Don’t Try To Clear Your Mind To Meditate
Your Own Efforts Are Coming In Your Way
We are in a constant rut to reach somewhere, or to become something other than what we are. We are trying to change what we are or what we have. As a result, most of us are trying and trying and trying.
When people get into meditation, they do it with an intention to change themselves. But meditation is being in the present, without trying to change it. Since life is a paradox, the moment you stop trying to change, you do get transformed or changed.
Trying to meditate is an oxymoron.
Being in the present doesn’t need you to try anything. You just need to be. But more often than not, people are trying to mediate, they are trying to clear their mind in order to meditate. It does not work.
You might think that you have to reach to a state of nothingness. But you don’t reach there by trying to reach there. It takes time and thinking about that “perfect state of nothingness” hinders you from being in the present or being able to meditate.
The idea is to become comfortable with your thoughts. Do not consider them an enemy of your meditation practice. It is natural to have thoughts cropping up every now and then when you meditate. Every time you find yourself being swayed away from your breath by your thoughts, you consider it a failing of sorts. On the contrary, it is an opportunity to go back to your breath.
In meditation, being able to notice that you got carried away by a thought and then being able to go back to your breath is a success. Don’t treat it as a failure.
You succeeded in observing that you got lost and now you need to get back to your breath. Approach meditation with an acceptance and loving attitude towards yourself. Don’t try too hard. Learn to be comfortable with observing your thought. It is what meditation is.
Don’t try to switch off your mind by clearing your thoughts. It is a struggle, a violence to do so. Your thoughts will retaliate if your intention is to “have less and less thoughts as you meditate”
When you try to meditate, don’t force yourself to go to a blank slate. It becomes a struggle, that is the opposite of meditation.
Meditation is not about shutting your mind down. It is about waking it up in awareness. You need to realise you are not your thoughts. You are much more than that. You are your awareness. With meditation, you expand this awareness. Thoughts, feelings and emotions are going to be there. Your mind is not going to shut out your emotions just like that. However, you can navigate your awareness through those thoughts with meditation.
When you are able to move your awareness through your thoughts, without holding on to them or pushing them away, that is meditation.
Let me use a metaphor here. Your mind is like ocean and your thoughts, feelings and emotions are waves. The waves keep coming and going but the ocean doesn’t get bothered by them. The waves are the natural expression of the ocean. They are not different from the ocean and hence, the ocean has no problem with them. The ocean is one with the waves. Hence, it can’t have a problem with them.
Similarly, we need not to have any problem with our emotions. It is the natural expression of your mind. They are just like waves coming and going in the ocean that is your mind. Just like ocean is one with waves, you can become one with your thoughts and emotions. This way, they transform. How do you become one with your thoughts and emotions? Neither by grabbing them nor by pushing them but looking at them or observing them with compassion. It is because when you look at someone with compassion, you feel them or you become one with them. Earlier, there were two things- “your difficult emotions” and “you” being tormented by them. Now, if you look at “your difficult emotions” through unconditional love and compassion, and be one with them, how can they bother you? They are you and you are them. This oneness with such emotions will transform them into love and peace. Hence, instead of trying to destroy your difficult emotions, you transcend them.
