The Myth of Seeking and the Reality of Simple Meditation

Silence isn't something we practice. It is what appears when the seeker stops seeking. But who is seeking? And what are they looking for? When we truly look, we find there’s no one there doing the looking. Just this—open, aware, already complete. We often spend our lives looking for the donkey while we are already sitting on its back. This is the curious condition of the separate self: searching for an "absolute" or a "totality" that it already inhabits, as if a wave were frantically swimming through the ocean to find water. There is a common misunderstanding that we must do something to reach a state of grace. We are told that through a **simple meditation** or a specific technique, we will eventually arrive at a destination called awakening. But liberation is never *of* the separate self; it is always *from* the separate self. The body-mind is a functional unit, a relational mode of putting together thoughts and physical sensations, but it is not a container for a "you" that can achieve spiritual goals. Whether this body-mind is functioning perfectly or is caught in dysfunction, it is all equally the absolute. The generous act and the selfish act, the silence and the noise—they are all the same iridescent energy dancing in the void. Many people come to a **simple meditation** looking for a way to improve their horizontal life. They want to be more focused, less stressed, or more "spiritual." There is nothing wrong with wanting to feel better. If sitting in silence brings comfort now, that is a natural expression of being. But let’s be frank: it won’t lead you to a future enlightenment because there is no such thing as a future enlightenment. The absolute is vertical. It is now. It is the screen upon which the film of your life is projected. The characters in the film may suffer, they may go on long journeys to find a hidden treasure, but the screen is never changed by the plot. The screen doesn't need to "awaken" from the movie. We often hear about the importance of the "present moment," as if the present were a place we could visit or a state we could maintain. But to try to go into the present is a logical trap. If we aren't "there," where could we possibly be? Even the distraction, the wandering mind, and the feeling of being a separate seeker are expressions of the totality. There is no such thing as being "out of the present." There is only the illusion that there is a "me" who can stand outside of what is happening. We might use a **simple meditation** to notice that the observer—the one who thinks they are watching their thoughts—is just another thought. When that witness falls away, there is just the sitting, just the hearing, just the breathing. No one is doing it. It is happening by itself, spontaneously and impersonally. Some say that we must cultivate silence to find the truth. But silence is the background of every noise, just as the space in this room is the background for the furniture.