again the moves would occur and life would go on as usual.

Internally, however, was a whole new paradigm. The perspective had shifted to a whole new sense. The mind was still functioning, but restricted to a strictly practical level. Not a constant burble and with no energy to touch this place. Like a waterfall in slow motion, which defies gravity and seems to float quietly past making no ripple within itself and touching nothing. Only spontaneously emerging when needed and then fading away again.

Overcoming attachment does not mean becoming cold and indifferent.
On the contrary, it means learning to have relaxed control over our mind
through understanding the real causes of happiness and fulfillment,
and this enables us to enjoy life more and suffer less.

It seems we all agree that training the body through exercise, diet, and relaxation is a good idea, but why don't we think about training our mind?

'To look behind or to look upfront is not as important as to look inside'

Under the right circumstances, it is not difficult to have a powerful experience of meditation, to taste the indescribable peace, bliss, rapture, and stillness of the Ground of Being-like a still forest pool, in which you sink ever more deeply, where your mind is not moving at all. It is very important to taste the inherent liberation of your own infinite depth, but that kind of experience in and of itself will not necessarily teach you how to have a liberated relationship to the chaos of your own mind and emotions. Sinking to the depths of your own self is always profoundly inspiring, but it's not enough. It is equally important to know how to stay on the surface when a storm is raging and have no relationship to the chaos. And that is what the deliberate practice of meditation is all about. For most of us, learning to do that is ultimately a source of greater confidence and soul strength than the spontaneous experience of infinite depth. And in fact, from an absolute or nondual perspective, being at the surface is no different from being at the very bottom of the pool. Even if it doesn't necessarily feel that way, in time you will come to understand that it is the same. That is the secret of freedom.

We could say that meditation doesn't have a reason or doesn't have a purpose. In this respect it's unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don't do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.

We are sick with fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas. Meditation is therefore the art of suspending verbal and symbolic thinking for a time, somewhat as a courteous audience will stop talking when a concert is about to begin.

The search ends with the realization that there is no such thing as enlightenment. By searching, you want to be free from the self, but whatever you are doing to free yourself from the self is the self. How can I make you understand this simple thing? There is no 'how'. If I tell you that, it will only add more momentum to that (search), strengthen that momentum. That is the question of all questions: "How, how, how?"