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Below Ken Wilber gives a good introduction as to
what beginning meditation is like.
Personally, I still find it difficult to go beyond this stage.
When you
practice meditation, one of the first things you realize is that your mind—and
your life, for that matter—is dominated by largely subconscious verbal chatter.
You are always talking to yourself. And so, as they start to meditate, many
people are stunned by how much junk starts running through their awareness.
They find that thoughts, images, fantasies, notions, ideas, concepts virtually
dominate their awareness. They realize that these notions have had a much more
profound influence on their lives than they ever thought.
In any case, initial meditation experiences are
like being at the movies. You sit and watch all these fantasies and concepts
parade by, in front of your awareness. But the whole point is that you are
finally becoming aware of them. You are looking at them impartially and without
judgment. You just watch them go by, the same as you watch clouds float by in
the sky. They come, they go. No praise, no condemnation, no judgment—just “bare
witnessing”. If you judge your thoughts, if you get caught up in them, then you
can’t transcend them. You can’t find higher or subtler dimensions of your own
being. So you sit in meditation, and you simply “witness” what is going on in
your mind. You let the monkey mind do what it wants, and you simply watch.
1 comment:
Me too. This is where I am at. Jon Kabat Zinn says, "See if you can just drop in on the sensations of breathing without fiddling with it at all."
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