One has to be choicelessly attentive, fully
aware; and this state of choiceless attention is
meditation.
Meditation is to be aware of the activities
of the mind - the mind as the mediator, how the
mind divides itself as the mediator and the
meditation, how the mind divides itself as the
thinker and the thought, the thinker dominating
thought, controlling thought, shaping thought.
The first thing to realise in meditation is
that there is no authority, that the mind must
be completely free to examine, to observe, to
learn. And so there is no following, no
accepting, no obedience.
All this process of knowing oneself is the
beginning of meditation - not putting the mind
to sleep, not having visions or transcendental
experiences through some footling word - but to
uncover the conditioned and the state of mind
which is ourselves in its relationship to
society, in its relationship to another. To
discover oneself and penetrate deep - all that
is meditation.
When you are aware, you see the whole
process of your thinking and action; but it can
happen only when there is no condemnation. When
I condemn something, I do not understand it, and
it is one way of avoiding any kind of
understanding.
Awareness is observation without choice,
condemnation, or justification. Awareness is
silent observation from which there arises
understanding without the experiencer and the
experienced. In this awareness, which is
passive, the problem or the cause is given an
opportunity to unfold itself and so give its
full significance. In awareness there is no end
in view to be gained, and there is no becoming,
the 'me' and the 'mine' not being given the
continuity.
When there is the state of innocency, it is
also the state of meditation. You cannot come to
that state of innocency as long as you are
ambitious, as long as your mind is petty, as
long as you are caught in the psychological
structure of society and are nothing but an
embodied technique - which is what most of us
are.
Meditation is not the pursuit of an
invisible path leading to some imagined bliss.
The meditative mind is seeing - watching,
listening, without the word, without comment,
without opinion - attentive to the movement of
life in all its relationships throughout the
day. And at night, when the whole organism is at
rest, the meditative mind has no dreams for it
has been awake all day. It is only the indolent
who have dreams; only the half-asleep who need
the intimation of their own states. But as the
mind watches, listens to the movement of life,
the outer and the inner, to such a mind comes a
silence that is not put together by thought.
All this is implied in meditation - to be
aware, to be conscious of your environment, to
be aware how you talk, how you walk, how you
eat, what you eat; to be aware how you speak to
another, how you treat another, as you are
sitting there, to be aware of your neighbour,
the colour of the coat, the way he looks.
Without criticism just be aware. That gives you
great sensitivity, empathy, so that your body is
subtle, sensitive, aware of everything that is
going on around you. To be aware without any
choice, see where you are, looking at the
speaker, looking all around you without a single
choice, just look - to be aware.
Observing is meditation, it is not that in
order to observe you must meditate. To observe
is one of the most, difficult things. To observe
a tree, for example, is very difficult, and that
is because you have ideas, images, about that
tree, and these ideas - botanical knowledge -
prevent you from looking at that tree.
The mind is always chattering, always
pursuing one thought or another, one set of
sensory responses after another set of
responses. In order to stop that chattering you
try to learn concentration, forcing the mind to
stop chattering and so the conflict begins
again. This is what you are doing; chattering,
chattering, talking endlessly about nothing.
Now, if you want to observe something, a tree, a
flower, the lines of the mountains, you have to
look, you have to be quiet. But you are not
interested in the mountains, or the beauty of
the hills and the valleys and the waters; you
want to get somewhere, achieve something,
spiritually.
