I remember vividly sitting in a teaching tent in India with my then teacher for the introduction talk to a 2 week retreat. He began to speak about the role of meditation and said we “had to let everything be as it is” Those words burst through my mind and I immediately recognised that these words were literally the keys to the kingdom. The simplicity is disarming – “doing by not doing” – but as a practice my understanding has deepened over the years – it is not just a passive resting and switching off – it is a very active non-doing of being hyper aware of everything arising without being caught up in it and if you do get caught up in it one just lets everything be as it is and it all falls away again. There have been moments when the whole world of thought just falls away and there is this beautiful peace and illumination and a deep sense of coming home where everything is fresh and brand new. There have been moments when the whole world of thought reveals itself as a machine, when I can see how much I use thought to validate all aspects of my existence – these insights can be very liberating when there is a deep emotional recognition of the truth being revealed. This is the place to realise there is nothing to fear from any aspect of our self that reveals itself, even our deepest darkest secrets that we hide from ourselves. I guess it is a practice that falls between meditation and contemplation but it is rooted in stopping doing anything and being prepared to rest fully awake and aware in what ‘just is’ right now.
Peter M.
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