The Clumsy Interloper

My meditation practice is like a smoldering fire. The frenzied dance of modernity dampens the spark and that ember dwindles over time. Then, with a gust of inspiration, it can catch hold and drive my life for a few months, burning bright. The fickle flame speaks to my frenetic mind and my unconscious need to create noise constantly. Music, podcasts, television, Instagram reels, video games, phone calls, talking to myself… anything to drown out the hum of anxiety that accompanies silence. Meditation therefore becomes an enigmatic pursuit, understood as a crucible that requires maximum effort but appears to the outside world as simply sitting still.  

Many meditations have a defined focal target – focus on your breath, conduct a full body scan, contemplate forgiveness, cultivate loving-kindness or bring awareness to how your body articulates during a walking meditation. Their aim is to take your lantern awareness that diffuses throughout your spatial mind and narrow it toward a single thought or stimulus. While these are useful skills to exercise, I find them frustrating to harness especially if I’ve been away from the mat for a while.

For this reason Just Be, a guided meditation by Ram Dass, is the perfect reintroduction for my flagging meditation journey. The goal is more diffuse insomuch as the only ask is to accept this moment, do not judge or give weight to it, simply allow it to be. Most meditations instruct you to close your eyes, however I’ve found this one is aided by keeping your field of vision open. I would recommend doing this meditation outside at first light, preferably within view of large trees and earshot of warbling birds.

My favorite portion of the meditation:

“Feel the awareness as a vast ground like the sky and all of the thoughts and sensations and memories and plans and qualities of mind and judging as clouds that come from who knows where and go who knows where. Identify for a moment with the vast sky.”

Rendering thoughts as impermanent clouds that pass across consciousness is very useful to me. Everytime I step outside I use this concept as a personal totem, reframing my external sensations as gentle ephemera which I am not encumbered by. The author of my thoughts remains unknown as I am merely the blank sky upon which they appear. Any attempts to control or assign an origin to my thoughts are illusory. The fear and worry and blame that contributes to my suffering is manifested elsewhere and by letting them pass across my sky I am freed from them. 😁 ☁️ ☮️