True meditation is to dwell as primordial consciousness. True meditation appears spontaneously in consciousness when consciousness is not manipulated or controlled. When you first start meditating, you notice that attention is often captured by focusing on a particular object: on thoughts, bodily sensations, emotions, memories, sounds, etc. This is because the mind is conditioned to focus on to concentrate and contract objects. Then the mind compulsively interprets and tries to interpret what it is aware of (the object), in a mechanical and distorted way. It begins to draw conclusions and make assumptions based on past conditioning.
In true meditation, all objects (thoughts, feelings, emotions, memories, etc.) are left to their natural functioning. This means that no effort should be made to focus, manipulate, control or suppress any object of consciousness. In true meditation the emphasis is on being aware; not on the awareness of objects, but on resting as primordial consciousness itself.
“Freedom is not necessarily exciting; it’s just free. Very peaceful and quiet, so very quiet. Of course it is also filled with joy and wonder, but it is not what you imagine. It is much, much less.”
The original consciousness is the source in which all objects arise and disappear. As you gently relax into awareness, into listening, the compulsive contraction of the mind around objects will fade. The silence of being will come more clearly into consciousness as a welcome to rest and linger. An attitude of open receptivity, free from any purpose or expectation, will allow the presence of stillness and stillness to be revealed as your natural state.
As you rest more deeply in silence, the consciousness becomes free from the mind’s compulsive controls, contractions, and identifications. Consciousness naturally returns to its non-state of absolute unmanifested potential, the silent abyss that surpasses all knowledge.
“All it takes to awaken yourself as the radiant emptiness of the mind is to stop looking for something more, better, or different, and turn your attention inward to the awake stillness that you are.”
“If you prefer smoke to fire
then get up now and go away.
Because I don’t intend to perfume
the clothing of your mind
with more soot knowledge.
No, I have something else in mind.
Today I hold a flame in my left hand
and a sword in my right hand.
There will be no damage control today.
Because God is in a mood
to plunder your riches and
throwing you away naked
in such breathtaking poverty
that all that will be left of you
will tend to shine.
So don’t just sit around this flame
suffocating in your mind.
Because this is not a campfire song
to mindlessly mantra yourself to sleep with.
Now jump into space
between thoughts
and leave this dream
before I burn that damn house down.”