“For this reason the experience of the self is always a defeat for the ego.” – C.G. Jung
For 15 years I have been a daily meditator, with some disruptions, after years of approaching and running away from meditation. What finally helped me to connect with the practice was realizing that I had an faulty expectation: I believed that my mind had to be utterly still and quiet for it to count as “meditation.”
Instead, sitting practice confronted me with how much my mind lacked in stillness and quiet, and the discomfort I felt in being with my full experience. Deciding this meant I couldn’t do it, I walked away until I found a teacher. And then I realized: seeing with clarity the busyness of my mind is a validation that I was meditating.
The practice is not to be calm and quiet, the practice is to notice and return to breathing. Over and over again. A paradox of meditation is that when we are too attached to quiet or calm as outcomes, we are cultivating an essential nonacceptance of our experience, and it is this nonacceptance that troubles and disturbs the mind.
One of the teachers with whom I meditate speaks of the pail of water, and allowing its contents to settle. “Trying” to make the water settle only disturbs it more. Simply waiting and allowing the water to settle is all one can do.
Even still, after years of practice, I find myself frustrated with the busyness of mind and getting caught up in my thoughts. My judging parts say I “should be further along” in self-mastery.
A few weeks ago, sitting with a group, I noticed that part of me that was so frustrated at the lack of stillness, and realized, “This part of me that wants quiet is so loud.”
Imagine a child accidentally spilling a glass of water, and then you yelling at the child, “I WANT SOME PEACE AND QUIET!” And now the child is upset and agitated. You’ve cultivated more disturbance than you would have simply allowing the water to be spilled.
I was still trying to push away parts of myself and parts of my experience, instead of being with them. An idea of “mastery” suggests a superlative will, that a spiritual person of power has such control over one’s experiences that they are never disturbed unless they wish it to be so. This concept carries with it much blame and baggage that causes us to miss the mark.
The opposing reflection of this idea of mastery might be a kind of divine victimhood, a complacency in accepting that nothing may be controlled and there is no will, we are simply being suffering things happening to us at all times and to be at peace with that.
When the Master and the Victim stand, however, between them lies the path. Discipline and surrender cease to be in conflict and instead become the guardrails that support us in staying on the bridge. We surrender to what is, and we practice.
Since that noticing, my sitting practice has deepened. I find myself returning to a strong posture and feeling the sweat of effort, and I find all the parts of me that want attention are present but able to sit with me. And, indeed, I feel quieter.
