The Donkey and the Rider: Why Meditation for Quieting the Mind is Not a Destination

It is a strange comedy we find ourselves in, isn't it? We spend years, perhaps decades, looking for the donkey while we are already sitting firmly on its back. We run across the globe, jump from one retreat to another, and download every possible app for meditation for quieting the mind, all while the very thing we seek is the one doing the seeking. But who is this seeker? And what could possibly be found that isn't already here, staring us in the face? We often talk about liberation as if it were a trophy for the "me," a gold medal for the separate self to hang around its neck. But liberation is never of the "me"—it is always from the "me." The separate self is not a solid entity, a captain steering the ship of your life; it is a function, a relational mode, a way the body-mind tries to organize its experience in the world. It’s like a wave that forgets it is the ocean and starts worrying about its height or its speed. The wave doesn't need to become the ocean. It already is the ocean, even when it’s crashing, even when it’s messy, even when it feels like a failure. When we sit in silence, we aren't building a ladder to the sky. Many people use meditation for quieting the mind as a way to fix themselves, to "kill time" or to polish the separate self until it shines with spiritual light. But listen to how violent that sounds: "killing time." We treat time like an enemy to be defeated because we are terrified of what happens when the movement stops. We are so devoted to keeping our lives in motion that we miss the fact that the absolute is present in the agony and the ecstasy alike. The totality includes everything—the perfect and the imperfect, the generosity and the exploitation, the noise and the quiet. There is no this moment because there is nowhere to go. There is no "there" that isn't "here." If we use meditation for quieting the mind to reach a state of peace, we are just playing another game of the separate self. We might find a beautiful state of quiet, a "Samadhi" so pleasant that we want to hide there forever, but that's just another trap. The texts often warn us: if you use silence as an escape, you're missing the rest of the dance. The totality is not just the deep, abyssal silence of the ocean floor; it is also the crashing roar of the waves on the surface. Think about the breath. It is a natural alternation of inhaling and exhaling. You cannot just inhale forever. In our current world, we are obsessed with the "active mode"—the doing, the manipulating, the problem-solving. We think that if we just think hard enough, we can solve the problem of our own existence. But the "passive mode" is just as vital. It’s the act of letting the world in, of being the space where everything happens. Silence is like the space between the notes; without it, the music is just a solid wall of noise. This isn't something you achieve through effort; it's a natural opening that happens when you stop trying to "do" something with the present moment.