One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious. The latter procedure, however, is disagreeable and therefore not popular.
(Carl Jung: The Philosophical Tree; Collected Works 13: Alchemical Studies. Paragraph 335)
Shunryu Suzuki described the true practice of seated meditation as “just sitting”, meaning that “doing something” in the act of sitting has ceased. I believe, as Gautama the Buddha said, that the cessation of “doing something” in speech, body, or mind is a contact of freedom.
I don’t think the integration of childhood memories, pre-speech memories, and inured emotional responses can take place apart from that cessation of “doing something” in the body and mind and that contact of freedom.
I practice more now, as I see that the cessation I experience in “just sitting” helps to provide a sense of timing in my life, a sense of timing that seems related to a whole beyond what I can know.
I’m not looking to become enlightened, or to make the darkness conscious.
… time, just as it is, is being, and being is all time.
(Dogen: “Uji (Being-Time)”; “The Heart of Dōgen’s Shōbōgenzō”, tr by Waddell, Norman; Abe, Masao. SUNY Press. 2001. p 48)