Meditation At Its Simplest

“And the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will.
...An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.” ~ William James

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

“And the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention....

If this subject interests people...maybe this little example will, too
A dear friend told me this decades ago:
When your mind wanders it is like a baby in the center of the bed.
If it wanders to the edge do you get angry and pick it up and put it back in the center hard? NO!
You smile and gently place it back to the center... again and again.
Same with our thoughts that wander!
Just gently go to your place of focus...again and again.
No big deal!

No need for frustration or to give up...it's what the mind does, like dogs bark or birds sing ---it's what babies do! Ha! :)
Life and meditation can be so simple.

[A human Being]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

No need for frustration or to give up...it's what the mind does.

That's the key thing right there I'd say, recognising that it's just the nature of mind to wander and it doesn't mean you've done something wrong - I know in my own experience I used to get frustrated with myself if my mind wandered, but meditation got easier for me when I accepted that that's just what minds tend to do.

I was introduced to Resting in Awareness by Jon Kabat-Zinn. It's effortless just like Choiceless Awareness, Do-Nothing Meditation, Zazen, Shikantaza, and no doubt many other labels.

It's a difficult practice in that without a firm grounding in an object-based meditation it's more or less a fool's errand because mind has yet to be tamed. With a firm grounding in an object-based meditation it's at first challenging just like mindfulness, however I now find it's incredibly easy. After all one of its names is Do-Nothing Meditation. LOL!

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

It's effortless ....
It's a difficult practice....
it's more or less a fool's errand
it's at first challenging...

Then finally:
''...however I now find it's incredibly easy.''

I just gave the highlights that my eyes saw.
Is it effortless? Is it difficult? Or is it easy?
Sounds hard and not simple to me! Sorry. Not trying to give you a hard time!!

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

Is it effortless? Is it difficult? Or is it easy?

It's difficult until it isn't.

All other forms of meditation have an anchor of some sort (breath, sensation, image, mantra, deity, a specific though or ideal), an object of attending one always goes back to when distracted. There's no such anchor in effortless techniques and that's why it is very difficult until one develops a more concentrated mind, at which point it's only difficult. LOL!

I had about 4 or 5 years of Vipassana meditation before I stumbled on resting in awareness and even with that it was difficult. After a week or so I finally gave up on trying complete sittings of effortless. So I would start with breath and when it became very subtle, almost not noticeable, I'd switch to effortless. At first it would be just a minute or two and then back to breath and I just kept it up, stretching effortless segments out longer and longer until eventually I could do an entire sitting effortless and even then that was only the beginning like when first sitting with breath. Now it's about as second-nature as breath, sound, smell or sensation.

I still meditate on sensations of breath for clarity and focus. Effortless seems to be more in-line with non-duality and in fact it was pointing at something I was cognizant of but never appreciated until coming across Swami Sarvapriyananda.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by JustASimpleGuy

It's difficult until it isn't.

Still belly laughing!! So good.