| |
For three days, not even a question to distract you -- just sitting looking at the wall. Nothing to do at all, not even a question, not even a query inside... just gazing at the wall. Nothing leads you deeper than that.
When the body is really in a sitting position, really with no tendency to movement, when the body is almost as if dead, the mind stops completely, because the mind can only move with the help of the body. They are not two; the mechanism is one. The body is the outer part of it, the mind is the inner part. You are psychosomatic -- not body and mind; you are body/mind. If the body is completely still, absolutely still, the mind simply disappears. The mind cannot be -- it needs a corresponding tense state in the body.
Bodhidharma sat for nine years just gazing at the wall. That was his whole meditation. When disciples came and asked what to do, he would say 'Just sit and gaze at the wall'. Many would disappear within hours -- because what to do? Just sitting and gazing at the wall ! But those who remained, those who trusted, attained to the highest peaks that have been available to humanity. And on Bodhidharma's insight the whole zen tradition stands. There is nothing to do....
If you allow the body to sit and settle, and if the energy is unmoving, has become a pool, a silent pool, suddenly the mind disappears. The mind needs a corresponding body; movement in the body is movement in the mind, and no movement in the body is no movement in the mind.
So you will be missing unnecessarily, just because you were in an orphanage. That is just accidental. And it just happened that you were born in a christian country and you had to go to church and sit there; you were forced to sit -- that too was an accident. And of course an orphan cannot be really rebellious. Inside he may boil, but on the outside he has to be obedient. So that boiling is still there... you are still heated up.
This has to be dropped, otherwise you will be able to enjoy active meditations, but you will never be able to enjoy inactive meditations. And active meditations can only lead you to the porch. You only reach inside the palace by inactive meditations.
|
|
|