Why go without? Go within (Q&A)

QUESTION: When I meditate, which has both the words "me" and "I," I feel so selfish and self-absorbed, like it's all about me. So shouldn't I stop? I would rather be an explorer [astronaut] than a selfish seeker [psychonaut]. You can't argue with my logic, admit it, and let me get off this mat.

We've just scratched the surface in this direction.

Space cadet gets bored with own distractions

ANSWER: Well, Doggone, with logic like that, you really have us in a bind. I mean, we don't want you to be selfish or self-absorbed. In fact, it would be good to be selfless and fully absorbed [in the object of meditation]. With killer logic like you've laid out, we realize that we are wrong, and by "we" we mean all of us -- the Buddha, the sages, the arhats, the sadhus and sadhvis (godmen and godwomen), the rishis (seers), the jinas (pathfinders), the shamans (wandering ascetics or shramanas). We've been doing this all wrong. So what you propose is that we launch our own Asian space program out in Afghanistan or Northwest India, maybe in Mohenjo-Daro or in any case somewhere near Gandhara?

Q: I don't know what those places are.

A: Of course not, yet you're sure of which direction to head, out not in?

Q: Well, no, but...

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, lift off

A: So without knowing even the general direction, you've let your mind talk you into doubt, skepticism, and more discursive thinking?

Q: Discursive?

A: Monkey Mind, going from branch to branch to branch, ceaselessly jumping around.

Q: Oh yeah, that.

A: Yet without knowing, you've never noticed how enlightened scientists are? Everyone who comes back from "space" is awake. Everyone who spends her time drinking coffee, reading data printouts, fashioning explanations is well behaved, serene, in control of their minds, inspiring, happy...

Q: No, they're none of that. They're the opposite!

A: Of course, what else would they be? Neither purifying their own minds nor encouraging others to purify theirs, they strengthen their rational powers and let everything else go to pot. They use the power of a streetlamp the way a drunk does, for support rather than illumination. They debate, they argue, they aggrandize their own theories while belittling others'. What a way to go about in search of wisdom.

Q: Yeah, well.

Calm down, Monkey. - Play with me, Homer!

A: Yeah well, what? They're harried, confused, leading others to confusion, cantankerous, amenable to nothing but argument and besting others in debates, to more and more data, rarely recognizing the biases that secretly guide their (mis-)interpretations of that "data." There is this world. Look around. Loot at it. Your lenses (all three eyes) are covered in dust, but you hope to accurately discern and make sense of what you're seeing. You have no conception of the assumptions you arrive with, like that of a "seer." That you take for granted and leave unquestioned. The suitability of the apparatus (the eye and its focus), that you leave unquestioned, with no access to assessing it.

Q: I'm starting to see.

A: Sit, turn inward, and the next time the mind misleads you to look the other direction, the direction you spent your whole life looking and trying to make sense of, note it and remain with the subject.

Q: What subject?

"Space" like dinosaurs is for kids.

A: Your subject of meditation, like the breath, or if that has been mastered (and it has not), the Elements, or the others laid out in the Four Foundations of Mindfulness Sutra. Trust that the Buddha and the arhats who confirmed his findings had something useful to say about the way to peace and enlightenment. It isn't by thinking, for if it were, all the thinkers would already be there and, by their thinking, would have talked others into seeing things their way. "Thinking" is not the way. We are really going from the ground up (rather than the top down, from experience to knowledge rather than thinking and theorizing to knowledge). It's already been done. Follow the Path.

Q: But how? It doesn't work no matter how I try!

A: Stop "trying." Start doing. Leave expectations and angst behind. The very problem you are running into is efforting, attempting to muscle it. Relax. LET GO. Let it be. You're only task is to watch. Don't think about it. See it. There it is. That is reality. Watch it unfold. What happens to a thought?

Q: It comes.

A: What else?

Q: It makes me think.

A: It makes you think? Isn't it a byproduct of your thinking?

Q: Well, yeah, but...

A: You said, "it comes." Have you ever noticed that "it goes"?

Q: Well, sure, after it hangs out a while.

Oh, this is easy. Now what? What else?

A: So don't welcome it. Simply see it. And you will see that although it comes whenever it wants to, it also goes whenever it wants to. You're not in control. When you're sitting, you're full of thoughts. But when you stand up to make sense of them, where are they? They are hardly dependable or useful. They've ruined your meditation (that is, welcoming them, conversing with them, and following them has ruined it) and then, their job done, they go away. You can't even account for them, find them now, or get back your peaceful meditation. You created this great argument against sitting and did no sitting still. The theory immediately fell apart when you ask about it, yet you cling to it as a "really good thought."

Q: I see now it wasn't.

A: And the next one won't be either. Billions have thought these thoughts, made these assumptions, thoughtlessly followed thought. Stop all that. Let it go. There's something better on the other side of confidence (the faith to believe this is not all for naught). In Zen some say, "Just be." Sort of be like that. Be content in the moment, be with the moment, just be (with it). Stop abandoning yourself. If you need inspiration for sitting, reading the lives of those who previously succeeded is inspiring, although those stories can set up expectations, hopes, and lead to frustration and a sense of futility if magic doesn't happen. Let magic happen, let it not happen, let it be.

Q: So like the Beatles.

Let's make more songs to distract everyone.

A: No, but okay. Like anything. It is. Let it be. Let it be just as it is. Don't fix it. Observe it. Your strength of observation will strengthen. Beyond sitting, there are practices the whole rest of the time to make the next sit more solid. Ever be mindful. Stay with the moment. Stop abandoning this moment and attention to it. Then, when sitting, that can be done much better. Exhale. Let the inhale happen all by itself. Just watch it. Don't "do" it.

Q: I might suffocate!

A: You won't if you relax. Most of "your" breathing is being done without you most of the time. When you notice it at the beginning of the sit, it should occur to you that "you" haven't been breathing yet breathing has been happening just fine, in fact, better than if you had.

Q: What about sports?

A: What about them?

Q: The Olympics are starting in Paris.

• Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation), Doggone, Dhr. Seven, A. Wells Wisdom Quarterly