Meditation As A Way Of Life

The Way of Meditation is so much more than just sitting cross-legged on the floor, it permeates your entire life, gives you direction and informs your decision-making. It is not a religion or belief system, it is a direct experience. I sincerely hope that people can use meditation as a tool for freedom, happiness, healing, understanding and genuine inquiry, rather than as an oppressive dogma, a dry ritual or a set of rules. Meditation is done while sitting still and this is an essential part of remembering our core and finding stillness, but the real challenge is integrating meditation into every moment of our lives; It is then that it becomes a way of being. It is also good to remember what Zen master Shunryu Suzuki says:

“Don’t fall into the trap of dropping everything and meditating on a mountain for the rest of your life. A much better – and more challenging – path is to stay rooted in a normal life and meditate faithfully for an hour a day.”

Joyful peace comes from within

The first principle of the Way of Meditation is a reorientation of where happiness comes from, a new place to look for fulfillment and satisfaction. Modern society is somewhat hedonistic and pursues goals of material wealth and sensual pleasures, but when it comes from the mouths of those who have achieved modern standards of success, it does not make you happy or satisfied. We have been misled by corporate economic pressure to want more, consume more and acquire more, but so many people are now waking up to the fact that material success without spiritual connection is superficial and incomplete. Zen master Shunryu Suzuki once wondered:

“What if society’s priorities are all wrong, and the goal of achieving a certain social status, job title, or income bracket is misplaced? What if you could turn your attention back to the activities that make up your day and find peace and contentment in them, without any further motive?

The Way of Meditation points to spiritual happiness regardless of the circumstances, but this can become extreme. Living in abject poverty without proper food or shelter is certainly not ideal. I went through the journey of giving everything away, having nothing, and meditating for ridiculously long hours during the day, but like Buddha, I quickly realized that this was extreme and that a balance had to be found. Maslow’s heirachy of needs
places self-actualization at the top of the pyramid after material and emotional needs are met, so even though an inner connection with the spirit is ultimately necessary for happiness and freedom, some level of material needs must be met first. This balance is up to each of us to find.

The Way of Meditation is to at least balance our efforts between material comfort and discovering and familiarizing ourselves with our inner source of natural peace. Natural peace is actually the nature of our mind. When we can relax by not being captured by thoughts, plans and material desires, our mind enters a natural state of contentment and even bliss. You might call it spirit, Buddhists simply call it spirit or consciousness, but whatever you call it, it is fundamental to our being, but too often it is forgotten and ignored in the pursuit of other quests. Meditation is a way to remember and come home to our natural state of being and find a sense of joy there.

The path of detachment from thoughts

Eckhart Tolle says it’s not the situation that makes you unhappy, but your thoughts about it, and mindfulness guru Sharon Salzberg says all suffering comes from believing our thoughts. So what’s so dangerous about the thinking mind? Simply put, thoughts are always fiction. There is no such thing as a true story, it’s just a story. But our minds have a strange mechanism whereby they cannot see the differences between thoughts and reality and confuse the two.

We live our lives in our own story, and whether yours is a drama, an adventure, a comedy or even a tragedy, these stories or explanations for our lives ignite the natural clarity of our consciousness and our natural state of peace and happiness is temporarily lost.

It is temporary, because once you drop the story and rest in a fundamentally open consciousness, peace returns and balance is restored. But even if it is temporary, it can last a lifetime. From the moment you learn to talk and create stories about good and evil, worthy and unworthy, you can end up being trapped in this mind fiction for your entire life, losing sight of your natural identity. ability to be happy.

Therefore, an important part of the Way of Meditation is to detach from thoughts, disbelieve them, or at least take them with humor and lightness. This in itself relieves the stress thoughts that believing in them creates. Having a belief is inherently troubling. Life without beliefs is spontaneous, fluid and, let’s face it, mysterious.

