The Open Secret of Being: Why Mindfulness Meditation Healing is Already Here

Silence is not something we practice. It is what appears when the seeker finally stops seeking. But who is seeking? And what exactly are we looking for? We often move through life with a separate self that feels incomplete, convinced that if we just find the right technique or the perfect teacher, we will finally achieve a state of lasting peace. We treat mindfulness meditation healing as a ladder to reach a destination called enlightenment, yet we fail to see that the ladder itself is part of the dream. There is no distance to travel because there is nowhere to go. Think of the separate self as someone wearing glasses. The glasses are so close to the eyes that we don't see them as objects; instead, we see everything through them. We believe the thoughts, the worries, and the internal dialogue are who we are. We are possessed by thoughts, multitasking through the day, barely noticing the flow of mental images until someone asks us what we are thinking. When we try to look for our true nature, it is like looking through a window at a beautiful landscape. We are so mesmerized by the details—the clouds, the trees, the people passing by—that we never notice our own reflection on the glass. We are told to look closer, to observe the details of the landscape with more intensity, but looking at the objects of the world more closely only confirms the habit of looking through the glass rather than at what is already reflected on the surface. The reflection is not hidden in the depths. It doesn't require years of digging or a complex awakening process. It is right there on the surface, closer than the landscape itself. This is what is meant by the open secret. It is perfectly visible, yet we miss it because we are looking for something "spiritual" or "transcendental" in the distance. We use practices to try and fix the body-mind, hoping to reach a state where the mind is always calm. But the nature of the mind is like the sky; it is not meant to be clear all the time. Sometimes there are clouds, sometimes there is a storm. To think we can achieve a permanent state of mental quiet through effort is a road that has no end. We might find that mindfulness meditation healing brings a sense of comfort or relaxation in the moment, and that is perfectly fine. It can be a way to take the glasses off and put them on the table, observing the thoughts as objects rather than being lost in them. This position of the witness—where we say "I am not my thoughts, I am not my body"—is a useful tool for disidentification, but we must be frank: the witness is still a form of duality. It creates a division between the one who sees and what is seen. It suggests there is a "me" that is conscious of "that." In reality, there is no one standing behind the curtain. There are moments when the observer simply falls away. There is just the sitting, just the hearing, just the seeing, without anyone claiming the experience.