As dusk descends, passive observation quiets the mind and allows one to see beauty beyond the surface dreariness of the day. Darkness begins to envelop the land, and a nearly full moon shines through hazy skies above the branches of the sycamores. There is unknowable mystery.
The space and silence of meditation bring insight and renewal. The action of quickening watchfulness negates the observer/self, and life again springs forth around and within one.
The spaces between thoughts widen, the brain grows quiet, and effortless attention clears away the mental and emotional detritus of experience.
Why are meditation methods and techniques a mistake? Because they are fabricated by thought, and you cannot use thought to quiet the mind and go beyond thought.
One has to allow the contents of the mind and heart the freedom to flow unimpeded by judgment, evaluation and effort. Thought is a polluted stream that only clears when it is undividedly and intensely observed without judgment. evaluation or interpretation.
Meditation involves taking the time to sit and observe the inner movement of thought and emotion in the mirror of the outer movement of nature and the world, without employing time and trying to reach a goal.
In doing so, space opens up between thoughts. Strong emotions often arise, seemingly for no reason. But by also passively observing them in the same way one watches a roiling stream, the rapids calm and there is insight and greater self-understanding. Doing so is the antithesis of “bypassing.“
When passive observation completely negates the illusion of the separate observer, attention gathers its own momentum, and the mind spontaneously falls silent. The present is no longer overshadowed by the past as memory, and one effortlessly leaves the stream of thought-consciousness.
To mix a metaphor, non-directed attention acts like a laser, burning through the thick material of psychological memory and emotional blockage. Right observation ends the infinite regress of the observer, allowing attention to gather and the timeless to be.
Consciousness, as we usually know it, is the accretion and movement of memory, sustained and enlarged by the continuity of an image called “me.” As we grow older, the mind is like a windowpane that becomes caked with grime, allowing less and less light to pass through. Passive observation and spontaneous attention in the mirror of nature cleans the windowpanes so the light can shine throughout one’s life.
Returning to one’s work and routines, underlying material of memory and unseen content of emotions seep back into the space opened up by meditation. The mind falls back into the habit of thinking and associating—the ebb and flow of the past. But one is changed, and cannot completely go back to operating in terms of thought, memory and association.
What then, is “enlightenment?” Does illumination occur when effortless attention remains constant, so that the material of the past cannot leach back into present?
There have been very few people in human history that have “attained enlightenment,”though many people these days think they have and market themselves as masters.
One thing is certain: meditation is not a matter of will, effort or choice, but rather of seeing and being.
Eastern conceptions of meditation and illumination cannot be grafted onto the dead tree of Western civilization. Our linguistic and conceptual frameworks arise from the culture and history in which we live.
“The Enlightenment,” with his foundation in reason and faith in science, has reached a disordered and vacuous end.
Nevertheless, it’s a scientific and material age. So this is a new language for meditation and enlightenment, without conflating the scientific and religious minds.
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