For the first couple of years, meditation was about quietening my mind. I would focus on my breathing, and when my mind wandered, I’d bring it back to the breath — sometimes with patience, sometimes without. The Buddhist monk Ajahn Sumedho taught me this in his book, ‘The Four Noble Truths.’
Soon, the spiritual mystic Ekhart Tolle taught me to be ‘the watcher.’ I’d go beyond the breath and watch for thoughts and physical sensations. And I’d put these aside, as they arose. Now I wasn’t my mind. I was learning to ‘let go.’
These days, Sam Harris (in his ‘Waking Up’ meditation app) is teaching me to ‘play’ while meditating. I expand my awareness to include memories, feelings, moods, and mental impressions. And when they arise, as distractions, I don’t put them aside. I explore them. I notice that I don’t call on them. Instead, they call on me. So, I ask: What are they? Where are they coming from? Where do they go? Who is the ‘I’ that is experiencing them?
It feels like a photographer captivated by a man in black. She then zooms out a bit and sees that the man is facing a raging ocean. Zooming out a bit more she sees that there’s a town in the background too. And just as she’s taking in the magnificence of the landscape, she notices the camera through which she’s seeing all of this.
Meditation seems to be about this sort of ‘zooming out.’ We start with the breath. But as we step back we see a larger landscape of sensations, thoughts, and feelings. And just as we think we’ve seen the whole picture, we realize our ‘self’ — the brain/mind we so strongly identify with — isn’t doing the viewing. Rather, it’s a part of that very landscape. So then, what IS doing the viewing? My teachers say it’s a formless cloud-like consciousness or awareness.
All this seems quite profound, right? But every now and then, I remind myself of the following: Ajahn Sumedho renounced society and retreated to a monastery. Ekhard Tolle spent a year on a park bench, in a state of unabated ecstasy. And Sam Harris used respectable amounts of LSD as a catalyst for his insight. So, perhaps I should be a bit wary about joining this club of theirs?