Same Things but With A Little More Peace

3 days ago, I woke up at around 4:30AM. I couldn’t sleep because I had a lot on my mind, I hadn’t slept well that night either — I have dreams that seem like thoughts, involuntary thoughts. My mind goes on and on like a dog off-leash following scents.

Then I remembered that I could break the ceaseless chatter with meditation. I did it, and it worked. I used to practice meditation sometime back but I somehow gradually stopped, it faded off like an old tattoo. The meditation I practice is a combination of body function awareness aimed at returning myself to the moment. Breath, bodily sensations, heartbeat rhythm etc. all within the body with the aim of returning to the moment. It helps that I already have some ‘by default’ ongoing awareness — this has shortened the amount of time it takes for me to get into presence. Once I am in presence while meditating I let it soak me up, at this point, the mind in form of thoughts becomes powerless. My mind becomes crystal clear, no noise, this state is able to sustain me the whole day. I feel relaxed and not much bothered by thoughts and at relative peace.

The meditation allows me to have a quiet mind by breaking involuntary thoughts. This way I am peaceful. I do similar things in my day but with a little more peace. I am not yet sure about where I am going in this life, but wherever it is, I wish to arrive at without jeopardizing my peace in the process. My experience of life so far seems to have been of more pain than ease, I am aware that because we are more sensitive to pain, there might be a little bit exaggeration in that statement but that is how it seems so far.

I have read a lot about Kapil Gupta’s work, he mentions that meditation or any practicing of any austerity or penance doesn’t get one anywhere (no permanent arrival) because it is a prescription. I understand that intellectually to be true by comparing results. Despite practicing this austerity or that austerity there is still fear, anxiety, non peace etc. He also argued that for the person who has attained some level of truth, meditation might be of use to them, he mentioned a case of a Tibetan monk in the cold who wants to generate inner heat or cultivate ‘Tummo’ in order to survive. He can use meditation for that, it is not cosmetic.

Involuntary thoughts for me generate a lot of suffering in the form of emotional pain. This is my reason to meditate. Once my mind is off, there is no more suffering for me, there is no regret, there is no desire, no attachment, no identification with anything, I am left alone in peace. I live and work in the city, and for this reason it becomes necessary to indulge in thought, this is why I have to meditate every morning to return back to equanimity. I will be doing this every morning. Not as an adherence to prescription or an ideal, but because I have found it to relieve me of suffering that comes from thought.

Whether a human admits it or not. He suffers because of his mind. His tortures, his fears, his worries, his anxieties, his insecurities, his non peace arises from his mind, nowhere else. This is the place that he examines the least, he things his suffering comes from circumstance, so he goes on a conquest to fix the world and he therefore sentences himself to a lifetime of chasing but never finding…