Letting Go of Tranquility
I’m sorry I’ve been absent for a while, but I’ve been working on my novel, “The Sweet Burn of Emptiness”. It’s taken eight years to get to this final draft, so right now I’m focusing on that.
In the meantime I’ve received a few questions and they’re beginning to back up, so I’m going to deal with them as quickly as I can. Again, I’m sorry for my tardiness.
The first question is:
I’ve been using your audio course for about 6 months now and until a month ago I seemed to be progressing okay. But then one night I was meditating and I got this beautiful expansive feeling. It was like everything that weighed on me suddenly disappeared. All the thinking that was usually there was gone and my body seemed like it was air. It was very beautiful. But as fast as it came it disappeared and now I seem to be going backwards. Whenever I meditate the thinking is worse than before and I just can’t get back to that feeling.
So I’m wondering what I’ve done wrong and how to fix it.
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You’ve done nothing wrong. There is no’ wrong’ in meditation.
There is only cause and effect. You do this, so you get that – you do that, so you get this. And each effect is neither wrong nor right – it’s simply what it is. And though some effects are perhaps unpleasant, the trick is to accept every effect, both pleasant and unpleasant, with the same equanimity – to learn to neither desire or fear any outcome.
Level-headed equanimity is the key to meditation.
So try to let go of the notions of ‘wrong’ and ‘right’ and the desire to be ‘right’, and the fear of ‘being wrong’ – right and wrong and the desire and fear they carry with them make meditation impossible.
For that reason in meditation we also practice letting go of the notion of needing to have a goal. Having a goal in meditation will only create mental and physical tensions that will eventually sabotage meditation practice. This is because when you have a goal, suddenly things you’re experiencing begin appearing as wrong or right relative to that goal. That is to say, we become preoccupied with judging what we are doing as ‘wrong’ or ‘right’ according to how quickly and efficiently we are approaching our goal – which, as I said, will sabotage the simple act of being still.
As I’ve said many times before – in meditation, there is no goal. There is only the moment by moment ‘doing’ of meditation, coupled with unconditional acceptance of whatever happens.
So this was the problem here – you found a goal.
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I remember before you experienced this extraordinary tranquility, you were practicing well – in previous emails you spoke of ‘accepting the struggle’ – and you were amazed at how this in itself had a calming effect on you. And in that equanimity, you worked well, and meditation developed in its own way, as it should.
But then this new and pleasurable experience happened. In an unselfconscious moment you accidentally experienced a glimpse of the new way of being that meditation is opening up in you. And that experience was so intoxicating, and so desirable, it formed the set of expectations that became a goal.
Suddenly there was something you wanted from meditation.
As such, each meditation then became subject to assessment. You began meditating within the disturbing question of whether what you were doing was taking you closer to your goal, or further away. And by extension, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ came into the equation and you got lost in the preoccupied anxiousness that goals, and the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ that goals bring with them, creates.
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In the kind of life we lead, we commonly regard goals as essential. We use goals because the our competitive culture requires us to have them. Which is why for most people, life is an anxious experience.
And we’re used to this anxiety, and even like it sometimes when it’s fun. We love the excitement of the carnival ride and the adventure of getting close to achieving our goals – but regardless of whether it’s pleasurable excitement or not, all this striving pans out as simple anxiety of one kind or another.
And anxiety has no place in meditation, because it blocks awareness. And it does this by channeling mental energy into our attention. We become hypervigilant, looking for results. And this anxious attention sucks mental energy away from the part of our mind we’re intent on developing in meditation – that wide, subtle, momentary and immense intelligence we know as awareness.
Awareness needs a mind that is calm, momentary and goal-less.
So, in meditation we practice how to be ‘goal-less’.
We practice doing things for their own sake. We practice being absorbed in an activity without being distracted by expectations or judgement of progress. We don’t strive to get anything. We learn to let go of everything, so that all that remains is awareness. Because that’s where true creativity lies – together with tranquility, interconnectedness and our innate genius.
And that is a little of what you got a glimpse of when you had that pleasant experience..
It came from the innocence with which you were practicing – you had no goal, you had no right or wrong – and in that innocence, your mind let go of everything, including its idea of itself, and you experienced the amazing luminescence of pure awareness.
But when you went “Oh! How beautiful!” you tried to grasp onto it and cling to it and make it your own – which caused it to disappear. And when you began to try to re-create it in subsequent meditations it became your goal.
And with that goal came the anxiety and feeling of being blocked that you’re now struggling with.
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It should be said here, that this stage in meditation is normal. Every meditator comes to it at some point.
It fact, it’s probably the most difficult stage of meditation, because it’s the final wall between the old conditioned mind you’ve been living in, of anxiety and right and wrong – or linear thinking and desire and fear – and the new mind you’re developing of openness, awareness, intuitive thinking and interconnectedness.
So then – what to do?
The only way to deal with this is to let go. Let go of what happened. Completely and utterly.
In fact, let go of everything other than the breath.
Go back to focusing on meditation as a technical process – purely technical. Treat everything that happens, whether tranquil or messy or painful as simply another part of an ongoing process in which you move from event to event, however fast or slow.
Your only purpose in each of these events is to allow things to happen without meddling – neither stopping things or clinging – accepting and letting go as a single, comprehensive action.
Do this continuously – with everything! Treat everything that happens exactly the same, whether pleasant or unpleasant.
For this, the mental noting method is perfect.
Tranquility comes – note it and let go. Back to the breath.
Pain comes – note it and let go. Back to the breath
Thinking is annoying you – note it and let go. Back to the breath
If you find yourself looking for calm – note that you are looking for calm, and let it go. Back to the breath.
As the mind becomes used to this constant letting go of everything, even its sense of itself, it will fall back into the awareness that is its base state. And that is when it will rediscover its true nature, of which Gautama Buddha said:
“Wonder of wonders! This very enlightenment is the true nature of all beings, and yet they are unhappy for lack of it!”
The only way we can rediscover out true nature is by letting go. Of everything – even the experience of true nature itself.
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Roger’s book, ‘BEING STILL – MEDITATION THAT MAKES SENSE’ is available now. Just click on the links below:
AUDIOBOOK (including ebook & MP3 exercises) – AUD $25.00
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