This morning I found myself meditating on the idea of meditating while I was doing my morning meditation.  A kind of meta-meditation I suppose. 

I have noticed that there seems to be quite a bit of confusion about the subject, especially by those who are not dedicated "practitioners."  I can't say that I am really very knowledgeable about the topic, all that I know about is what I have hear, read and experienced.  Clearly my view is just a tiny peek into the full topic, especially since the experience is undoubtedly unique to every individual.  I can barely describe or understand it for myself, to myself.  Going beyond that just becomes a tangle of words.

However, maybe there is something to be said on the subject. One thing that can be said is that meditation is NOT doing the practice as described by anyone as if there is not ONE correct way to do it.  There are many prescribed ways to meditate, many "correct" postures, lots of ways to hold your hands and fingers, and a wide variety of environments that are "best" for the practice.  In my youth, in the "way back time" I used to sit and listen to Maharishi Mahesh Yogi ("the Maharishi" from Transcendental Meditation fame) describe the practice.  Two things in particular struck me.  

The first was that it can be practiced in any position or posture.  This is a big relief, even if you can't get into a traditional sitting position, you can still meditate - even in a dentist's chair.  The point of the traditional position is to be comfortable, alert, and not asleep.  It has roots back into antiquity when people sat around on the ground or on cushions.  I happen to like sitting on a cushion in meditation, but it is not part of "the practice" that I know about.   It is just convenient and comfortable.

The second interesting thing was his description of thoughts while meditating.  The Maharishi used to describe them as being like bubbles in a glass of champagne - starting very tiny and imperceptible, rapidly growing and becoming the focus of attention as they stream upward, and then simply vanishing as they pop on the surface.  When I first heard this I thought it was an odd analogy - kind of cute but not really describing my experience.  However, over the past 50 years or so of daily sitting I have come to appreciate the analogy as being quite nice.  The point is not to watch any of the thought bubbles form, glide by and vanish - the point is just to notice that they are there and that they seemingly come from nowhere, become the center of attention and then are gone back into nothing. It is just a process, nothing more. 

Over the years I have explored many different meditation techniques.  Sometimes the time during siting was fairly short (15 minutes or so), sometimes fairly long (an hour or longer), sometimes once a day, sometimes two or three times, sometimes with my eyes open, sometimes with them closed, sometimes in a quiet place, sometimes in the middle of lots of action,  sometimes with a mantra (either short, medium or long), sometimes "following" my breath, sometimes "visualizing," sometimes not.  The interesting thing is that all these different approaches feel the same.  I would like to be able to describe that feeling, but don't know how.  It is related to quiet, calm, at a distance, observing .... I know the feeling, but can't find words to convey the experience. 

It might be a little easier to explain what it is NOT, rather than what it is.  It is not emptiness or the stopping of thinking - that seems to be sleeping.  It is not "working out issues" - that is our normal planning, concentrating, talking to ourselves.  My mind never stops, I never have a break from "thinking" - but I find that my relationship to those thoughts is different. Maybe the difference is that I am not "talking to myself" in my meditation, I am thinking, but not engaging in those thoughts as if in a conversation.   The thoughts are there, but I am observing them sliding by rather than fixing my attention on them.  My attention is in observing myself (my mind, thoughts, feelings, skin, hearing, cold, hot, sore, not-sore, etc.), rather than fixing my attention on any of these things.  

This is very different from the experience of doing something with so much attention that everything else vanishes.  Common examples of these are being engrossed in an activity (knitting, painting, woodwork, writing - whatever).  These kinds of activities can certainly result in a sense of peace because they shut off outside distractions.  They allow an inner peace are very important and real - but I don't think they are the same as meditating.  I say this from experience - I very often do both of these, but there is something very different happening when I sit and meditate.  However, I can't explain the difference - it is one of those things that has to be experienced to be understood.  Kind of like smacking your finger with a hammer - you can talk about it all you want, but you don't really get the essence of the experience until you feel the pain.  Good food is the same - you can think and talk about it forever, but until it is experienced you just can't know and enjoy the flavors.