Our purpose in meditating is to come to know our experience, in order to recognise how we cause suffering to ourselves and others.
When we meditate we may try to see our thoughts, we may try to see our thought-free awareness in gaps of thought; we are constantly trying to see our true nature, what we basically are. Does anything strike you about these endeavours?
How else could we know what we most fundamentally are? But do we frustrate our own purpose by looking in this way?
We need to keep on meditating, clarifying as we go, and at some point the exercise here will come back to tease you. Happy meditating!
Jumping round to catch sight of yourself
This involves standing in two positions, one facing the other. So stand facing ahead, and then jump and turn so that you’re standing right in front of where you were, facing back at yourself. The aim is to do this so quickly that you can see yourself, if only for a fraction of a second, just as if you you were looking in a mirror. Of course you won’t be able to do this at first, so it’s important to keep practising. I recommend that you do this 10 times every day, at least for a month..
I also recommend, if possible, that you do it in front of children, or in public, so that you feel a real fool. They will think you’re bonkers. Those of you with big egos will probably not even try this exercise, so think carefully, do you want to keep a big ego, or to Awaken?
It is most important to do this physically, thinking about it is no good. Awakening has to penetrate all layers of thinking, it is beyond thinking. The lesson must be unforgettable. You really have to act this out, and feel completely foolish.
Maybe one day in the future, possibly years from now, you will be sitting in meditation, and suddenly you’ll say, “OMB! What an idiot! I’m still doing it!”. It is so hard to see, so practise hard now.
Only then does the path open to you to wonder, “If I’m not the me I’m trying to see… what am I really, then?”
You cannot get there by thinking, you cannot get there by not thinking, the truth is utterly unbelievable. I wish you well.
Pieces of Five 