The Abandoned Meditator

Does Meditation Need Me?

 Is your day ever like this?

I wake up. Lie in bed a bit. Sense, Look and Listen.
I get out of bed, go to the bathroom, brush teeth, put some water on hair and comb, splash some water on face…
Now it’s time to meditate. I go to the meditation chair and get situated. I do an Om salutation and I meditate.
My meditation practice ends. I rise from the chair, leave the bedroom and…

I had many of those days until I looked more deeply into the process and considered a different perspective. Here is the rub with that whole scenario – ‘I.’

Do you see it? ‘I’ wake up. ‘I’ get out of bed. ‘I’… I’m even meditating!

My whole day begins with ‘I’ and chances are it’s going to tend to stay in that groove.

Consider this: everything is already enlightened. This would include us. Perhaps we are not aware of this and this is part of why we meditate – to ‘do’ our part toward waking up.

What is meditation?

From a dictionary: Meditation – the action or practice of meditating.

Note: there is no ‘I’ in that definition. Can action and practice happen without an ‘I?’ Every nondual teacher says so. Let’s take them at their word. Our ‘I’ automatically inserts itself into any action or practice. I believe I’m needed!

These days I think of meditation and meditating as something that is always happening, like enlightenment. In fact, I think enlightenment is meditating me. Every moment of my day, I’m in meditation – whether I’m aware of it or not. I’m being meditated from the inside out, the outside in and every other way possible.

Waking up, brushing teeth, sitting to sit – it’s all meditation happening.

The perspective of everything is already enlightened and meditation happening at all times helps to end the divisiveness that ‘I’ provides. With this, I can simply sit, or walk, or brush my teeth and let meditation do what it does. Meditation is more relaxed, more open to influence, more curious about mysteriousness.

It’s true – I still wake up, do those things and wind up in that chair, but each movement has less ownership by ’I’ and more inclusion.