"My boat strikes something deep. At first sounds of silence, waves. Nothing has happened; Or perhaps everything has happened. And I am sitting in my new life.”
Rumi
“Deep in the soul, below pain, below all the distraction of life, is a silence vast and grand - an infinite ocean of calm, which nothing can disturb; Nature's own exceeding peace, which "passes understanding". That which we seek with passionate longing, here and there, upward and outward; we find at last within ourselves.”
Richard Maurice Bucke
The river Tisza near Mártély, Hungary, July 2013
Audio version of this Musing, read by me.
Dear Friends,
In the previous two musings I talked about silence, about what silence has meant to me so far, and also about the importance of periodic media-silence and story-silence in these hectic times.
And I tried to make it clear how beneficial silence can be, in endless ways, even in light of the many crises we face and the extremely tumultuous period our world will go through in the coming years and decades.
One of the ways we can seek out, cultivate and recognize that silence as a source of energy is meditation.
Meditation is a comprehensive subject, about which there still exist many misunderstandings in our Western world. Therefore, I will not dwell too much on all aspects of meditation, but try to give an impression of what meditation has meant to me and what I think it could mean to you, if you have not yet meditated.
You might object: what on earth does meditation have to do with ecology, with the dramatic crises in our world that seems to careen full speed towards an abyss? Aren't there more pressing issues to deal with than sitting on a cushion doing nothing?
First: I will not deny that action is needed, in many ways and domains. One of my intentions with this blog is precisely to encourage you to take your own action and believe in your own agency. But action can arise from many sources. And as I had indicated in the previous posts, action will most likely be more intelligent, more compassionate and more effective to the extent that that action comes from a deeper contact with yourself, from trusting your intuition, from a rediscovered love for yourself and for the world. From a powerful center that has examined its own shadow and continues to move forward in the never-ending process of integrating that shadow. From an honesty that recognizes if and when we project our own shadow onto all kinds of individuals and organizations who are then identified as the “bad guys” and against whom we have to go to war. From a calmness that is grounded and powerful, not from a fearful fit or a panic reaction. And all the aforementioned happen to be things that benefit very much from regular meditation and from other practices aimed at grounding ourselves and connecting with the center of our awareness.
And second, meditation does not have to mean sitting still on a cushion. That image already has to do with the many misconceptions around meditation that are still deeply rooted in our Western world.
There exist endless forms of meditation, and ultimately you can develop your own form and pattern and practice that works best for you. And if that means standing, or walking in a forest, or swimming, that's fine. There need be no cushions, dojos, incense or images of Buddha involved. There need be no “discipline” that must be strictly followed. There is no need to chastise or torment yourself in any way.
Of course, there are yogis or or dojos who advocate a strict practice, and many of them can actually be very powerful and transformative. But meditation can also be done in many other ways, and doesn't have to look like a boot-camp. It can also be done in ways that can be integrated into daily life, and can be light and flexible.
To summarize: for me, meditation is any practice that releases me from identification with my thoughts and emotions. And let our thoughts and emotions be precisely what we identify most strongly with, to the extent that we usually think we ARE those thoughts and emotions . Which is not the case at all.
And thirdly: meditation is not doing nothing. On the contrary. By the way, doing nothing can also be very beneficial, and even necessary, even if you want to save the world. Perhaps especially if you want to save the world. I will talk about doing nothing another time. So meditation is neither doing nothing nor doing something. It is somewhere in between. It is action, but without purpose and without product and without holding on to anything. It is attention that makes you experience the phenomenon of consciousness itself, the phenomenon that enables you to experience anything at all, even apart from the contents of that consciousness. In this sense, it is action: it presupposes focus, but without purpose. It is doing without doing anything.
But this aspect may still sound a bit incomprehensible, or hermetic. It actually isn't, and I will clarify that in a future musing on purposefulness, and how purposefulness can be a problem.
I myself started practicing daily meditation in 2010.
Initially I turned to the well-known techniques such as the body scan, mindfulness exercises, breathing meditation and zazen meditation. Gradually many other techniques and approaches were added, and over time I developed my own “cocktail” of meditation and awareness techniques that are now embedded in my daily actions and habits. Several of these are exercises developed by my partner Agnes. You can read more about Agnes and her work on the English version of her website. And her methods exemplify my previous statement that meditation need not be difficult or agonizing, but on the contrary very light and free in terms of energy. And those meditation techniques also help me to stay much closer to inner silence, and to intuition, energy, and anything that wants to be heard from the endless potential that exists within that silence.
I start and end each day with meditation, and at different times of the day I also like to insert short sessions of meditation or silence, as 'recharge moments' where I recharge inner energy just like one recharges one’s phone battery. And in addition to 'recharging,' it is also a kind of 'reset' each time, since our energy tends to get subtly (or not so subtly) out of balance throughout the day, especially if they are busy days. And that soon manifests itself in tension, muscle pain, inflammation and other physical complaints. I am quite sure that if meditation were a more widespread practice in our society, the incidence of chronic diseases, cancer, depression, addiction and so on would drop dramatically. Although even that should not be the overriding reason to start meditating: that is another form of utilitarianism, of making meditation and mindfulness 'useful'. And as soon as we meditate with a well-defined purpose in mind, we are actually already no longer meditating. As Alan Watts said in the sound clip in this Musing, "if you're playing in order to work better afterwards, you're not playing at all! "
Promoting meditation and mindfulness as some sort of productivity-enhancing tool that allows us to perform better in the rat-race is one of the pitfalls that loom when a mechanistically oriented society becomes acquainted with practices and beliefs that have nothing to do with a mechanistic worldview.
