A Meditative Road to Enlightenment

Zeno,

Is it too immodest to suggest that one may have found a path?

Before I write so much as another word, I must repeat my by now familiar and much used disclaimer. I make no claim to goodness, I am merely a traveller who seems to be making some progress along a much desired road.

It is hard to fathom what set me on my way. Have I always been mercurial and if so is it the often black side of my moods which made me take my first steps? Have I always sought an escape from a world which seemed (and still at times seems) overwhelming, hostile and incomprehensible?

I don’t know. All I know is that however the urge arose, I have spent my life seeking something other than what my normal senses tell me is out there, and hence the long journey through religion, philosophy and science to find answers.

And now at last to committed, regular and serious meditation.

I can not and will not claim that meditation has provided me with unassailable “truth”, however much it can feel that way in the depths of trance. I am unable to tell you whether there is or is not a god or gods, or when the universe began or will end. I can provide you with no definitive answers on the nature of mind or the existence or otherwise of free will. I can not tell you whether we live in a clockwork universe or whether randomness and uncertainty provide just enough room for a future to be unknown rather than determined.

Nor can I tell you that meditation is a definitive and certain cure for the melancholy which affects so many millions of people living out their short and small lives on this mysterious little planet.

What I can tell you, with no trace of hyperbole or exaggeration, is that meditation is a useful and perhaps essential tool for anyone seeking wisdom, a better life. For someone who recognises that while the answers may not all be readily apparent and may never be, quiet contemplation gets you as far as it is possible to go. In terms of balancing your life and finding deeper meaning in a physical universe.

If it does not make you “good” it does at least encourage you to become “better”.

And what, for me, does the word “enlightenment” suggest? What do I look for in my search for enlightenment and am I getting there?

While I would like to see a greater non-physical reality, a godlike power for the good, I have more often seen a vision of what physical reality could look like in the here and now, if we chose to make it so. Equality for all life, an end to poverty, greed and violence. Co-operation, decency, sharing. Care for the planet and its flora and fauna, an end to the virus of human expansion. A focus on happiness rather than the eternal search for more.

And what of the non material? What of the search for divine revelation, nirvana, moksha, call it what you will. It is there, of that I have no doubt. What it is, I can only speculate, guess, intuit. A vastly expanded consciousness of a type we can only now dimly envisage. Good, bad or indifferent? Perhaps those terms cease to have meaning at that stage; I wonder.

And practically speaking? How does such a search manifest itself? What do you actually do on a day to day basis in an attempt to ban ignorance and self and let in wisdom and the Good?

If I led my life again it would be as a full time secular monk, holed up somewhere remote. Living simply and spending my life in reflection.

And in retirement (when I can tear myself away from my absurd algorithms) that is how I try to lead my life in the here and now.

My meditation has progressed, developed. Some might call it obsession but more accurately it has become a daily necessity, something I am unable, and certainly unwilling, to do without.

Each morning I devote two hours to my practice. Mornings seem far the best time for me, since later in the day I tend to drift off in sleep. In the mornings I soon find myself in a cloud of unknowing. A place of fecund emptiness and complete peace. What do I see, what do I feel at such times? Difficult to express really but most days simply good things. Feelings. No particular rhyme or reason, no pattern of thought, simply a contended emptiness where all seems well. And mostly continues to seem well for the rest of the day.

And then some physical exercise which continues and increases those feelings. And some gentle tinkering at the piano on most days. A few simple classical pieces, the beauty of Bach or Handel or Chopin.

And that is my life – would that it had always been that way, but better late than never. Always time to turn the page, abandon foolish ways and prejudice.

And the end? Well it is nigh, of course. But it holds no terror. Hieronymus Bosch was wrong, Dante Alighieri misguided. I do not dream as Gerontius or dread what is to come. A re-absorption in some greater consciousness perhaps or maybe a simple ceasing to be.

But here and now I determine to live better, to be better and to let what may come arrive in its own good time.

Illustration: Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose by John Singer Sargent

11 Comments

  1. It seems you are content and the path of meditation has at least got you this much! I have no doubt that you are right about your current impressions about everything as you describe here. The unknown may forever remain unknown, but we can do without it, as long as the known seems to progressively fall into (relatively) better place.

    “If I led my life again it would be as a full time secular monk, holed up somewhere remote. Living simply and spending my life in reflection.” This is something I share with you and hope also to integrate within the current life as much possible, for whatever time left !

