The Open Secret: Beyond the Mindfulness Meditation Definition Psychology

We often find ourselves caught in a relentless search for something more, something deeper, as if the current moment were merely a waiting room for a future realization. We look at the world through the lens of a separate self, much like someone wearing glasses who has forgotten they are on their nose. Because these "glasses"—our thoughts and internal dialogues—are so close to us, we don't see them as objects. Instead, we see everything through them, believing the tinted, distorted view they provide is the absolute truth of reality. This is the state of being "thought," where we are possessed by a stream of semi-conscious mental chatter while we go about our daily tasks, like cutting vegetables or driving. In the common mindfulness meditation definition psychology often provides, there is a suggestion that by observing these thoughts, we can achieve a better state of mind or a more balanced life. And while it is true that sitting in silence may bring comfort now, or that noticing the "glasses" on our nose allows us to set them on the table and see them as separate objects, we must ask: who is doing the observing? This position of the "witness"—the one who says "I am not my body, I am not my thoughts, I am the consciousness"—is perhaps the ultimate form of duality. It creates a new separation between the observer and the observed. It is a useful tool for liberation from the immediate tyranny of the mind, but it is only a half-truth. It still implies a "me" that is standing apart from the flow of life. The reality we are speaking of is not a journey to be traveled or a goal to be achieved. There is no this moment because there is nowhere to go. You are already the totality. When we talk about the separate self, we are talking about a function, a psychological unit that manages the body-mind in its environment. This function can be efficient or chaotic, caring or harmful, but all of it—the "perfect" and the "imperfect," the anger and the peace—is already the absolute. The waves on the surface of the ocean do not need to "achieve" being water; they are water in every state, whether the sea is calm or a storm is raging. Many seekers become frustrated because they find that after an intensive retreat, the mind eventually returns to its old habits. They think they have failed or lost their progress. But the nature of the mind is like the sky; it is not meant to be perpetually clear. Sometimes there are clouds, sometimes there is lightning. Seeking a permanent state of mental quiet is a road without an end because it treats the mind as something that needs to be fixed. But who said the mind must be quiet for the absolute to be present? The absolute is the silence that underlies the noise, much like the silence that allows a sound to be heard. They exist simultaneously. We often look through the window at the landscape, searching for the "truth" in the details of the clouds, the trees, and the people passing by.