Why and how to meditate?

The benefits of meditation are being talked about more and more, including in medical circles. So much that books on the subject are proliferating. But how do you make sense of all the techniques, explanations and persuasions?

Expectations & the “final” destination.

I started practising meditation when I was about 18, and I’ve just passed the 70 mark, so I’m beginning to have a bit of an experience, and for some time now I’ve been toying with the idea of sharing the thoughts that this part of my meditative life has inspired.

At the beginning of my practice, I had expectations, hence the quest for THE FINAL MEDITATION. I spent years looking for the one that would allow me to enter this other world that I imagined to be free of all worries. It’s the classic archetype of the other side of the mirror. I imagined the bell at the top of the mast, the tinkling of which could make all illusions fall away, like a banana whose skin would open naturally.

Is there something beyond illusions?

In the world of spirituality, there are many self-proclaimed masters who let their disciples fantasise about this idea of a « beyond of illusions ». So what could be on the other side of the veil? Behind the screen of maya? Signing up for this journey towards enlightenment often involves a toll… Accessing enlightenment often costs more than having an electrician change your lead panel or rewire your electrical circuit. I’ve since realised that, when it comes to enlightenment, it’s better to have a good craftsman than a bad guru.

Breathing through one nostril, numbing yourself with mantras, jumping in the air like a puppet, capturing the energy of stones or trees, hugging yourself, visiting sacred places, trying to follow a shaman in folk costume on a survival course, swallowing undrinkable or inedible things, trying bio-energy therapies, visiting Machu Picchu or going on a retreat to Taos in New Mexico… you could spend your life for nothing. That’s the risk you run if you have even the slightest hint of expectation left somewhere…

Zen is not even zen.

It was thanks to Zen that I began to realise that, in the end, even a full dumpster is potentially a sacred place… With a simple swipe of the sponge, I saw the scenery that I had taken for ‘reality’ disappear, along with all the expectations of discovering somewhere a ‘reverse’ to this Magritte-style landscape. That day, I felt that achieving this simple realisation had taken up 30 years of my life, and that during that time, I’d only been living under my potential without noticing it.

I’ll keep it short. Let’s skip the details. From the Zen experience onwards, things become very simple. It becomes easier to understand the basics of Japan’s pared-down aesthetic. In order to fill a container, it has to be empty. In fact, you don’t ‘understand’ it, you have to experience the power of emptiness directly…

All these ideas, beliefs, words, readings and certainties about life that cause people to oppose, argue and wage war against each other have nurtured and fed an overflow of misconceptions. As a result, our brains look like a garbage dump.

Blessed are the poors in spirit.

The day we succeed in really emptying ourselves, in letting go of everything, in dying to ourselves, we understand that the parables of the prophets are no longer images or symbols to be interpreted. Avatars all repeated the same thing in different forms. It is only our human interpretation that has caused us to lose the true meaning of the Message, which was in fact very simple since the beginning.

Much has been said about the meaning of the sentence “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”… as if the words said something other than what they meant.

Isn’t a “poor in spirit” simply someone who has no preconceived ideas, no prejudices, no interpretations, and no illusions?

Life is a Zen “Koan”.

Isn’t this simple phrase the most radical meditation tool we can find to clear away all our mental clutter? There’s even no need to read the whole Bible. All you have to do is pick out a phrase that strikes you and keep it in mind on a daily basis until it explodes all your beliefs. In Zen, we call this a Koan… In other words, a sentence that is inaccessible to logic.

We could even say “to our logic”, because there isn’t just one logic. The one that runs our daily lives is just the result of a consensus, like the idea that the earth was flat and at the centre of the world.

Look, we’ve all heard it said that we only use 10% of our brain’s capacity and most of us accept this unverifiable ‘evidence’, telling ourselves that in the future we can imagine gaining ground on our neurological circuits… What if the reality was quite simply that we only use the superficial circuits of understanding that successive generations have passed on to us but that the rest stays nevertheless active and available 24 hours a day, instantly, if we decide to?

Isn’t the key to this shift the emptiness of our mind, the ‘poverty of spirit’ that can also be translated as a total ‘letting go’, the famous ‘Hang loose’ of the Hawaiian surfers?

Letting go even the meditative mind.

Isn’t that what true meditation should be all about? Letting go, floating free of all certainties, words, ideas and conventions. Our old friend Socrates used the best meditation recipe when he said “All I know is that I know nothing”… Wasn’t he talking about the emptiness of the mind? Wasn’t he saying “I” in the same way that Jesus said “I” when he affirmed: “I am the Door”… And if the door were not empty, who could enter the room?

To truly meditate is to let go of everything, ideas, language, beliefs, idols, Jesus, Mohammed, your guru and even God, to abandon your family, your children, your pets, to realise that only NOTHING can reveal the WHOLE. This is the meaning of the sentence : “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you”. And please, don’t get hung up on the word “justice”, it doesn’t deserve our attention, just let it slide.

Agreeing to loose everything is like going through an airport security check. You give your belongings on a tray and pick them up on the other side… It’s just to check that there’s nothing dangerous in your luggage. Meditation is the same. You leave everything on a tray. Don’t worry, no one will steal your dear children or your favourite animals, on the contrary…

An endless meditation.

The last important point with which I’d like to end this little overview concerns the duration of meditations. Here too, there is a certain amount of confusion that makes the meditative act loose almost all its effectiveness… The prevailing idea is that, unlike jokes, which should be kept short, the effectiveness of a meditation is proportional to its length. Intensive courses, retreats and meditation marathons are like washing machines. At the end of the laundry cycle, the clothes may come out clean, but after a few days back in ‘reality’ you’re again in the laundry basket.

In fact, meditation is not a destination. It’s precisely the opposite. The important thing about it is to stay where you are. At the end of your efforts, you don’t have to identify with the Universe or God, you simply have to realize that you are what you are looking for. This is a direct response to the famous injunction written on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi : “Know thyself”.

But here again… we must beware of the irresistible trap of ideas and language. Like this article, the instructions about meditation are merely the act by which the finger points to the moon. It is essential to take your eyes off the finger and look into the void, because only there can you perceive the invisible and hear the wordless message of silence.