I know it’s been a long time since I posted here. I even considered closing my website. I want to catch you up on what’s happening with me and my practice. Around the end of August/beginning of September, I realized my practice was becoming stale, repetitive, and tiring, even exhausting. My teacher proposed I stop meditating for a couple of months, which initially shocked me, but that feeling was followed by immense relief. That kind of relief signaled this was a good decision.
A couple of weeks later, I was sitting on my back patio enjoying a beautiful day. With little effort, my senses became alert to sounds: birds, wind, leaves rustling, chipmunks racing across the patio, then the smell of the air and the earth. I heard a high-pitched ringing in my ears. Colors were vibrant. Light and shadow shifted with the wind. Even the changing colors of the leaves as they moved in the wind had my attention. Some leaves seemed to shudder, others trembled as the wind blew. Shiver and tremble seem the same, but it didn’t feel that way at the time. It’s hard to explain. It was as if I was seeing it for the first time. I had thoughts, but they didn’t hang around. I was acutely aware of body sensations. I got so quiet that a chipmunk stopped at my feet. I moved from a soft focus to seeing and back again with little effort. I don’t know how long it lasted. When I ‘woke up’, I thought of it as a meditative state but not meditation.
What was the difference? I spoke with my teacher, who reminded me that after I made the intention to meditate, everything that followed counted. But I didn’t make an intention to meditate. After a week or so of reflection, I realized I needed to open up my definition of meditation. These states, whatever I called them, whatever my intentions, were significant.
So, I continued to sit like this. Well, not actually ‘sitting’. Sometimes I was standing outside, or walking in the woods or just looking out my living room window. Sometimes I ‘sat’, but usually with my eyes open. Sometimes, my eyes would close naturally.
I’ve been exploring this way to meditate, noticing when I feel a striving for that first experience or trying too hard to ‘meditate’ or ‘do’ anything. I just sit and really see what’s out there. My strongest senses are my sight and hearing, so I keep my eyes open, at least at first. I was worried that when the outside world wasn’t beautiful to me, like the grey, overcast days in winter, could I continue to meditate this way? So far, so good. My senses are still pretty alert. Not all the time, but enough that I find this a curious experience, much to explore and learn.
On reflection, what I’m doing is still so new that I don’t want to analyze it too much, label it, or define it. I just want to see where it takes me. Sometimes, I could feel a pull to meditate in a pre-defined way, but I’ve been able to resist. This new process feels too fragile and needs a light touch now.
So, this is what’s been happening. If you want, you can explore in this way or in any other way that makes sense to you. I’d love to hear what you experience. Please respond in the comment section. Thank you.
Sounds like you’re fully present with what’s happening, with awareness. Not striving, just being, simply experiencing. That sounds like meditation to me.
Attached is the Sabba Sutta, which is short & sweet & asserts that all that is comes through the sense doors. Thats all there is “the all”.
If you can’t open the pdf, just google Sabba Sutta.
https://suttacentral.net/sn35.23/en/bodhi?lang=en&reference=none&highlight=false