    Wishing you peace 🙂

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  2. And peace to you as well my friend. Thank you for reading. Yes, if I steer a steady and careful course, I can mostly achieve the state of mind I desire. As for living simply it seems so difficult to do in the West. I wonder whether it is any simpler in less “developed” nations. I like to think so, but maybe the reality of life in India or the Himalayas makes it no easier to hide away in a hermitage and keep away from the horrors of life? I wonder 🤔

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    1. The simplicity is of value when it comes naturally from within, it is more than its outward expression- which will be modified organically, when rooted in a deeper inner understanding. As long as we do not complicate it unnecessarily, it is possible to live a simple life, within our immediate surroundings- wherever we happen to be.
      We can carry on at a comfortable pace, in the context or convention of the time and place we are, within the range of whatever is suitable and doable. Being a recluse is a possibility as long as there are 4 walls around, whether it is in a room of our modest home or in Buckingham palace…
      it may all be the same as long as we focus on the inside 🙂

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  3. Hehe, I just had a nice lesson from the Universe! I spent about two hours writing about acceptance, pressed the wrong key combo and it seems WordPress lost the damn lot. Of course, I didn’t accept that too well!

    Anyway, I’ll tell you more another time, maybe by email. One thing I have got a copy of is a link I thought you might find interesting. https://www.dr-robert.com/the-ten-thousand-things- This guy, Robert Saltzman has a very down-to-earth expression of his “awakening”. I’ve been watching his youtube channel a fair bit too.

    So glad your meditation is increasing your happiness,

    Be well,

    John

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    2. Yes, Salzman is indeed interesting. “It’s all bollox and none of us know anything”. I’m certainly with him on the ghastly guru scene, most of whom are after money. I’m also with him on religion and thought systems. But I found him a little nihilistic. Although if he is happy with no belief in anything, well good for him!

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      1. Yeah, it’s easy to misread Robert Saltzman, not least because he changes his views over time (obviously a terrible flaw 😉 ). At first, I thought he was nihilistic, but he corrected me (I met him when he joined the No Free Will Facebook group I’m on). There are things he cares about, like all of us.

        What started him publishing his work (videos, two books, web stuff, and a Substack) seems to be critique of the “non-duality” type of spiritual teaching (and actually religion in general), which take us out of ourselves, away from the reality of our experience, by presenting us with an ideal image of ourselves – an Oversoul or whatever they might call it. They teach that we aren’t real, everything is just contents of Mind.

        Robert reminds us we are real, we’re just apes with clever brains. But against that, we’re not clever enough to know where any of *this* (wave hands at this point) came from. Nobody knows, but these people are going around pretending they have the answer in those religious systems, and followers of those systems are deluded. I think you’d probably also add “physicists” to that group of deluded folk, but there I would disagree, because they (most of them) hold their hypotheses lightly and seek for answers without claiming to have found the answer.

        Robert relates all this invention of religions and spiritual quests, as I do, to attempts to escape, both from the knowledge of our mortality, that dawned on humanity at some point, and from this lack of ultimate knowledge about where any of it came from. There’s also another big fear we avoid, which is the immediate awareness itself. I don’t really know the reasons we avoid that, but it probably reminds us of how little we know and how fragile we are physically. I know when I meditated, it was quite stark, realising that my heart was beating – hell, what if it stopped?!

        So he’s very grounded in his humanity, and refreshingly humble, just relating how things seem to him and not intending to teach or preach to anyone. That quality reminds me of you.

        But rather than, “nothing matters” (even except…), I feel one of the things that stood out for me was, “I don’t know anything. And nobody does!” He mentions Socrates in relation to that. It surprised me that this stood out for me, like I didn’t already know that nobody knows the ultimate secret of the universe!

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  4. “I don’t know anything” – how very true. Escape and fear – those two words resonate very, very strongly indeed with me. I am very well aware, extremely well aware that I have sought an escape from the torments of this world at every stage of my life and am still, quite consciously, doing that. I have always been fearful, and still am.

    So I seek an escape from fear. Perhaps Robert Salzman would not approve of that, but it’s not really something I can control.

    At least I am aware of what I am doing. At least I’m not following some insane cult, not realising why I am doing so.

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  5. In some senses the awareness I am always talking about is not that dissimilar to Robert’s. For me it is seeing the world for what it is. For how it is. Not finding answers to the great existential questions, much as I would like to, but accepting ‘this is the way things seem to be, as far as I can tell’ and getting on with it.

    The reason for my post is that I suddenly realised there was no point whining. No point looking any further for something which may or may not be there.

    For me, meditation and exercise are drugs. Along with beauty and music.

    I saw that there is nothing I can do about finding answers and nothing I can do about the awful mess of human society.

    And so all I can do is to keep my head down and try and be pleasant to people. Not in some big grand way, but in small ways every day.

    By not foisting my views on people, not insisting on my own way. By trying not to criticise or judge. By avoiding prejudice and bullying.

    I may not have found “meaning” and doubtless never will.

    But somehow all these activities and actions and thoughts bring me peace.

    I realise that any amount of stress no matter how small will tip me over the edge and back into blackness.

    So I am keeping still and quite. Small and insignificant and unambitious.

    To me, that feels like an awakening. Or at the very least a great improvement on the life I have led so often I’m the past!

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