Meditation Is All There Is
I recently wrote an article about awakening and one of my readers suggested that I “keep meditating.” I really appreciated the pointer because when I’m truthful about what is actually happening, it becomes even clearer that I seem to be meditating all the time.
More specifically, meditation, regardless of who is doing it, seems to be happening all the time. There is a broad, open, crystal-clear awareness in which everything is appearing. There is no one that is meditating and meditation has always been happening. This is not something that is special about me, and it’s not a particular state of awareness that I’m in. This is what is happening for everyone, all the time.
In fact, it’s even more profound and simple than “meditation is all that’s happening.” Meditation is all there is. In the field of awareness, rather than each thing being perceived by something else, it is actually being itself, whole and complete. Each apparent thing is self-witnessed through its very presence. Everything is a buddha, even, especially, if it doesn’t seem to be recognized.
Last night, I woke from deep sleep and my mind was temporarily overwhelmed by the fullness of reality. In that moment, it was clear that what is truly real is not understandable, yet it is hidden by being understood. The self I sometimes think I am, a jumbled collection of limiting concepts, occludes the non-understandable by apparently understanding it.
The depth of the meditation in truth goes even deeper than each thing witnessing itself through its presence. This “awareness” is only one side of an even more whole coin: awareness is resting in non-awareness and they are the same thing. Presence is resting in non-presence and they are the same thing. Real is resting in non-real and they are the same thing.
Ultimately there is only what appears to be happening, and it is in concentration (samadhi) on itself, sometimes so profound that it believes that it exists, at other times so superficial that it discovers that it does not exist at all.
And sometimes I sit still with my eyes closed.
