Meditation Time

Posted on by Alain Joly

Okay. Now find a good place for yourself and sit down comfortably. Close your eyes. You are about to engage in your daily meditation. But don’t meditate today. For meditation was never meant to be an activity that a self performs. It never was for the person. Meditation is a space of supreme humility in which you notice your own redundancy as a self. It is the natural and unequivocal place of being in which no meditator is necessary, or even wanted. Your presence as a self will prevent it. It will sabotage your meditation. And this beautiful, selfless presence that you are will retreat in the background, unable to truly flower, crushed by the pretence contained in your wilful act of meditating. There is nothing to attain in this moment. Nothing to achieve. So forget about being a meditator.

Don’t meditate today. Why should you? Let your own presence reveal itself to you. Let it gently notice itself, rather than you striving to notice it. You are already a master of presence, so why should you be meditating? Be contented with only being as you are. That will suffice. See that the meditator in you has now shrunk to the size of a little voice erring purposelessly in the infinite space of your presence. Feel that you are but a dead, brittle leaf falling to the ground of your true being, pushed by the winds of understanding, attracted by the inescapable laws of truth. Notice that your meditation has no need for a meditator. See that your natural self as being doesn’t even comprehend the necessity of meditation. To meditate literally means to ‘contemplate’, ‘measure’, ‘assess’ [what is already here]. This is the ultimate meaning hidden behind that word.

So don’t meditate today. Why should you? Who told you so? Be the one that is beyond the possibility of meditation. Be seated in your unreserved, natural self, where you are already bathing under the sun of your own being. And should you feel an emotion, be reminded that it is but a brisk shower of rain falling in the wide expanse of your nature. And should you feel the limits of your body and sense perceptions, be reminded that they are but a wild and beautiful land appearing in your infinite self, that awaits your ploughing, and seeks your nurturing. Meditation is that space of being which you are of all eternity. It will never leave you, nor can it do so. This ultimate, eternal being is the warm bath of your self, already achieved, and in no need to be practiced. And the meditator has been irrevocably absorbed in it, diluted in this small death.

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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Suggestion:
– Other ‘Reveries’ from the blog…

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The Heart Sutra

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Buddha preaching Abhidhamma in Tavatimsa’ – Wikimedia Commons

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प्रज्ञापारमिताहृदय

心經

བཅོམ་ལྡན་འདས་མ་ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པའི་སྙིང་པོ

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There is a text that came from the dawn of ages, whose author is unknown, but which has been widely accepted, practised, and chanted in Mahāyāna Buddhism as a condensed exposé of the teaching of Buddha. Although known and praised as the ‘Heart Sutra’, its original Sanskrit name translates as ‘The Heart of the Perfection of Wisdom’. If the Sutra’s main teaching asserts that all phenomena is ‘Śūnyatā’, a term widely translated as emptiness, its wide implications extend to many other aspects in the understanding of our true nature. Originally translated in Chinese by a 9th century Buddhist monk called Prajñā, the text exists in a shorter and longer version. I am sharing here the standard long version that provides an elegant and story-like context to the main teaching. I have also chosen to give to the many Sanskrit terms their original meaning or context. Following the Sutra is a short text that I wrote, some words that the text has evoked in me. I hope that this presentation will give justice to the profundity of this text, and that you will enjoy the reading.

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“Form is emptiness, emptiness is form.”
~ The Heart Sutra

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Discover this milestone of Buddhist literature: the ‘Heart Sutra’… (READ MORE…)

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The Most Important Thing

Posted on by Alain Joly

That might be the most important thing of all. Not the meditations that leave you in a state of gratitude and wonder. Not the repeated understandings, no matter how deep and essential they are. Not the feelings of awe in front of that experience of oneness — the disappearance of yourself, and the appearance of your true, revealed, precious self. “I got it at last” were you thinking… But no. That would have been a bit too easy. None of these might do it in the final end. For these extraordinary revelations will eventually have to die down. For these experiences will have to end of their natural end. For these lack the last little remaining kick. There always seems to be another last ‘top of the mountain’. Another frontier. Another clarification. Another hope. Another deception. Another naïve expectation. And another waving hand and unwanted reminder from your sense of being a separate entity. “Hey, I’m still alive!” And back are you on your meditation cushion for another sprout of failing expectation.

That might be the most important thing of all. Not to leave a way out for yourself to escape and hide in a little corner. To grab yet another last little pleasure. To keep yet another wee sense of pride. To have yet a negligible remaining sense of being ‘me’ and enjoy the show from a distance. For these little remaining indulgences, no matter how small and inconsequential they may appear to be, will give rise once again to a fully grown sense of being a person. And this ‘person’ still has on a leash the dark beast of suffering that seems to come back with ever more strength and power. We might finally be eaten by it and be left here, a panting failure. We might never make it… The beast is barking now. Growling in the background. Waking itself up. Hungering for more and better with sharp scintillating teeth.

That might be the most important thing of all. Simply to give yourself up to just being. To not think you’re going to participate to your own banquet. You cannot be a guest of honour when you are yourself the one to be devoured. You just have to give it all up. Every thing of you. Every remaining bits or crumbs on the table of your apparent self. And it will have to be a pleasant offering. For it will never be forced on you. You are invited to die willingly. Or more precisely, to die understandably. To let go of that pestering little thought of yourself. That old haunting belief. That erroneous identity. Knowing that it’s your only chance. The last little thing left to do. That last remaining kick. The most important thing of all. So do it… That’s how you have a really joyful banquet.

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“You can’t both drink the cup
of the Lord and the cup of demons.
You can’t both partake of the table
of the Lord and of the table of demons.”
~ 1 Corinthians 10:21 (The Bible)

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Text and photo by Alain Joly

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Website:
– BibleGateway

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