The Ideal Meditative State

As I discuss in Chapters 5 and 6, to listen is the most fundamental spiritual act. This is different than merely hearing. It is an active process, where you willfully direct your attention toward discovering what is. This idea can be extrapolated to include ideas like looking (as opposed to seeing), touching (as opposed to feeling), and so on. It is an active process of discovery.

That being said, the ideal meditative state should reflect this goal of listening. Most books on the subject that I have read recommend focusing on some kind of object. This can be the breath, a candle flame, an ambient noise, or any number of other objects. In fact, my own book discusses using such objects for meditative attention. However, you can go further.

Objects of any kind will generally direct the mind, karmically, toward the generation of distracting ideas. If you focus on a flame, for example, the idea of "flame" will invariably overlap what your raw attention is taking in from the present experience, splitting your attention between the intimate (idea) and extimate (the flame) experiences. So, to keep the attention intact, and intensify the meditative state, I suggest focusing the attention not on a thing, but on the answer to a question: What is?

Instead of identifying a thing in your environment, and focusing on THAT, the idea is to focus on whatever you are experiencing right now. There is less need for control (such as trying to keep the mind totally fixed on one thought or object) making it easier to just allow what is to be what is. It's an absolutely passive state, listening to one's own experiences in real time and just allowing them to be. In fact, there is no allowing, even, as that is a response to the stream of experience. You just simply take in your experiences, without reaction, as they are, as they pass through your awareness.

I have had great success in my meditation from taking this approach. To know what truly is, you have to take the time to look. We don't do that, naturally, as we are all programmed to understand our environment in terms of ideas, and how they relate to each other. Meditating in the way I described will help to distance you from that habit, opening you up to new ways of looking at reality.

Jim