Integration

In meditation we’re taught to observe our thoughts come, and without clinging or fascination, go. Without struggle or resistance, we’re encouraged to observe yet remain detached. In this way our experience is invariably relaxed and peaceful, absent the activity of our everyday mind. There is Samsara, and Nirvana, one with, the other without the clamor and clang of mind clutter and noise.

What would the outcome be if we applied the practice of detached observation to our career, profession, relationships, or art? What would result if we permitted our interests, our responsibilities, even our meditation to evolve while viewing ourselves as other than the practice, the art, the profession? What if we engaged with our work, or any activity, while remaining cognizant that what we’re doing is not who we are, but rather something that manifests in our day-to-day life, like our thoughts?

Although most human-beings believe success, failure, mediocrity, excellence, boredom, frustration, issues of justice, race, gender, education, right and wrong, anger, etc define who and what we are, we are mistaken. These strange, fluctuating, belief-based qualities of feeling and thought, when denied sustained attention simply vanish. No longer being reference points of personal value and meaning they are replaced by something new, another thought, another possibility. Our thoughts are essentially, meaningless, and all too often the ground upon which we based our lives and who we think we are.

Becoming aware of the distinctions between what we do and think from what we are gently supports the environment needed for personal discovery and insight. Our activities, possessions and desires no longer burdened with providing personal value become truly meaningful in-so-far as they become opportunities through which to gain insight and experience of our true selves.

For most of us it is easy to understand the importance of removing cloudy thoughts of who we think we are or should become. Even the desire for enlightenment, for a long time, perhaps for a lifetime can be such a thought. Our difficulty is not understanding this, but in finding a way of allowing this understanding to become practical and actual, replacing conceptual thinking, belief and intention.

In the end even our noblest beliefs, as well as what we do will not matter if we’re unable to see them for what they truly are. At best, these serve as road-signs along a way, pointing to an ultimate destination. They are not the destination we instinctively seek, and know is real. This destination can only be reached by letting go of certainty and falling through the gap-filled, make-believe floor of belief we create to uphold delusions of truth in the form of so-called knowledge.

We are and will always be more than what we do, think, desire, have, achieve and certainly much more than our failures and disappointments. If we spend every minute of every day of our lives learning about ourselves we will never fully mine the depth of what we are. In this regard the only questions worth answering might be “Who am I”, and, “What does being alive mean?” These may be the only questions to which answers are deeply satisfying, providing life-affirming, loving reasons for all we do, and have ever hoped to accomplish.