Meditation is pivotal in my work as a ghostwriter and speaker by enhancing awareness and intuition.
As part of my outdoor meditation ritual in the small wooded area of my local park, I connect with a tree at the start and end of every session. You can think of this as my version of ‘tree hugging’, but I don’t throw my arms around the tree. It’s more a case of placing both hands (or one if necessary) onto the bark of the trunk and allowing myself to soften.
Softening the Body
I picked up the term ‘softening’ from my first Tai Chi teacher. It means to let go of all unnecessary tension. Most of us don’t think of ourselves as tense, but stiffness is everywhere, not just in the shoulders. As a martial arts instructor, I see it all the time. For example, when students allow me to reposition their arms, I often have to fight against their tension.
So, the first step to softening is letting go of tension. Pay attention to the words ‘letting go’. We are ceasing a harmful activity – being unnecessarily tense – rather than doing something. The process doesn’t stop there.
Softening the Senses
They say people see what they want to hear and see what they want to see. We consider the world around us through a filter of expectations and desires. Therefore, we experience more of a projection than a raw perception. To soften the senses is to let go of expectations and desires and experience life as it is. We cease the activity of comparing and contrasting.
Applying a filter to our perception is such a deeply ingrained habit even for the most seasoned meditators, it can be hard to let it go. The mind is cunning, so when you let go of one filter – one set of beliefs, desires and expectations – another spontaneously replaces it.
What’s left?
A simple and effective way to experience things more rawly is to apply a process I call ‘what’s left?’. Let’s start with listening. The mind naturally wants to home in sounds it likes or finds interesting in other ways. Once we focus on a sound, we can dismiss it and ask what’s left – what other sounds can we hear?
Why not ask what other sounds there are rather than ‘what’s left?’, you may wonder. What’s left is a more powerful question because once we have identified everything that can be heard – right down to the sound of our breathing – we are left with pure gold: the sound of silence, a glimpse of our essence as pure awareness.
We can do the same with the sensations of touch, taste, smell, and sight. Even if we close our eyes, the mind will throw up images. What is left when those images are dismissed? It is difficult not to focus on anything. The mind’s natural inclination is to single out an object for scrutiny. One way around this is to focus on something far away. Even if we are in a room without windows, we can try to imagine a point on the horizon and let everything else go out of focus.
What’s Left Without Thought
All too often, we are consumed by thoughts and feelings and forget that these are sensations too. They are no more than mental phenomena. We don’t have to become anger, fear, or anxiety. We don’t have to become the main characters in the mental dramas conjured by our minds. They are no more than thought experiments and carry no more weight than a movie on television.
Of all the sensations, this is the hardest to see beyond. Those who are new to meditation, and even some experienced meditators, struggle with the idea of ’emptying’ their minds or ‘not thinking’, but this is based on a misconception. No one can stop the world from turning. The internal world is no different. Whether thoughts arise or not is not the point. We are not trying to control the outside or inner worlds. We want to be still regardless of mental chatter or chaos in our environment.
Stillness is a state.
Finding Connection
The ‘what’s left’ exercise will return us to a pure awareness state, of stillness, from which we can experience life – and ourselves – as they are. This is an en-lightened state because we have put down the burden of expectations, hopes, dreams, beliefs, and desires. We are lighter. We are softer. We discover what is left without ego, our true selves.
Ego is the barrier to connection. Ego tells us we are separate. Ego creates an ‘I’, and that gives rise to ‘you’, ‘him’, ‘her’, ‘this’, ‘that’, etc. How can we connect to the universe if we cling to the false self, the ego?
What’s left is the true self without the trappings of ego. What’s left is no self at all. It is an awareness. It unites.
When I touch the tree and soften, I become the tree; I become the soil, the roots, the wildlife and every tree in the forest. There is no tree. There is no Martin; only life.
Vaya Con Dios
When we let go of thoughts, emotions, sensations, and ultimately our ego states, we are left with the truth – God, the Universe, Oneness, Universal Consciousness; pick the term you are most comfortable with.
The term ‘vaya con dios’ came to mind as I was communing with the tree today. It struck me that God is always with me. To go with God means not to lose sight of that when I leave the forest.
The purpose of meditation is to let go of ego and come home to the true self, which is the no-self state. Relapse is inevitable. We need egos to effectively interact with our world, but our egos aren’t the cause of our problems. Becoming immersed in the ego state and believing that is who we are is the issue. That’s when ego runs amok and wreaks havoc; when we are not mindful.
Keep one eye on the truth.
Go with God.
Vaya con dios!
This article explains one way of understanding meditation. If you enjoyed it and believe I could be the right person to help you with your book project, or you would like to know more about my work as a speaker, please get in touch.