Constant meditation
20/05/2023 - because one can meditate on anything
For many years, I dismissed meditation, mostly because the majority of my attempts resulted in what I would classify as a failure at the time. I would sit or lie down, close my eyes, and attempt to focus on my breath. My mind would wander and I would feel guilty about it, even though that was absolutely not the point. I would be able to focus and sometimes feel slightly calmer but I always needed to stop whatever I was doing to be able to focus and introspect…
Almost a year after the emptiness realization, I look back at how naive and ignorant I was (and well, I still am, but perhaps a bit less). This wisdom has been passed down countless generations, without a fight, without strife, without the need to impose a belief on others. After all, belief is not compatible with emptiness from the ultimate standpoint. In fact, nothing can be claimed to exist. Things are dependently arising and there is extreme beauty in this fact. This means that all things depend on one another and this relationship of contingency cannot be unseen once it has been understood. Suddenly, I can meditate with my eyes open, at any point, about anything. One simply has to inquire about the nature of anything and meditate on the contingency and emptiness of it. What does this mean?
We are quick to ascribe an essence to everything that we perceive, but upon closer inspection, we do find that nothing can be claimed to be so. When we say things are empty it may seem easier to think that this is a characteristic that things have, but rather, it is the absence of a property (inherent existence) that we assume to be a property of all things in the world. And when I say all things, I mean this literally. There is no concept, thought, or idea that was ever created by mankind that escapes this fact. Just like the fish lives in water without knowing it, we live in our thoughts and concepts. But let’s return to meditation, what does it mean to meditate on emptiness? An example will put it best:
I am writing this as I wait for my flight back to London. Let’s meditate on the airport. First of all, where is it? Sure, I know I am in what we all conventionally agree is an airport, in a specific location in Luxembourg but let’s try to find “it”. Is the airport in the people? Is it in the planes? Is it in the airlines? Is it in the duty-free shop? Is it in the check-in queues or the runway? Could these exist without one another? I am not asking anyone to believe in anything, I simply ask questions in the hope that you can inquire into them with me. This structure that I am in, has required countless materials, people, work, time, etc to build. Things that may have come from across the world through long journeys and countless hands, all of them creating a set of characteristics that we can now identify as an airport. And we can inquire deeper into any of those. Take the people that built this place, countless infinite universes of ineffable feelings and thoughts that had to come together to create this thing that I can now “use” for my convenience. People with all sorts of backgrounds, goals, families, problems… An impossibly vast number of variables that one cannot even hold in the mind. All of it depends on everything else, and it depends on me, and those around me… This can go on ad infinitum.
If you follow this, you might notice how the mind is suddenly quiet. Clarity and peace arise immediately from this exercise, even if for just a split second. Thinking about all of the things that are around what we simply call “an airport” makes it obvious that we are making a mistake in labeling it as such. It is much more than what we initially assumed. Let’s go back to finding this airport. Is it in any of these things? Or is it a gross, yet useful approximation that our mind does to understand the world around us? There is no right or wrong, only a convention that allows us to communicate.
Nevertheless, it is a misconception about the true nature of the world. The real, what is really there, is seen as we pay attention. Everything is unique, ever-changing, and constantly mutating. This applies to everything: thoughts, feelings, objects, fears… The whole conceptual world is at stake. There is harmony in emptiness and dependent arising. We need to understand dependent arising to understand emptiness and emptiness to delve deeper into dependent arising. The teachings of the Buddha still last to this day, but there is no such thing as “the Buddha” from the ultimate standpoint. This is the beauty of all this. Everything is new, and only the present is actual reality, moving in a continuum.
So look around, observe nature, people, and your own thoughts, and see what you will find. When you mislabel a feeling such as “anxiety” ask yourself? What am I doing here? What is anxiety? Where is it? Who is feeling it? Can you claim that there is an “I” that feels it? If so, where is this “I”?
Meditate, and be present and you’ll find that life becomes that much easier to handle.
Thanks for reading!
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Thank you. The term you used, "dependent arising", is such a good way to explain emptiness.