Another trap is the assertion that meditation is good for us, “because brain scans have proven that”. This again is an expression of a mechanistic-utilitarian approach that seeks to legitimize meditation from a medical-scientific point of view. Meditation can certainly change the structure of the brain, or the number and nature of connections between nerve cells. But above all, let that not be the reason to start meditating. That meditation is good for you is actually as obvious as establishing that breathing is good for you, or eating healthy food, or spending time with loved ones. None of those things, however, are the goal: breathing, food and connection are aspects of a process that has no purpose (see the aforementioned Musing “Does Life Have a Purpose? And Is It Serious?' ) As soon as we attach a purpose to it, the chances are that we will get ourselves stuck.
Meditation is about being, and being is a category that is better not justified with economic-scientific-utilitarian considerations. But a being that is grounded, and free of attachment to thoughts and emotions, can be open in a much more powerful way to experiencing very different things, such as the unreal beauty of every moment, the wonder of the sunlight on every leaf or blade of grass, or the magic of the singular fact of waking up, opening your eyes and being allowed to be another day. The more we identify with our thoughts and emotions, the less we are, in the moment. I'm certainly not the first to come out and proclaim this, but if that information remains just a form of mental concept, it doesn't get us anywhere: it has to be experienced. It’s not enough to read about meditation, it has to be a lived experience.
For those who are not very familiar with meditation and what it can mean, I would warmheartedly recommend the short book by the great yogi Michael Singer: 'The Untethered Soul'.
Singer succeeds like no other in conveying in a very accessible yet thorough way how meditation can radically change our relationship with ourselves as well as with the world. And by very accessible, I mean VERY accessible. Don't expect an intellectual discourse and socio-cultural history of meditation or Buddhism, Singer keeps it very simple, which surprises some people. We're used to literature on this subject that elaborates on knowledge, history, and culture, which is all fine too but then we're right back in our heads, and it's now about getting out of our heads.
And Singer also gives an impression of just how far this transformation can go. For meditation should not be understood as sitting still for a while to calm down: it is a process that can radically change your perception of yourself and of the world (although as said earlier you certainly shouldn't make that the goal). For when we let go of our identification with our thoughts, mental contents, fears and worries, what is left? At first that can seem terrifying: won't all that remain be emptiness, and boredom or restlessness or a dangerous abyss we'd rather not look into? If we allow those busy voices in our heads that are chattering day in and day out to quiet down, what can remain? (Don't force them, it won't work),
Well, that is the question, isn't it?
Because who or what are we, apart from our thoughts, fears and worries? Who or what is the one who perceives all these things?
But trying to answer that question would take us way too far right now, and I will come back to that in future posts. For now, I would just like encourage you once more to begin some form of meditation, yoga or mindfulness, if you are not already doing so.
For some people there may be counter-indications: in the case of well-defined mental disorders, meditation may be temporarily or permanently inadvisable. If in doubt, consult a therapist. But for the vast majority of people, meditation as a sustained practice can bring exceptional well-being over time. And it may take a while to find something that really works for you. There may be a period of searching, of trying out different methods, of trial and error. For me, too, it was quite a journey to develop a practice that really helps me and that I can continue to integrate into my daily life. Because that too is important: meditation should not be limited to those moments of the day when we actually meditate. The energy and mental focus we find in meditation can gradually be maintained more and more throughout the day. After all, as Michael Singer noted, what's the point of meditating in the morning and in the evening if, during the day between those two moments, we completely relapse back into our fears, worries and reactive fixations? The idea is that you can transform your whole life, not just schedule a few moments of meditation.
For those who are new to meditation and have no idea where to start, the app “Headspace' can be a good starting point.
The idea of an app to meditate may meet resistance for people who see a chasm between contemporary technology and what is often called ‘spirituality’, but such divisions seem rather unnecessary to me. Headspace is indeed an interesting and well constructed platform that offers very diverse programs and guided meditations for beginners to advanced. And yes, even technology can help us on a spiritual path, why not.
Meditation and finding balance remains work in progress for me as well. Of course I can still lose myself in worries, or fears or stress. But when that happens, it is already incomparably less than in my former life before I started meditating. And I can usually get myself out of those fixations or fears or worries and move back into balance much more quickly. My life before meditation was often permeated with very strong fear and uncertainty, and the extent to which that is no longer the case is partly due to meditation, to all the information contained in silence, the silence that can open a door to a very different place from our endless thought patterns, anxieties, worries, and all the contents of our consciousness with which we constantly identify.
The fever of our planet that we like to call “climate crisis” is also a reflection of our feverish society and the fever within each of us, of our fears, our stress, our chasing after goals that are not necessarily good for us or do not necessarily make us happier. So meditating and calming our inner fever is one of the things each of us can do for the planet as well. Anyone who can transform themselves and their own consciousness to more peace, stillness and connection with intuition and the information contained in the stillness, is thereby alone potentially making an invaluable contribution to the transformation that awaits us. For it is not with anger and struggle that we will make it. Not by pointing to the “culprits” and going to war against the perceived “evildoers”. But by freeing ourselves from the patterns that hold our global society as a whole in their grip.
And that's not to say that we can not and should not take action at some point, but that any action that arises from stillness and from the knowing contained in that stillness will be a very different kind of action than action that arises from anger or fear or despair. And in that action there will possibly be contained more compassion and love also, more than in action that is propelled by hatred or anger or fear or restlessness.
I wish you many different experiences of and in that silence, and much care for yourself and your loved ones from within that silence, which is the space within which we come into being, day by day. For it is not that we are born once and then simply exist until we die. Every day we arise again from endless potential contained in space and silence as soon as we open our eyes in the morning. And there is no better way to make contact with that potential than in silence.
Spread the word. (But not too loud, and not all the time).
Thanks for reading, and until the next installment,
All the best to you,
Filip
