Just be - don't be the method

So here you are. You got to this place and this moment from somewhere. And you have an idea of where you want to go.

 

If you are studying the content of Unpack Your Mind and that of other teachers, you are probably in the midst of a personal change process. From this to there. From unhappy to happy. From neurotic to stable. 

 

You are using a method, or maybe multiple at a time. Meditation comes to mind, and reading, joining an Ashram, and listening to podcasts.

 

All these methods can help. They also trap you. For a while, you will focus on reading, listening, or practicing. Then you start realizing that you have reached a point where either the method does not deliver, or you realize you have reached a point where the method has changed you.

 

Either way, you will have to release the method. 

 

But was the original goal of choosing a method? The purpose of 'Unpack your mind' as a method is to unburden your mind. To see and feel what is below or behind the thinking. To transcend it.

 

 

Terms you find dispersed in spiritual teachings. The art of just being. There are parallels with activities like sports and reading.

 

When you read a book, you enjoy the content. You are not thinking all the time 'I am reading'.

When you drive a car, which is a complex task in a complex machine, you are not constantly telling yourself or thinking 'I am driving'.

When you run, you are observing the things around you, maybe checking your progress and you probably find time to contemplate things that are ongoing in your life. But you are not telling yourself constantly 'I am running'.

 

Any spiritual practice, including meditation, should be practiced in a similar fashion.

 

This is hard, though. Because no matter what meditation you do, all of a sudden it seems like you have to 'stop' thinking. But telling your mind to do so achieves exactly the opposite.

 

And contrary to reading, driving and running, where your mind is somehow engaged and diverted to the actual activity, in meditation you are confronted with the mind and the impossibility to stop it from running by itself.

 

So let it run. And observe it. The more you catch your thoughts and say 'ah, a thought', and then feel a nano-second of no thought, the more you accept the fact that you can be without a thought.

 

It starts with these nano-seconds between thoughts. It is like you all of a sudden see the spaces between the words in this sentence.

It is like music that takes on meaning because of the gaps and intervals between notes and sounds.

 

Miles Davis played less and less during his improvisations towards the end of his life.

 

"It's not the notes you play, it is the notes you don't play."

 

A philosophy we find in Japanese Shakuhachi music, where the pauses, silences and lingering resonance are as important as the notes.

 

You learn not to play, like in any spiritual meditation, you learn not to think. 

 

To just be, and not be the method.

 

Take this into a meditation or contemplation today.