Meditation is Life

Meditation is life in its essence. Modern daily life is often described as a rat-race. Modernity unchecked can envelope our soul, consume our hearts, and spit out piles of rubbish: the tread-mill of hot-wired hearts in tension until suddenly our heart conks out or our brains blood vessels explode.

Modern psychology has transcended the idea of unconsciousness. There are indeed unconscious thoughts it takes hold. However to extend this description to the concept of unconsciousness itself being an entity is an erroneous transgression along the slippery slope of ill-informed sects, cults, and weirdos. Man is conscious: the defining characteristic that impales man on the cross of righteous domination of all that lies belittled below. This I have always found amusing, when we spend so much time asleep, and probably about the same time day-dreaming.

It is true that modern humanity functions at more than a sluggish level of consciousness. However it is not the quantity but rather the quality of this consciousness that it is strangely incumbent upon me to so clatter out on this electronic type-writer. Strange indeed you may or may not wonder – the explanation is that I am weary, yet all day an incessant nagging prods me to crunch these numbers. I shall do this and thus attain relief and sleep. Perhaps it is a looming volcanic vitriolic vestibule.

Notice what it is like when you are in a state of extreme stress. You may be achieving much in the limited slot of time. However what is this state of mania actually like? What is its quality? In this state it is essentially skimming across the surface of life. There is no depth to your experience; neither is there any understanding.

The ancient Buddhas speak of meditation as a tool for calm, and then insight. A consciousness that is tense is like a mirror; ever so prone to shattering is its brittle nature. There is no possibility of penetration, of depth. Techniques of concentration create a state of increased calm. In this state the experiencer tastes each experience in an increased fullness or depth. The calm awareness of a meditator leads to the quality of experiencing known as insight. A person who sees deeply through experiences knows the subtle nuances of life that are seemingly mysterious or unknown to the manic wave surfer.

There are always two sides to a two-sided coin. It happens to be that some people trudge through life like a dull sponge. In the list of sticky mucky smelly citizens are none other than those holy heroes of the great religious dogmas. The dogged dogmatic dodos are drowning in their own dull delusions. They save the immoral and condemn the amoral. They repeat well the scriptures that are ingrained on the mental rail-road of their predecessors and fore-fathers. There is nothing new or vibrant or insightful in their holy chants, nor in their dull eyes. Their conscious experience is like jumping on a trampoline made from a mat of boiled lettuce leaves, with jelly-fish for springs.

Yes the other side of the coin is a feasty gluttony of calm, with a malnourished consciousness. There can be nothing to challenge one’s spirit into aliveness if the path taken be the holiest of holy; except of course the ‘inconsequential’ transgressions of for example a boiling sexual repression.

Life is a quandary, not a quagmire nor a quip. With neither foggy eyes nor those wired by the drug of neediness, those who experience the richness of each moment, the fullness of each breath, are the few that are both sane and human. This is life, this is living, and this is meditation.

Concentration leads to calm, and calm leads to increased awareness and insight. How can a person return to an object of concentration if this person is not aware of a distraction?