Meditation will not make you happy, but it may help you see that happiness is always here and available.

What is it that motivates a person to practice meditation (prayer, or whatever term you choose to use)? Is it a belief that by beginning this practice will lead to some kind of improvement, some kind of happiness which you do not currently actualize?

I would propose that in many cases people meditate because they believe it is good for them in some manner. Because of this, people do not really meditate. You may sit, walk, or consciously choose to do other activities and call it a practice of meditation. But with the underlying presumption that it is good, you do not meditate, you are always somewhere else.

Now, in the practice of meditation it is true that you may experience happiness and peace. So, I am not saying “do not practice meditation.” What I am saying is that we examine and inquire as to what meditation is. “What do you meditate on?” is a common question asked of someone who meditates. However, this question evokes a certain amount of puzzlement from those who truly practice meditation. Meditation does not meditate on anything at all. It is a practice of seeing existence for what it really is beyond all words, ideas, images, and abstract creations of thought. As we commonly say, “talking to one’s self is the first sign of madness.” And so in this sense, a person who is always thinking is always talking to themselves. Thus, they are out of touch with reality.

Meditation seeks to gain nothing nor does it lose anything. It sees that all of life is a relationship and completely connected with itself. The separation of things and identities which we convince ourselves to be real through our thoughts, ideas, and measurements to bring definition to matter, evaporate. We see that there is no past nor is there any future. Both past and future begin now. If you hope to gain happiness in the future through practicing meditation you are living in the delusion that the future is something real. As long as you are practicing meditation with that sort of mindset, you are like a donkey who is being lead by a carrot tied on the end of a stick. The donkey is always hoping to get the carrot but of course, never really does.

The human mind has the tendency to desire a straightening out of the world in which we live. We are always attempting to straighten out the vast wiggles of nature so that it will make some kind of sense to our way of thinking. We desire formulas and methods we can use to gain something to improve us, to make “me” a better person. Certainly, there are many books, products, and teachers on meditation, spirituality, and becoming a better person which have made a fortune capitalizing on this desire many of us have. But who is it that is in need of improvement? And if you identify your-self in terms of thoughts and ideas – who you think you are – you will always be attempting to improve yourself using the very thing you presume needs to be improved. Which is like cleaning a dirty plate with a dirty rag.

As long as you believe yourself to be unhappy you will be unhappy. As long as you believe yourself to be in need of improvement you will need to be improved. As is well said “anyone who thinks they need to see a psychiatrist ought to have their head examined.” Meditation can be greatly beneficial for us as human beings to practice. But when it becomes formulaic, which is to say something we do for some reason, some purpose of betterment, it is undermined by desire and therefore does not see reality for what it is.

Meditation like any method of doing something can provide useful functions for the way in which we live. It can bring us to an actualization of the present and the enjoyment of being alive. But the present is always here. You cannot escape the present.

Meditation will not make you happy, but it may help you see that happiness is always here and available.

What is your motivation to practice meditation?

Can we recognize the content of words apart from the ego who offers them?

The word preaching to me, has a certain connotation. It has an inference that one is giving a message to others they think others ought to believe or adhere to. Certainly, there are definitions of preaching which differ from this connotation that I perceive, but this is the sense to which I am addressing what it means to preach. This connotation to preaching is why I say I do not like preaching.

A criticism of the preacher is often that he does not practice what he preaches (please forgive the sexist “he” as I mean this pronoun in a more inclusive sense). But I feel that we as writers and speakers must give the message of which we believe we have to give, in the same way that a stream of water gives water to the thirsty traveler. I wish not to write with a purpose of giving instruction or or teaching that you ought to receive; rather, that I have thoughts and as the stream quenches the thirst of the hiker, perhaps the words I write may at some time inspire others to a greater understanding of what these words mean, even if it is a meaning that I myself do not yet grasp.

If one does not practice what they preach, is their message invalidated? If their message, although perhaps not lived by the speaker, their words may still inspire others to a greater depth of understanding life. So can we recognize the content of words apart from the ego who offers them?

Who are you beyond who you think you are?

I wonder if you see who I really am. I wonder what it is you are using to define who I am. Are you using your senses, your eyesight? I wonder if you are using your abilities of thought. Are the words I which I use for the purpose of communication creating an image within your mind of who I am? Do you use your memories and experience of interaction with me to determine a definition of how you view me?

Would it be accurate to say, that nearly each one of us forms a point of view, idea, and conception of who another person is, by using our abilities of thinking? Does our ability to think create an accurate perception and awareness of the real identity of a human being we see as an “other”?

Who are you beyond who you think you are?

That is a question I have been contemplating for some time. I use the term “contemplating” because this word, to me, means something a bit different – a bit deeper – than simply thinking about something. Contemplation means to see through thoughts themselves into a reality which lies beneath or perhaps more accurately – beyond the thoughts themselves. It is as though thoughts act as a fog in the mind and contemplation is a Way in which we see through the fog and discover a place of clarity. We see that which is unseen.

Contemplation is coming to a vision of nothing. Not nothing in the sense of being void or empty, but nothing in the sense that in silence and in rest we find peace. What does sound look like from the point of view of silence? What does your body look like from the point of view of all the space which surrounds your body? Perhaps the silence would wish to investigate and inquire as to the nature of these sounds emanating from itself. Perhaps surrounding space which to our eyes appears blank (although when we look with tools that can detect other frequency of light, we see space is not empty at all) would investigate the things we call objects and matter, in the same way that we human beings talk of exploring space.

The question and investigation of “who am I?” is vital to living a healthy and sane life in relationship to the world around us. When we feel separate from others, separate from nature itself, this creates a feeling a strangeness and distrust of life itself. We see life as something to be conquered or as a problem to be solved. And so we’re constantly and perhaps unknowingly looking for problems we might solve through our own efforts and work. We look at the problem of poverty and think something must be done to change this state of circumstance in our world. Perhaps we ourselves feel impoverished. Even the richest person may be driven in life by a belief in the fear of poverty. Perhaps some become rich in order to use their wealth to help the poor. But of course, we do not have the poor without the rich, so these efforts to obtain wealth to help others is limited by the fact that richness exists only in relationship with poverty.

In reality, there is no poverty and there is no wealthy. The earth produces enough resources for all people to live well, but because we see ourselves – who am I? – as separate from one another there are some who hoard wealth while others suffer greatly. When we see our unconditional relationship to all people and all of life, poverty and wealth evaporate and the grand resources of earth are shared so that no person is in lack. I am not talking about politics or forms of law and economics to enforce the sharing of resources. I am saying that sharing and generosity naturally arises within the freedom of truly understanding relationship and connection to life.

When a person asks the question “who am I?” I wonder who is asking this question. We all identify ourselves with this letter-word “I.” It is perhaps the most used letter-word by those who use the English language. But what does “I” mean? What is it referring to? Everyone is “I” in the simple example that this how we each refer to ourselves. Perhaps we think that when we use the letter-word “I” we are referring to something inside of the skin or in the brain. Perhaps we are referring to some sort of spirit that is trapped within our body to finally find escape and liberation upon our death. But does what one might mean by the spirit have thoughts? Who is the thinker? What is beyond thought?