Meditation: Just Practicing for the Big Game

 

Artwork by Ingrid Lill

I've never been a meditator.  Yes, I've tried it here and there but the exercise has never really amounted to anything life altering because I much prefer inquiry for shattering my paradigm, thank you.  With annoying regularity though, this so-called inquiry would decide to show up at around 3am at which time it would keep me up for at least an hour or two.  And that is when I find myself locked into a stare contest with my bedroom ceiling until the idea dawns to start relaxing with a little meditation.  (The ceiling wins every time, by the way)

As you can see, I've got meditation issues.

The biggest realization I've gotten out of a cramped-leg sitting session is that finding the space between thoughts is nearly impossible at first.  This, I know for sure.  Because as soon as I notice that the space is there, it's no longer a space.  Instead, a comment appears and the space is quickly filled with the newly discovered thought.  After a while, this cycle of thought birth and death becomes painful to note.  From what I understand, though, this is kind of the point. What you begin to do is to take a good look at the process rather than paying attention the content. 

It's practice for the Big Game.

And yet, here's what I think makes a session of meditation on Thought a bit more interesting.  Remember my investigation into the nature of Now and how staying in it is a crock?  Well, in this meditation I've noticed that thoughts are always in the past.  What I mean to say is that while I can't catch them midstream, I can just sort of take note that they've happened.  I've never caught a thought in the act, or at least not in the middle of the act.  They're awfully wily that way.  They're never now.

I do have to be honest and report that on one or two occasions, I have indeed noticed the elusive mind state of Nothingness.  This would be cause for celebration if such things weren't frowned upon by the enlightenment police.  To congratulate yourself for noticing Nothing is hypocrisy!  Besides it doesn't lend itself to conversation.

"Hey, what's up?"
"Nothing."
"Oh."
"Yeah.  Been working on that for years."

Instant conversation killer.

Ok, back to the exercise.  As you can see, noticing thought ends up being quite a crazy game of hide and seek where the success of achieving the goal is fleeting as well as almost entirely elusive.  It takes some time to just notice what happens with thought because it's much to easy to begin spiraling into it.  It's like a cosmic swirling drain that seduces you right into the vortex. 

I need more time with this.  And that's quite likely the reason it's called practice.

Waking Up: A Zero Sum Game

The idea of living in a constant state of enlightened bliss is usually trumped by my habit of swimming the murky waters of self improvement.  Call it a desire to become EverBetter.

What's EverBetter?  Well, it's a drive that has lead me by the nose and straight into a spiritual search.  After all, to be enlightened is the Most Better one can ever get, isn't it?

Yes, that's all well and good but this blog is about holding every assumption up to Inquiry, and so I have to ask myself the most basic question:

Hell in a Handbasket: Laptops, Cars, and Other Spiritual Vices

artwork by Ingrid Lill

Quiz Time:

In this bright, big world of good and shiny things, there are possessions, and then there are things that are MINE, right?  What I mean is that possessions as I usually think of them are things like My House (which belongs to the bank, thank you), My Jetta (which belongs to yet another financial institution), My Samsung laptop (Ok, this actually is something I paid for in full).  You get the idea.  Those are my things, the very items I'd mourn if they went missing.  I mean seriously cry because I've invested some hard-earned cash.

Spiritual perfectionists would tell me that I need to ditch those things to be happy, or at least not be so god-awful attached to them.

Meh.  I'm not that spiritual, I guess.

The next level of stuff I own is this entirely amped up level of possessions. 

Wake Up! There are sharks in the Think Tank

One of the most frustrating and freeing inquiries I've ever come across is the one spawned from this doodle.

Here.  Let's think about that.

The first reason for the frustration is exactly what the doodle notes.  The truth of things is that I just cannot ever predict what the next thought will be.  This is a problem because in the middle of inquiry, a thought about what happened at work last Monday will just pop.  There is absolutely no control over this no matter how hard "I" try.  This invading thought may be followed by one involving a plan for dinner, or maybe even an entirely ridiculous and imaginary scene I happen to enjoy because it involves Chris Cornell. 

Yeah.  You really don't want to think about that.

The second reason for my vexation is the impossible situation I find myself trying to unravel, which is that inquiry itself IS thought. 

Keeping That Cute Little Monkey On Your Back

I've been in a deep crisis about my job lately and that's because I know it doesn't align with my desire or plan to have fulfilling Life Purpose.  How ridiculously typical for a spiritual seeker of my less-than-tender age!

There's no time in the linear trajectory I like to think of as the 'history of my life' that I wasn't looking for the next or better thing.  It's been a real source of dissatisfaction, if I'm honest. More than that, it's been a source of pain, and you might even say Suffering.

Oh, you too?

Only after beginning to work with this particular inquiry did I discover that the suffering is completely false.  Firstly, because I don't recall learning about a predetermined or neatly paved path which I have been commanded to follow.  What's more, there are zero accounts of Maps to the Universe having been handed out by the OB-Gyn who tended to my birth.  And if he was in the business of handing out life maps upon arrival, it's long since been lost.  There's no absolutely no GPS for This, and therefore, it's impossible to get lost.

So where did this idea of Sempre Further, Stronger, Faster, Better come from?  Why the dissatisfaction with my current state of affairs?

The Neverending Universe of Inquiry

While the urgent energy of spiritual seeking can end at some point, it's my experience so far that inquiry can't.  It's an ever expanding universe of wonder and awe.  Well, when inquiry isn't leading up to a headache, that is.  And if it's giving me a headache, that's probably a good sign that I'm working it like a logical math problem instead of a simple check of reality. 

This brings me to an excellent blog comment on my last post.  I see it as an invitation to an Inquiry Challenge Round. 


"This is a textbook case of realizing the difference between actual experience and thought overlay."I'd think that thought overlay is part of actual experience, and that the realising is just another overlay.

"Where this hold true for me, it must also hold true for him."......Must? 

- Neony


How and where to start!

I think of inquiry as an art form.  Or maybe it's an eternal musical composition.  Either way, it's always a good idea for me to not call a session "closed" or "done".  Instead, I let it just keep opening doors and before writing out the results of an inquiry here, I've more than likely spent a full week in contemplation even when I've done these countless times before.  Finding a breaking point at which to write is always much more challenging than I expect.

Neony's right.  When I look, I see that thought overlay is indeed part of actual experience, and realizing IS just another overlay.  Everything is experience.  There is no escaping it, even if I think about falling asleep at night and experiencing nothing, that's not true.  I can't possibly know whether I've actually missed anything at all.  

My recommendation to you, dear reader, is to take none of these inquiries as complete, closed, or finished.  Challenge each one and see whether you can take it further. 

Because you can.  Always.

Friends, Lovers, and Other Strangers?

The question is....Exactly what is it that I see when looking at another?

In the midst of trying to give this inquiry my full attention I find myself giving several distracted glances in my husband's direction.  I note the rounded shoulders of his seated form as he reads from his laptop.  Then I remember that he hates that laptop.  Or maybe it's just a healthy disdain for Windows 8.

Anyway!

Besides the visual cues of shape and color, I'm pretty proud of my spiritual acuity in easily noticing that there is absolutely nothing there that says "husband".  That notion, I understand, comes in a series of thoughts which claim to tell a story about that particular shape and form.  This is a textbook case of realizing the difference between actual experience and thought overlay.

I get 10 bonus points for this round of inquiry and move onto the next space on the board.
.
Next, I start looking at the question of how and where these particular thoughts came to be.