During my own struggles developing a personal meditation practice I have often grappled with the question, “What’s the point of sitting still?”. I’m guessing I’m not unique in that I was raised in a family that put a high premium on productivity of the material kind. My grandparents on both my mother and father’s sides appeared tireless to me, personifying what I later identified as a protestant work ethic. Both my paternal grandparents were artists in the most un-bohemian way imaginable. Though they lived on a lovely wooded lake, my grandfather gave me sketching and drawing assignments in the height of the summer beauty (which was all too brief in Wisconsin) that I dutifully undertook in his studio while ski boats buzzed the lake below. My father affectionately nick-named them Rommel and Göring.
Entrained by these deeply rooted early life-lessons, my successes in embracing practices of doing nothing have been hard won but, I’m happy to say, the tangible (material?) benefits of these practices are becoming apparent to me. More interesting to me than why one should meditate is the question of what happens to our “selves” over time when we consciously choose a contemplative practice. But first, what does it mean to contemplate? Are there differences between analyzing, ruminating, and contemplating?
Analysis, while it is taken up in pursuit of understanding the true nature of things, uses the brain to do so, and while rumination comes close to the mark, neither word has made the leap into the non-mental realms of creative, sensory, & movement practices. Contemplate comes from com- intensive prefix + templum space marked out for observation of auguries (temple) and is defined as to view or consider with continued attention . You could think of it as a practice of cultivating inner quiet. My own experiences with attention have validated science’s assertion that our brains are limited in attending to more than one thing at a time (though we have become expert at the rapid context switching dubbed multi-tasking). Deep attention requires us to release thinking and attend with our whole being which is exactly what a contemplative practice is, whether it be mindfulness meditation, qigong, yoga, or art, among others. It’s a listening for that which is beyond thought.
The instant you realize you and your mother are separate beings you being to develop your concept of self. In the western world the ego is king and often it is only after we are frustrated with our own patterns of relating to the world (both people and circumstances) that we challenge our ways of being. In our culture, listening and watching might begin with the self-reflection and introspection of analysis. The process requires us to attempt to view our selves and our actions objectively as if we were an outside observer.
In attempt to make our inner observer as objective possible I suggest that the observing self has no personal agenda so It’s often described as a witness . I envision the relationship between self and observer is one being inside the other. While it might seem to make more sense conceptually (at least from a world-view centered around ego development) to place the observer inside the self, I have found it extremely helpful in my own practice to reverse this relationship: instead of the witness residing in you the relation becomes you exist in the witness.
There are countless spiritual traditions that describe the self/ego as something to be destroyed or deconstructed but one of my teachers, Richard Miller, suggests that we are, instead, to become students of our own personalities . After all, the unique gifts of an individual shape what one is able to give, and those gifts are developed in the process of ego building. I often think of the building of skills and self as adding to a large pot of soup from which we are then able to serve ourselves and others. If we arrive at a point of realization that the self we’ve been building has a greater purpose then the choices we make concerning what to place in the pot are filtered through a lens of service. Challenging our own actions and decisions in this light is a never ending process but it is supported by contemplative practices which, effectively, make our egos more permeable or transparent.
Softening the boundaries of our egos allows us to experience more overlap between our own will and the will of god. I realize I’m treading on delicate ground by introducing god into the conversation (even a lower-case god) but you are free to substitute the term of your choice (God, consciousness, the one, source, the universe, muse, void). If you are, like me, still shedding the language of a Christian upbringing, you might prefer to think of this as the dance of your self and your dharma. Through your own evolution as a human being you may find you have consciously chosen to be in this dance. The continued practice then becomes to determine who is leading as you wait for the next movement to reveal itself.