The path of not knowing

Before I realized how useless that was, I once had a big debate on a Facebook thread with a Christian who insisted that you had to believe in something. People often use their beliefs as their favorite sports team. Who are you going for? is a similar question to what do you believe in? I learned that in some Asian cultures they hedge their bets for fear of doing it wrong, so they all believe in it and have a rather busy altar with all the major religious figures represented.

A respected Buddhist teacher of mine, Lama Yeshe, once pointed to something in front of him during a class and asked the audience, “What is that?” the answers come where “it’s a table” “ah ha!” Lama Yeshe said, “You really believe in something.” The psychology of labeling something is that we think we know the object because we have a name for it, but that’s the same trick as before. If we are satisfied with the label, we are trapped in the story the label implies. Separating the label from the raw experience of watching something is an important aspect of the practice of meditation.

So where does that leave us? don’t believe in anything and name nothing, it seems a bit prehistoric, maybe we should go back to growling and pointing. The answer is the same as before, using the skill of detachment to not get caught up in labels and names and to look at things openly, freshly and with curiosity rather than with the certainty that labels bring. True knowledge does not come from the conceptual content of our mind, but from the clarity of the mind itself.

Certainty is actually the clinging to knowledge that gives us a false sense of security, limits our perceptions and makes us rigid and inflexible. Being certain even limits our natural intelligence, as a Zen master once said

“There are many options for beginners, but few for experts.”

The Way of Meditation is to be open, curious and non-judgmental. Trusting the skill and balance of present-centered consciousness, comfortable and safe enough to say, I don’t know. There is a kind of violence in imposing your opinions and certainty on others, and there is also innocence and gentleness in the open, flexible attitude of using what Alan Watts calls the wisdom of uncertainty.

The way of intuition

By detaching ourselves from thoughts, beliefs and certitudes we can rest in a natural and open presence. It is empty of believing thoughts and beliefs and it is also empty of anything material, so it is often called spiritual, but it is not empty of wisdom. The Way of Meditation uses this clear consciousness to navigate through life and it is rich in knowledge and understanding. By leaving aside all judgments and thoughts and really being present with something and someone, you have access to all the information of the moment and not just your storyline. This is the beginning of intuition and also of true love.

It is love because you literally lose yourself in people and in the moment without the limitations of judgments and beliefs. The Dalai Lama said that love is the absence of judgment. Uniting directly with what you are concentrating on is called Samadhi in ancient Indian terminology. It is a natural intelligence that does not arise from language, but arises from this mysterious association. It is love because you become one with what or who you are, which promotes a deep sense of understanding and empathy.

This all comes down to trusting yourself and being yourself. The Way of Meditation is natural and egoless (without story). There is no intermediary for your salvation or happiness, because everything you need is waiting for you within. Undistracted by thoughts, you can discover your own natural peace and wisdom. This is not a belief, it is the experience of millions before you and it does not depend on any church or organization, but solely on the self-empowerment of learning to meditate.

The Way of Meditation can be applied at any time in your life and changes your perspective and responses to the world. The way is easy for those who feel comfortable using mindfulness and a spontaneous presence in their daily lives, but begin to rely on your beliefs and judgments and the way is lost. The path opens up the creativity of infinite possibilities, sustains the wonder of life and helps to deeply connect with a natural sense of joy and stillness.

Chad Foreman is the founder of The Way of Meditation and has been teaching meditation since 2003, determined to bring authentic meditation practices into the lives of millions of people in the modern world. Chad is a former Buddhist monk who lived in a retreat hut for six years and studied and practiced meditation full-time. He now has over twenty years of experience teaching meditation. Chad likes regularly
Meditation retreats on the Sunshine Coast, Australia
Online meditation coachingprovides three online programs – The 21 Day Meditation Challenge to gradually guide people from the basic principles of mindfulness and relaxation to profound states of consciousness.
Breathwork to help manage stress and go deeper into meditation and
The bliss of inner fire This is a Buddhist tantric method to clear energy blockages and connect with the clear light of bliss. You can also get Chad’s free ebook now Insights on the go.