Perhaps but there is also the experience of luminous dreaming which
meditation opens the way to. Meditation and its practice stills the
mind. It takes time and practice to do this well. Once luminous
dreaming is encountered the experiences appear rather similar
although I suspect that there are several types encountered.
Once experienced it is clear where the concepts of heaven come from
what ever other conclusions you may reach.
In my own one and only such experience, I was clearly invited into
the afterlife or abode of my mother. I extracted new information
during this event that could not be made up but could be recognized.
I was able to consciously try to do just that. I can recognize valid
reports because of this.
Yet core to meditation is learning to still your mind for a sustained
period of time.
Meditation is Not
What You Think
November 8, 2011
“However you try to
define meditation, it’s not that.” — Swami Brahmananda
Ed & Deb Shapiro
Through many years of
being involved with meditation we have seen how easily people miss
the point, mainly because they take the practice and themselves too
seriously. Many ‘try’ to meditate but their minds are so busy
they get frustrated and quickly believe they are no good at it.
Others turn into die-hard advocates of a particular method or
technique and become like a salesperson trying to sell their product
Just like Yoga, people
want to own meditation and to believe that their technique is the
best one. They give it a name: TM or Vipassana or Mindfulness and
sometimes make outrageous claims of what can be achieved, but that is
not the point. Meditation is not a technique – being quiet
happens by itself, not because of following the breath in and out,
reciting a specific mantra or creating a visualization.
Teachers, through
their compassion, created the many methods and techniques in order to
help their students to concentrate and focus their minds, to be
one-pointed. No one technique is better than another; they equally
give our monkey minds something to do other than drive us bananas.
Many of the practices known as meditation are actually concentration;
they bring the mental energy together so the mind is less fragmented.
But this is not meditation.
Meditation invites us
to stop, just stop, breathe and be. Just as with a musician playing
or an artist painting, when we stop trying to make it happen
something occurs, like the radiant sun that suddenly emerges in a
cloudy sky. But because we try so hard, we identify more with the
technique instead of allowing the meditation to reveal itself.
The practice of
meditation easily gets put in a box: “I will practice now, at this
time, at this place and in this posture, and I will do this
particular method.” But a method is simply an aide; it is not the
experience itself. A hammer can help build a house but it is not the
house. There is no doubt that through practice we can release stress
and feel wonderfully peaceful, but genuine meditation is about waking
up, where the mind is clear and free of obscuration.
This is not a
mental process but an experiential one as meditation is an opening, a
release of ego identity when all attempts to meditate, all striving,
all doing stops, when there is no past or future, just radiant
emptiness. It is being present – fully aware and present in
every moment — and we can do that whatever we are doing and
wherever we are. It is the freedom to be fully oneself without
limitations or ideologies – there is just this.
Deb’s father,
Richard, was on a Zen retreat where he was taught to temper his
sensuality, not to give in to his senses or think of sensual things
but to stay focused and single minded. While walking in the garden he
then came across a pond laden with happily fornicating frogs. We
think meditation has to be something special but true meditation is
opening and expanding our perception, as if seeing with new eyes.
The technique
becomes redundant when meditation becomes our natural state. It
doesn’t matter what the technique is — when we drive to Rome the
car is necessary but when we get there it is immaterial – what
matters is the attitude and awareness that we bring to practice. The
teacher is also more important than the technique. They must be
skillful, peaceful and clear, regardless of the method or tradition
they are teaching.
The moon trusts that
the world will continue to go round on its axis, birds trust there
will be berries and seeds to eat, trees trust the seasons will follow
in the right order. Until we trust that things will unfold naturally
then we are slaves to our doubts, fears and neurosis, to the constant
chatter in our heads that says we are useless and don’t know
anything. But we don’t make the sun to rise or set. The planet is
in orbit and neither we nor Jesus or Buddha or any of the wise ones
run the show. Our job is simply to surrender to the moment.
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