COMMIT TO SIT FOUR HOURS A DAY

There is something to fear about meditation. Meditation is getting to know the ultimate, the source of who you are. In that space, nothing is perfect, nothing is good enough—the drive, the motivation, the encouragement to keep going is supreme, and yet there must be a letting go, a surrendering to what is for perfection to be realized. The sound of one hand clapping, a falling tree in the forest without an ear around to hear it, all surpassed by the shadows that now spring forth. Those places that have been untouched, unseen, forgotten about and hidden and the faces of ourselves, our true selves appear, the masks we’ve worn, the faces of selfishness, greed, niceness and pleasures—all of them have been knock-offs of the real thing. Now seen, now experienced with every sound, every taste, every sensation of the mind and body amplified billions of times over depending how far one goes, how deep one sinks into the void. But the pleasure of it, the desire for it, and the return to it is far greater than any pleasure, any desire, any return—and so we make it, that journey over and over again until our journey is complete, and only until it is complete.

COMMIT TO SIT FOUR HOURS A DAY

You probably already sit four hours a day or more, but you don’t know that you are sitting. So, this month in time for your New Year’s Resolution commit to sit, when you are sitting be aware that you are sitting. Wherever you are sitting: On the toilet, in the car, on a chair in your office, on the sofa in front of the T.V. or on a meditation cushion or bench you can bring awareness to your seat. You may like to say to yourself immediately when you remember your commitment, and become aware that you remember, “Breathing in, I am aware that I am seated. Breathing out, I am aware that I am seated.”

STILLNESS

Ha! And in the times that you are seated on a cushion, a bench, the floor, or a chair for sitting meditation allow yourself the time to rest—no need to worry about whether you are doing it right, just do it, just be there. If you can become still in your body, as still as you can be without becoming rigid, this is a relaxed stillness, then your mind may be able to be still. Stillness does not mean not moving—just the opposite—stillness means movement, it means change, it means impermanence.

MOVEMENT

Sometimes in meditation you may be inclined to move, you may feel a tightness in your body, and your immediate reaction is to want to move that part of your body, to uncross your legs, circle your neck, or undue your gaze—do what you need to do to be comfortable before you settle into the meditation, fix your posture so that you can rest. And in this resting fix your mind on your breath, fix your mind on the phenomena of change—that everything is changing, and there is no need for manipulation of this change. This change happens regardless if we want it to or not.

Those who come to meditation may have come to unburden themselves from the harshness of this world, you may have come because you are suffering with guilt, with shame and are in despair. Or you may have come because you want a greater sense of happiness, a greater sense of freedom, a greater sense of love. So you come to meditation and you think meditation will change you, and it will. That is something to fear. Because the life we have been living is not enough, how can it ever be? The ultimate is such an expanse, and until you are aware of the ultimate in you, and expand your awareness and your capacity to be aware, you may never know the greatness that is you. This is not an intellectual feat, it is not an experience based on craving and desire.

Meditation is a complete annihilation of the world and of the life we know. And the more you become extinct, the greater opportunity you have in it, this world and everything in it becomes a field of merits, which can expound the universe through every breath. What is a movement of a leg or an arm in meditation, compared to the expansiveness of being the ultimate? Sometimes it is only habit energy. Sometimes it is only mind telling you it is bored, it is tired, it is craving a reaction, but stillness knows more.

BREATH

The breath becomes silent, unobstructed by our physical, mental and emotional holdings. The breath becomes a surveyor of the soul, a guide, a vehicle for transformation. Through this silence, this stillness, this becoming aware we graduate into the world of the unknown, and being there one has to continually nourish it, continually return, both in meditation and in daily life. Daily life must bring you to earth, and to step solidly on earth and penetrate with every step into the ultimate one step at a time.

©2008 Brian Kimmel.

A home-based meditation retreat for survivors of abuse and everyone will start Dec. 31 more details and registration available at briankimmel.com, call (702) 461-8422 or e-mail retreats@briankimmel.com.