Meditate and Leave Everything You Know Behind

Many of my friends who are students come to meditation with the idea that it will help them to stop their minds, or at the very least control their thoughts. This is a common misperception of the outcome of a regular meditation practice. In fact, true meditation is a complete letting go of control of the thinking process rather than an attempt to create a calm mind. When we judge and resist thinking it becomes stronger. As the saying goes, 'What you resist persists.'

Many meditation ‘techniques’ attempt to distract us from our thoughts—through guided visualization, for example—or they aim to control the mind by suggesting an alternative focus, like your breath or a candle flame. While there is a place for these approaches, inherent in them is the belief that some type of control or distraction needs to be introduced in order to experience peace.

Trying to somehow create the experience of stillness through techniques may be effective in the short run; but when we get off our chairs or cushions, the confined nature of the mind often resurfaces and we continue to react to thoughts and beliefs like a puppet on a string.

True meditation is available to us in every moment of our lives and in a very real sense; it lies just beneath the surface details of thoughts, sensations, emotions and circumstances. Just as the white canvas is ever-present beneath the layers of paint, stillness, and silence are ever present beneath the details of each moment.

In the direct path teachings, there is a profound trust that peace and stillness are always present beneath the surface of mental and physical distractions, and we are encouraged to allow everything to be as it is. No attempt is made to direct the mind in any way.

In order to guide student-friends to the awareness of true meditation I have recently been encouraging them to “leave everything you know behind” as they settle into their meditation practice, to leave behind what we think meditation is, what we think it’s supposed to feel like, what we think will create the experience of meditation.

As thoughts, memories and projections come up, which we become more aware of than ever in stillness, we can leave behind everything we think we know about ourselves, our challenges, others and the world. We are witnessing our experience from a broader, more open perspective. In contrast, as soon as conditioned thoughts grab our attention we can feel the body contract along with the limited thoughts. The beliefs that have been conditioned into our thinking patterns have created our current circumstances; the same thinking will continue to create the same challenges. A whole new perspective comes in when we view our challenges from a place of being willing to sit with the experience beyond simple analysis.

By leaving behind everything we know both in meditation and in our day-to-day lives, we can experience openness to possibilities beyond current beliefs. When we leave everything we know behind, we are willing to be open to what is real and true.

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