A Simple Balance...

Here is a simple meditation.

enter into your position and your meditation as you normally would.

then, from the moment you become comfortable, let your intent be to find a single meaningful moment of clarity and purity.
it is difficult to achieve, yet, the wild fluctuations that can occur within meditations are neutralized as a retarding element, because it makes no difference how clouded your mind was for however long it was clouded during your meditation, because your focus was only to have a meaningful moment of clarity while noticing ones breath.

it's as if a disturbed pond is bombarded by random disturbances of leaves, bugs, wind, fish, animals, dust... and yet, due to the fact that such activity is random, there is the possibility that for a meaningful moment, the disturbances will cease, the waters will still and the surface will become glassy as the bottom comes into a clear view.

so, your meditation may be only a few minutes, or 15 or 50 minutes or even longer. you may find that you fall in love with being blown upon the winds of your consciousness as you are in an ever deepening state of receptivity to a state of peace... or perhaps, you will gradually calm, but never completely calm the waters over the course of many sessions. yet, the nature o coincidence and possibility will make is such that you will at some time see the stillness of the waters and the appearance of the bottom clearly for at least a meaningful moment.

When you feel/recognize this occurrence grope with it and float around it if you can not get back to it, for as long as possible... once again, you may find that the pleasure of floating in close proximity to, yet not within peace, may be an incredibly wonderful "trantric" meditation experience. once you emerge from your meditation, do an active meditation where you note, without as little thought as possible, the difference between this feeling and it's impact upon your awareness. and, as you move further away from the meditation, allow this experience to inform the other aspects of your life, as you revel in the insights provided by plunging into this pool of calm or near calm. This will be your way to recognize the state that you have been attempting to achieve all along. As if wandering in the woods, one comes to a beautiful glen where a wondrous bird with large colored plumage, partakes of all manner of fruits, branches and beauties. You may have stumbled upon it by accident, yet, there is the possibility of return, without marring the landscape, or fearing the inability to return.

groping and harmonizing oneself to achieve this task is meaningful and conducive to ones practice, as the focus is not on having no thought, rather, on patiently and intently calming oneself to become aware of a meaningful moment of balance clarity. ones mind will be the guide.

this meditation can help to focus and at the same time, find meaning and purpose, as well as help diminish your awareness of the passing of time. In fact, this meditation uses our temporal weakness as the focus of the meditation, as well as appealing to our desire for simplicity, as well as helping one to tune into the self as the focus of the meditation.

the possibilities are endless and probably not as unlimited as the realities of the diversity of meditations that have occurred.

Osho once said, that one either meditates all the time, or not at all. there can be no such thing as meditating for a period of time. Life is a meditation. a deep welling up of wisdom, a filling up of consciousness. as we retreat from the petty or the specific or the temporary, we fall back into the overall.

I was experiencing a deep moment of joy and perfection with my children the other night to the extent that I had to ask them if there could possibly be a heaven, when the moment here, on earth was so perfect. my one child, smiling, being flip, easily and casually stated that if this moment were perfection, then his stick of cheese would turn into chocolate and the room would be fragrant as if in the midst of a flower shop. For me, his statement did not detract from the perfection, nor did it add to it, but it did bring up a simple foundational reality. The mind goes on comparing, desiring, wishing, fantasizing, whether that work is serious, flip, subtle or singular, that's what the mind does. So perfection can be all around. perfection is all around, yet, our awareness of and entry into it is held in check by the activity of the mind. And so, meditation, and this particular meditation is a skill building exercise. an exercise in groping for peace and calm, an awareness and receptivity to gauge and experience it, a pulse of ones mental activity and a point of focus that is not drifting, and perhaps in a sense more difficult to dis-entrench once achieved.

the practice evolves, the ideas evolve, the truth roll in like clouds and cool air upon the valley in a diversity matched only by our awareness of it as our minds incompletely mirror the external.