JUST WATCHING

It occurred to me this morning, during my sitting meditation, that what I was doing was incredibly easy. I was simply watching. I wasn’t actually doing anything or trying to get anywhere or attempting to improve myself. I was simply observing what was happening in the present moments as they passed by. It also came to me that I could do this easy task (if it can be called a task) at any time of the day or night. In fact, every moment of the rest of my life could be profitably spent simply watching – simply sitting in the grandstands of life and witnessing the seamless show that is reality. Of course, I will also be part of the show, carrying out my various roles as husband, father, and friend, but the wonderful part is that the other me – the real one – can be leaning back, folding his arms, and effortlessly following the action.

WHO KNOWS?

     Occasionally I wake up in the morning with a feeling of dread – a sense that something menacing awaits me in the coming hours, some bad news or signs of coming sorrow – and it is then that I ask the question: Who knows? Really – who knows what will happen in the next few hours, or in the next few minutes or seconds? The universe is a vast and baffling place, full of numberless events interweaving to make new events, and who can predict what events will float up to the surface today in that part of the universe called “my life”? At the dawn of each day, zillions of occurrences stand ready to come into existence, each of them as good and bad, as fearsome and wondrous, as waves in the sea. Who knows? Instead of the disasters I sometimes fear in the morning, I may find myself in the sudden sunshine of happiness at 7:00 am, and feel a wind of fine mental weather around 1:00. There’s no good sense in wondering or worrying. Waiting with a trusting expectation of miracles (which happen every moment) is the best way.

MY ONLY CHILD

I try to think of my “self” as my only child. This self, this little ego that I have created and raised inside me, is always a fearful and frail creature, calling out for protection and provision in this supposedly scary world. My “self” sees the world as a worrisome place, packed with perils and hazards all around. It runs scared all day and through most of the night. If it weren’t such a sad situation, it might be almost laughable, to think of this “thing” I’ve made making such a fearsome place out of a universe that, from some points of view, is a stunningly peaceable place. This is where I come in, the “father” of this only child I have created. I need to be a loving dad to this frightened little self. I need to comfort it when the perceived perils of the world seem to snarl around it. As part of this endless, marvelous universe, I need to hold my "self" comfortingly in awareness, accepting all its fears and concerns, consoling it with the truth that I - the Universe -- am vast enough to hold not only it, but everything that could happen to it, in my reassuring arms. (10/15/18)

ROOMINESS

     The main cause of every problem I’ve ever encountered in life is my belief in limits. Since my earliest days, I have been conditioned by my culture to believe that reality is basically a limited phenomenon. Life, it's been suggested, is basically made of perimeters, boundaries, and edges, all of them serving to separate. It’s been subtly impressed upon me, over and over, that reality is fundamentally a matter of countless separate, limited objects trying to maintain and protect themselves. Life, according to this interpretation, has more smallness than largeness, more constraint than openness -- more like a small, closed box than a vast, wide open space. I sometimes think about this when I am faced with what seems to be a threat to my personal comfort and security. In situations like this, I often begin feeling closed off, alone, and vulnerable, as if my life is little and locked up tight, a small box surrounded by innumerable enemies.  Luckily, I sometimes find a few moments to think quietly about it, and I begin to see my mistake. I begin to see that the universe is not a place of limits, but of boundlessness. I begin to see, again, that life is not small and restricted, but vast and without walls of any sort. I see my “self” as it really is – as a part of an inexpressibly spacious universe that can hold any so-called threat with comfort and peacefulness. I realize that I am in no way weak and vulnerable, and that, in fact, I am not even a separate “I”. I am the universe and the universe is me, and therefore, truly, I am at liberty and illimitable. In a universe of such generous roominess, any apparent threat suddenly seems like nothing more than a silly and harmless charade.

STORMS, SUNSHINE, MOODS

It would be insane of me to think I could control the weather – to think that, by worrying and fretting and fuming and manipulating, I could produce one sunlit day after another. Anyone would consider that an utterly senseless way to think, but is it any more senseless than for me to think I can control happiness? I have spent a good part of my waking hours attempting to make sure I am happy at all times, and when, for umpteen various reasons, I occasionally find that I am not happy, I get nervous, cross, and sometimes quite sad. Poor me! I’m not experiencing pure happiness right now! I don’t deserve this! How silly would it be if I acted this way about the weather – if I went outside in a rainstorm and commanded the sun to come out! I wouldn’t do this, of course, because I fully understand that the weather does what it wants to when it wants to. The weather is irregular, inconstant, unsteady, and unsettled, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. What I have to do is realize that all of life, including moods, is exactly the same. Storms sometimes follow sunshine, and sadness occasionally comes after happiness. It’s the way things work. Just as I usually find a way to accept rainstorms and perhaps even appreciate them, I need to find a way to say yes to occasional gloom and grief, and who knows, perhaps even recognize the value of them.

WHY MEDITATION IS IMPORTANT

It came to me this morning that meditation is important because it puts me in touch with the only power in the universe – the eternal present moment. All the other activities I could engage in, including reading books about meditation, involve gaining something, changing something, getting somewhere, being somebody different, improving myself – in other words, moving away from the present moment. Only meditation says, “This moment, right here right now, is perfect, so live in it and appreciate it.” I see more and more clearly that I have been trying to flee from the present moment for most of my life – obsessively throwing myself into pursuits that would take me anywhere but the present. The word “pursuit’ fits perfectly here, because it is, indeed, a chase – an attempt to catch some future moment instead of living in the all-powerful present. Even reading a book about meditation has to do with freeing myself from the present, becoming someone different – more educated, more spiritual – than who I am right now. Only meditation brings me face to face with the trouble-free, all-embracing, and unbounded present.