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)
I can relate to “just sitting” without needing to do anything. just watching the sun come up, the wind blow, the birds singing. We are taught that we always have to do something or change something, or be someone.
“I know that while my father, the Sakyan, was ploughing, and I was sitting in the cool shade of a rose-apple tree, aloof from pleasures of the senses, aloof from unskilled states of mind, I entered on the first meditation, which is accompanied by initial thought and discursive thought, is born of aloofness, and is rapturous and joyful, and while abiding therein, I thought: ‘Now could this be a way to awakening?’ Then, following on my mindfulness, Aggivissana, there was the consciousness: This is itself the Way to awakening. This occurred to me, Aggivissana: ‘Now, am I afraid of that happiness which is happiness apart from sense-pleasures, apart from unskilled states of mind?’ This occurred to me…: I am not afraid of that happiness which is happiness apart from sense-pleasures, apart from unskilled states of mind.’”
(MN 1 246-247, Vol I pg 301)
There’s an effort to be made sometimes, and I find myself looking to see whether or not the effort results in the kind of happiness Gautama described. I feel better about it, when it does! 😉