Here Awake Just This

“As I use the word, meditation… simply means being here, in stillness, without all the usual things that absorb the attention—simply being present and aware of what is, as it is—allowing it all to be as it is, without trying to manipulate or control it, without judging, labeling or telling stories about it. Not trying to get into any special state or accomplish anything; not trying to get rid of anything that shows up. And if controlling, judging, labeling, trying, resisting or story-telling happens, as it may, then it means simply seeing that clearly for what it is, feeling how that movement of thought shows up in the body as sensations, and allowing it all to reveal itself and fall away in its own time…

For moments at a time, whether that is a few seconds between clients, or an hour in the morning or before bed, or while riding the bus to work, or sitting in a waiting room—instead of being constantly busy with doing something, reading something, saying something, knitting something, consuming food or information, checking our phones, our email or our social media, or thinking about everything—meditation is simply being still. Being aware. Being present. Just being. Doing nothing at all…

Meditation is seeing and knowing the nature of reality directly, not as knowledge but as immediate experiencing and being. Then we’re not just picking up a belief or an idea that “There is no self” or that “I am infinite Consciousness,” but we are actually discovering and realizing (making real) all this for ourselves. We’re allowing it to permeate every fiber of our being, so that it becomes ever-more felt and embodied as our living reality. Experiences always come and go, so that doesn’t mean having some perpetual experience of bliss or oneness or thoughtless presence, or never again feeling tense or contracted or lost in thought. It simply means being awake Here-Now. Not as “me” becoming better and better, but as consciousness itself, awakening from its own dream.”
~ Joan Tollifson, TRUE MEDITATION: Realization Beyond Belief

“Whenever suffering or confusion appears, it means that consciousness is lost in thought, entranced in a kind of hypnotic dream-world. It has forgotten that it is the whole ocean, and it is identifying itself as a particular wave and then trying desperately to survive as that wave, trying to be a successful wave. It is even seeking the ocean! When there is a recognition that no wave exists apart from the ocean, when there is no imaginary separation between “me” and this present happening, suffering ends. The problem vanishes, and I vanish as that imaginary somebody who seemingly needs to make something of myself and save the world and figure everything out and shift into some higher state of consciousness. There is simply this present moment, just as it is.”
~ Joan Tollifson, Nothing to Grasp