[A human Being]

Originally Posted by Gem

Now the first points are made, it might be good time to begin.

As this isn't an advice column, and it does not consider anything apart from what already is the case, there can be no objective of having some sort of experience apart from that which is currently unfolding, or entering a state of mind other than that of now.

I can not comment as such on that which pertains to particular individuals, experiences and states and the like, and am not attempting to bring about anything other than the experience as it is, just as it happens to be. It's irrelevant if a person is having a high spiritual experience or a mundane physical experience - for this meditation is noticing the way it is, and has nothing to do with the way anyone wants it to be, and it isn't a complicated thing in any way - it's just noticing 'this' in whatever way it is. And not because we have to try to do that, but because awareness of 'this' is already the case.

When you check to see and make sure there is a knowing of this, which is immediately apparent to anyone who does, at that moment of noticing it is this way - that passive checking and immediate realisation is the meditation - and every person already knows how to do that. It can not be taught and it takes no practice.

This frame of mind isn't a mind that is searching for something which can be found, but a mind that sees clearly what is the case. Clarity which is revealing, doubtlessly and without question, there such an instant revelation, so immediate, it's like 'of course, so what?'

This is so what: there was no thought impeding the point of noticing 'I know this experience'. There was no distraction to the clarity of the recognition, and perhaps the recognition seems mundane, but looking and seeing what is the case is what the meditation is.

With that being said, do we understand what it is to look and see, and see how that is different to seeking something that isn't here now, but we hope to find someday? I hope we do, because that seeking need stop for the seeing to begin, for the seeking is to find something later on, and the seeing is knowing what is immediately

That is the meditation - that is the mode of observation.

I will have to proceed at a later time, so, be happy. Talk soon.

It is quite a subtle point you're making, but it's an important one. The essence of meditation, as I see it, is to 'be here now', which sounds simple enough in theory, but we tend to be so geared to seeking that in practice it can feel like quite a tricky business to actually stop and be still, and find out what is actually here, right in this moment (I suspect that's because on some level we know that we're going to find discomfort, agitation, pain, and various other sensations that we'd rather not be feeling, and our seeking is often an unconscious attempt to avoid feeling them). I think it actually goes against our instincts to do that, particularly in over-stimulated western consumer societies.

Illuminating thread.