Many picture a meditator sitting cross-legged, perfectly motionless before a breathtaking sunset, wearing a stereotyped, glazed smile.
Others think meditating means freezing like a stone Buddha statue — petrified!
Nothing could be further from the truth.
When you meditate, you can move if your body asks you to. If your nose itches, scratch it. You adjust your posture to sit comfortably on a chair or with crossed legs without strain, back comfortably supported by a soft cushion. When you are relaxed and at ease, everything unfolds better. You do not need to suffer. Suffering has been imposed on us culturally to keep us docile and ignorant.
Just keep your neck loose, because that is where coarse physical stress releases. During meditation you will notice it, gently ease your neck, hear a soft pleasant release, and then continue your practice as subtler tensions dissolve.
You can even keep a notepad and pen beside you. Frequently during meditation, intuitive answers to unresolved problems emerge — breakthrough ideas for creative projects, art, work, or scientific research.
Meditating means taking a subtle dive into our deepest interior, toward the field of all possibilities where thought and life originate. It is like sleeping with lucid alertness. As in sleep, we pass through distinct phases, and intuitive insight surfaces clearly. If a truly worthy insight emerges, write it down quickly and gently return to meditating. Let all other ordinary thoughts drift away.
You simply become acute, sharp, and perceptive. Pretentious sanctity, moralistic virtue-signaling, and passive daydreaming do not belong to the meditator. A meditator aims simply to be impeccable. Nothing more. Everything else is hot air.
Thank you.
MA