The Donkey and the Rider: Why Every Meditation Minute is Already the Totality

We often spend our entire lives in a state of frantic distraction, looking for the donkey while we are already riding it. We search for peace, for awareness, or for some grand spiritual transformation, failing to notice that the very thing we are looking for is the one doing the looking. This is the paradox of the seeker. We have been told that there is a journey to undertake, a path to walk, and a goal to achieve, but who is it that is supposed to make this journey? If we look closely at this body-mind, we find that the separate self we identify with is not a solid entity at all. It is a function, a relational modality that stitches together thoughts and sensations, but it has no independent substance. Liberation is never for this separate self; it is liberation *from* the separate self. When we sit together for a meditation minute, it is vital to understand that we are not "doing" anything. This is not a practice. It is not a technique designed to lead you to a higher state of consciousness or a more refined version of yourself. There is no "you" to improve. The absolute, the totality of what is, already includes everything—the perfect and the imperfect, the generosity and the greed, the silence and the noise. Silence is not the absence of sound; it is the ground that allows sound to exist. It is like the screen upon which a film is projected. The characters in the movie may suffer, they may seek, they may win or lose, but the screen remains untouched, ever-present, and completely indifferent to the plot. Many of us are drawn to silence because the world feels too loud, too crowded with spiritual chatter and the demands of the separate self. We look for a space where we don't have to be "someone." In those moments where we simply sit without deliberate action, we are not practicing a skill. We are allowing the tizio—that character in us who is always expecting something from the next moment—to step aside. When that expectation vanishes, what is left? There is a simple, innegabile presence. It is the same presence that exists in deep, dreamless sleep, where there is no separation, no "me" and "other," only a profound and regenerative oneness. Upon waking, the first thing that emerges is "I." Before it becomes a name, a profession, or a history, it is a primary opening of conscious presence. It is the sense of "I am." This "I am" is not a destination; it is the condition that allows any experience to appear at all. Without this aware presence, nothing appears. Yet, we immediately clutter this presence with the concepts of time and space. We create a "before" and an "after," a "here" and a "there," and suddenly the separate self feels lost in a journey through time. But the absolute is vertical, not horizontal. It isn't found at the end of a long road of self-improvement. It is here, now, in this very meditation minute, regardless of whether the mind is calm or chaotic.