I’ve been meditating on and off for quite some time now. Setting aside dedicated time to deliberately slow my body and mind. To calm myself, to find myself, and to search for… something.
My first introduction to structured mediation was with a Zen Buddhist group in Bristol, around 1993. We’d meditate together in a plain room above a shop on the Gloucester Road, dressed in black tunics and getting a slap on the back with bamboo sticks on request, to get the tension out of our shoulders. It was my first connection with silent, unguided meditation and I’ve been grateful for the experience and ability to do it ever since.
Since then, I’ve enjoyed intense bursts of practice, then gone for months and sometimes years without meditating, before coming back to it, drifting away again etc etc. It’s only really over the last six years that I’ve developed what I can call a sustained, regular practice.
In response to a growing interest in the nature of reality, and some pretty intense mental health challenges, with a helpful nudge during repeated lockdowns, I now have a two or three times a week meditation habit. I started with manageable fifteen minute sessions, which slowly increased to half an hour (my preference for everyday do-ableness) and now includes fairly regular longer sessions. In a tiny stone cottage on a Welsh hillside mid last year, I did my first full day meditation.
I know there are many styles and everyone has a preference, but for me it’s Vipassana (or at least my simplified interpretation of it) that really unlocked things for me. Focusing just on the in and out breath, noticing distractions with a calm forgiveness, using a three minute chime to bring my focus back in little mini restarts.
I’m not a purist and have never been on a vipassana retreat, so my technique is loose. Whilst I often aspire to empty my mind and reduce my thoughts to zero, I’m also happy to use my trusty mantra, or let my consciousness drift off into space, go searching for other entities, or swim with the fishes, if that’s where we’re going.
I say I’m not a purist, but I do love the simplicity of a person sitting alone in silence, unaided, in a state of quiet calm as the world busies itself all around them. It’s a little romantic I guess, maybe naively heroic, but that’s just me I guess and as a result I’ve tended to steer away from apps and guided meditation. I have no judgement on other people using them, it’s just never been for me.
At least it wasn’t until I came across Robert Monroe and the Gateway series. These sessions and techniques fascinate me, and although I’m suspicious of becoming reliant on them, my mediations with them have been powerful and brought something extra to my unguided practice. If you’re new to meditation or new to Robert Monroe, I’d encourage you to explore both paths with an open mind.
Anyway, since I subtitled this post ‘things I’ve learned from meditation’, I should probably spill the beans and share them with you. I don’t think there’s an order here. I thought about alphabetising, but stopped myself before falling down that rabbit hole! I also thought about adding a couple of extras to get to a nice even ten, but actually eight (8) seems symbolically perfect.
Using a mantra makes it less of a fight
Unless you have a strong reason not to, using a mantra just makes easing into a mediation so much, well easier. Repeating your mantra in your head is the simplest way to quiet your mind, and a particular phrase can help focus your intent or steer your mood. I have one I’ve used for years that just fits me, but I’ve found that even a gentle ‘shhhhh’ works really well.Don’t get cross with your thoughts
If your mind’s busy listing what you need from the supermarket, or re-running a conversation that you did or didn’t have earlier, that’s okay. It’s just doing what you normally want it to do and seems to need an infinite number of clues to stop. Just give it a hug, say “thanks, but maybe tell me again later”.The more you chase enlightenment the more you push it away
I’ve spent lots of sessions looking for an epiphany, desperately wanting an answer to a question I can’t quite form, wanting to find a truth no one else has found, wanting to know that I’m special, to own and to conquer the unknown. Recently though, I’ve found that, like running through the forest to catch the birds, the chasing always leaves you empty handed. When you stop running and sit with quiet patience, the birds are soon flying all around you. Which I guess leads to…The truth, if there is one, is in everything
Sitting down to begin, the pain in your knees, birdsong, the sound of traffic, each breath, going somewhere, coming back, finishing and never understanding.Our eyes hide reality from us
It takes a little time, but now when I close my eyes and meditate, whereas I begin somewhere very small - behind my eyelids, inside my head - before long I’m somewhere much, much bigger. I don’t think I can describe it, it’s a cacophony of senses, but I always know when I’m there. As time goes by, I find it harder to know which place is more real, or which reality exists within which, but I’m okay with that.The paradox that nothing is everything
This awareness has sent my mind into somersaults on many occasions, but it’s always accompanied by an overwhelming sense of pleasure and joy.There’s no wrong time, wrong place or minimum time to meditate
10 seconds on the bus, an hour in the woods, 15 minutes of blissful calm or 15 minutes of frustration and distraction. It’s all good. It all goes into the pot.You’re probably not real
By which I mean it’s possible, although I don’t think I can prove it, that the only thing that really exists is me. I don’t mean to offend you, you are after all lovely enough to be reading this, and I wish I could say that it might be the other way around, but that’s even harder to prove and less likely. It’s not something I try to focus on, it does freak me out a little, but it’s a fact that the more I meditate the more I understand that you’re probably not real.
Helpful links
Hemi-Sync manages and sells a lot of the archive meditation sessions from Robert Monroe
The Monroe Institute was founded by Robert Monroe and has research, groups and guided meditations
The Vipasanna Meditation organisation with history, guides and links to groups and courses worldwide
Images
Marko Kafé, ‘Women in Zazen’, 2017
Marc Chagall, ‘Paysage Bleu’, 1949
We visited the Monroe Institute nearly 10 years ago and it was fascinating! Thanks for the tip on their meditation offerings.
Your "findings" are very encouraging and astute. They match what I've learned but have not as of yet experienced fully.
And yes, I agree. "I" am only as real to you as you make me, and it is the same for all of us. We create ALL of our reality, each of us, through our perception. And somehow all do it together at the same "time" and somehow interconnect on this plane of existence.
All of physical reality is imagery for processes that happen subjectively. THAT is our "true" existence -- energetic beings having a physical experience.
If you are interested in the nuts and bolts, I highly recommend this particular energy exchange with an entity called Elias. It is the most undistorted deep dive I have come across, and it is still occurring presently, going on nearly 30 years. There are audios and transcripts here dating back to 1995, and the information was as clear and undistorted at the beginning as it continues to be now. NOT just another guru or channeler. They are in fact, neither of those things. https://www.eliasweb.org.
I am currently involved in deep-dive trauma work with Elias, and I can say without hyperbole that it is critical work that is preparing me for what's next.
Cheers Daniel!