The do-nothing revolution: meditation

Here’s how you do it: sit, notice . . . . notice . . . .notice . . . .etc. etc. . . . get up. Keep noticing . . .
See? Not too hard. Easy, even. Like, waaaaay easy!!!
You may be thinking: “Heck, everyone who has ever heard of it is probably, like, doing it, because it’s so easy, right?”

Well, not quite, but meditation has stood the test of time. It is, I think, the greatest import from the East we’ve ever known. It has crept into American culture (in addition to the cultures in Europe, Australia, South America, etc.) over my lifetime. I first encountered mention of meditation around 1970 in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, which he wrote the year I was born, 1951. Now you can find it nearly everywhere: in TV shows, in advertising, in executive offices, and on every college campus. (See “The Prize of Meditation,” page 20, and “Zen of Science,” page 8.) The reason for meditation’s success is that many people who start meditating keep meditating. We can reliably assume it’s because they like meditation’s effects. In many cases, a lot! So some of those people teach it, or form institutes, and it keeps growing.

As for meditation being so easy that everyone is doing it? It just sounds easy. Sitting and noticing means sitting with your mental chatter and stuff. At least at first. It would be nice if you could sit for 30 minutes with just the sounds of birds singing and the breeze in the pines, and the sensations of your breath flowing in and out. With practice, you can. It’s heavenly. But at first most likely the birds will be drowned out by your interior conversation/argument/memory-re-runs/problem-solving/dreaming. Oh yes, and sleepiness.

All this mental talk and image stuff is good, meditation instructors will tell you. Sleepiness is OK too. Well, with many kinds of meditation, everything that happens is OK.

Sit. Keep noticing.

Sound boring? Sure it is. Notice how “boring” looks/feels/sounds. Sound like a waste of time? (Of which you never have enough, right?) Sure it is. This is the ULTIMATE waste of time. Notice how “wasting time” feels.

You get the picture. And the big picture is of thousands of people doing this sort of thing every day for from 10 to 60 minutes. Some focus on a sound or a word; some aim their attention on their breathing. Some repeat a prayer to themselves. But in all cases no one is accomplishing anything, not in the usual sense. Doesn’t this sound un-American, where we glorify pluck, ambition, creativity, competition, teamwork, success and winning?” You could even brand this meditation thing a “revolution of sitting around doing nothing!!”

If you have meditated for a while, either recently or in your past, you know about the pay-off. You likely know why others would spend their valuable time this way. If you haven’t meditated, I’ll tell you. Sitting and noticing regularly for a while gives you your life back, the way it was when you were little, before your mind took over to talk/argue/remember/problem-solve and worry, worry, worry.

Boring? Time-wasting? Frustrating? Pointless?

Yes, all that. And worth the trouble. Even . . . revolutionary.

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