It's hard to think when you keep thinking your way through your thoughts. In other words, thinking about thinking is not thinking.
Last night I kept dreaming that I was perpetually late for work. In the dream I had left work on my lunch break and decided to go to a drive-through to get food. I couldn't decide what I wanted and when I finally did decide it took an eternity for them to prepare the food. Then something went wrong and they couldn't make it after all. All the while I was fretting over being late getting back to work. I woke up and was disoriented. The idea that I was in my own bed didn't seem quite right, but some distant voice called dimly through the fog reminding me that of course that's where I was.
I fell back asleep and dreamt that I had decided to go home for lunch instead of dealing with the drive-through. Once there I wanted to change clothes and somehow got caught up deciding what to wear, nothing seemed right and I took far too long to make a decision. I finally got in my car but in my haste I backed it into some bushes and hit a tree, banging my car up and getting it stuck in the process. At this point I was almost in a panic about being late coming back to work. I awoke to the dim blue light of my alarm clock and felt my hand at the end of my arm like seeing an airplane up in the sky. Sure, I knew what it was, but it seemed so far away. I brought my hand to my face and slowly clenched and unclenched it, individually worked the digits and turned it back and forth. I laughed at myself then, partly out of half-awake delirium, but mostly out of a sense of the sheer absurdity of the situation.
Even in dreaming I can sometimes get so caught up in the mundane worries about life that I forget myself.
I think this is symptomatic of living in the modern world. As members of this society we are encouraged to have a firm grasp on the practical. We are all expected to go to work, pay the bills, cut the grass, walk the dog, balance our checkbooks. So much of life in America is about maintenance. It seems we are taught to be the custodians of our life instead of the person living it. I'm not suggesting that we should stop paying our bills or let the dog shit in the house, I'm saying instead that we are deceiving ourselves if we think of life as separated into that which is a necessary chore or drudgery and that which is "living our life."
I find myself thinking "Alright, I'll wash my clothes, go grocery shopping, wash the car, and clean the bathroom. Then I can relax and enjoy myself. Then my day will really begin." I put myself on auto-pilot to get through these mundane tasks so I can essentially skip ahead to the good stuff. I spend that time thinking about how fun it will be to play video games and watch cartoons (yes, that's what I do in my free time. I may be 27, but I refuse to be an adult.) Once all this is done, I finally sit down with a cup of coffee to enjoy myself. But can you guess what happens as I sit there and drink my coffee? Many times, instead of enjoying the task at hand, I find myself worrying about tomorrow's drudgery. I try to cling to the seemingly fleeting moments of enjoyment I have because I know that, come tomorrow, I'll have to go to work and pay my bills and balance my checkbook.
It is very difficult for us to experience what is happening to us right now, in this moment. We are constantly thinking about what has already happened to us or thinking ahead about what will happen to us. Then the moment passes and we reflect on it and think "I wish I had really been in that moment instead of thinking about other moments" and on and on. We always wish we were somewhere else and then when we get there we wish the same thing again.
It was in this spirit that I began pursuing meditation. I wanted to learn how to truly be in the moment, to let the reflections of the past and expectations for the future fall away. With a happy heart I sat down and tried to clear my mind. All the thoughts of my day ran through my head and tripped over each other and got in the way. I eventually became frustrated with trying to turn these thoughts off. It would take such a long time just to calm my mind. Once this challenge was overcome and my mind was calm I would try to think of nothing. This proved far more difficult than I thought it would be. How does one think of nothing? Nothing isn't something you can think of, such an idea is nonsense. Perhaps I should try instead to not think of anything, as opposed to thinking of nothing. As I was thinking about this, I realized that I was thinking about thinking about it, then I was thinking about thinking about thinking about it. I felt I had hit a wall and didn't know how to get over it.
Meditation became less enjoyable for me. I would sit down and just frustrate myself by trying to think or not to think. I drove myself crazy with it. Eventually I began putting it off. I would tell myself "I'm not in the right state of mind to meditate, I'll do it tomorrow" or "I'd rather meditate outside once the weather improves." At the time I didn't realize it, but meditation had become just another chore on my list. "Alright, I'll pay my bills, vacuum the carpet, and do my meditation. Then I can relax and enjoy myself. Then my day will really begin." Like most other chores I put on my list, I never got around to doing it. Then I felt guilty for not doing it and even if I did get around to meditating I couldn't enjoy it because it just felt like another tedious thing that I had to do. What I didn't realize then and have only recently begun to realize is that meditation isn't something that you do. In fact it's actually hindered by trying to do anything.
I had always thought meditation was sitting down in a quiet room and calming your mind. While it's true that this is a form of meditation, it is just that - a form. It is not the only way. In Zen Buddhism this is called zazen - sitting meditation. However, there are other types of Zen meditation such as standing meditation, lying meditation, even walking meditation. When I learned about these I was amazed. "You can meditate while walking?" I thought to myself. The concept was completely foreign to me because I thought that meditation took such concentration and focus that it could be easily broken. How could you be walking around and still meditating at the same time? This is possible because meditation is not an activity, it is a state of being.
If you go for a long run, at first your mind is occupied. You think of how long the run will be, or perhaps what you need to do after the run. You think about your legs moving beneath you, you think about the strain on them, you think about the sweat beading up on your body. If you keep running you start to feel your muscles burn and you try to ignore the pain or push it away. Eventually you break through this and get your second wind and delight in the ease of it. Sometimes you even reach a point where you don't really think about anything. You feel your feet pounding rhythmically against the ground, you feel your breath go in and out of your lungs, you feel the sweat run down your body. You are intimately aware of every single detail, but you aren't trying to do anything. You aren't trying to breathe, you aren't trying to run, you're just doing it. That is meditation.
If you want some coffee you may get up and get the coffee maker ready. As you pour in the water and grind the beans you think about the coffee. You think about how the smell of the brewing coffee will fill the house. Once the coffee is finished brewing you pour it and think about how it will taste. You finish the coffee and think about how it tasted and the way it made you feel. Then you wonder if maybe you'd like another cup of coffee and what that one will taste like. All the while you were thinking about drinking the coffee instead of just drinking it. Meditation is about fully experiencing the moment, not thinking about it. Meditation is drinking the coffee.
When you do sitting meditation, the goal is just to sit. When you do standing meditation, the goal is just to stand. These are exercises designed to make you focus on what you are doing while you are doing it. You don't need to join a monastery to learn about meditation. You don't need to fundamentally alter your life in order to meditate properly. All it takes is a full acceptance of the moment you are in, every moment, the continuous moment. It is an unbroken awareness. It is not viewing life through a glass darkly, it is not viewing life through any glass, it is not viewing life at all. It is living. It is being right here, right now. It is not separating yourself from the experience. You are the experience.
The practice of meditation and the spirit of Zen seems to me to be about not grasping things, not trying to hold onto them with your mind, but just letting them flow through you. Be here now, in this moment, and fully experience every single thing as it happens. When you do this you will find that even the most mundane thing is full of the light of the divine. Even something as simple as drinking a cup of coffee becomes a sublime pleasure beyond the capacity for expression.
Drink the coffee.
