The Bliss of the Unknown

Twenty three years ago, I participated in a 60-day retreat that was utterly and completely life transforming. The circumstances of the retreat were extraordinary, involving eight months of intense preparation before starting. I can honestly say that the essence of everything that I teach was revealed to me during those 60 days. I kept a journal during the retreat and I published the most important excerpts in a book called The Miracle of Meditation. On day five I wrote:

Today I experimented with the possibility of being able to do the practice while even letting go of the effort I was making to do the practice. It felt like meditating on autopilot. I was making the same effort, but I was resisting the temptation to be concerned about the process of doing it. Just making the effort because it needed to be done. It felt like letting the effort make itself without me needing to be there.

What you discover in meditation is that you are not the thinker. You are the awareness that is aware of thinking, but thinking itself is just a habitual process. It's simply the unfolding of patterns of thought and feeling. You are not the thinker, you are the awareness that is aware of thinking.

In the same way, you are not the meditator, you are the awareness that is aware of meditating. You do not have to be active to meditate. Once you sit with the intention to meditate, meditation will happen all by itself, with or without you. When we are involved in the process of meditation, which means being involved in letting go of this and that and getting caught here and releasing there, then meditation becomes tedious, boring, and effortful. All of that effort is not true meditation. All of that letting go, getting caught, and releasing can all go on without us even needing to pay attention to it.

When you start meditating you are firmly convinced that you are the meditator, so you are very busy meditating. If you keep going, eventually you will realize that all of that busyness is just happening. None of it is you being busy. It's just your mind being busy. You realize that your mind is busy with the habit of meditating, and when you do, you simply observe the meditation happening. You're not the one doing it anymore. You're the one watching it happen. Meditation gets so much easier when you're just watching it happen.

Eventually it gets boring watching the meditation happen. You see your attention get captured in one thought and then released into another one, then captured by a feeling and released into another. You become convinced by the idea that you are busy meditating and then you realize it is all just happening. These cycles just keep repeating over and over and over. It's fascinating for a while, but eventually it’s boring. It never changes, it just keeps going. Sooner or later, you will start to wonder if you could stop watching it altogether. Can you just let the mind do whatever it wants to without needing to watch it?

Eventually, you will stop watching your mind and your attention will drift away from everything you know and eventually come to rest in the mystery of what cannot be known. We are so addicted to knowing. It's difficult for us to be comfortable not knowing. But with practice, we get used to it. And eventually we prefer not knowing. The bliss of pure being becomes the only thing we want. Resting in the perfect oblivion of the unknown is utterly captivating. On the twelfth day of the retreat I mentioned earlier, I wrote this:

At times in meditation it becomes blindingly obvious that nothing I am doing or ever could do will ever bring me any nearer to the unknown. In those moments I feel overwhelmed by the awesome nature of that which is truly and eternally mysterious and I am moved to tears by the knowledge that I could never touch it with my mind. It is and will always be unknowable. I am deeply moved by the pristine and immaculate state of that which can never be approached by the mind. And by my own recognition that beneath the veneer of mind, I am that.

Meditation means abiding in the unknowable. It means ignoring everything you know and resisting the temptation to try to know anything more. If you are trying to know the unknowable, you will be busy forever, fruitlessly. As soon as you stop trying to know the unknowable, the very instant you stop trying to know that which cannot be known, it will become obvious that is all around you everywhere. We are always surrounded by the mystery of being. As soon as we stop being distracted by everything we think we know the source of existence is there. And that pure awareness, consciousness without thought, is our true self.

On day 17 of the retreat I wrote:
Once you move away from a thought or a feeling, really move away. Really take your attention off of it without peeking behind you. Once that happens, it is literally as if the thought was never there. You pick up right where you left off in a space of no time and no thought. Just letting everything be as it is. You can go as far and as deep as you want to in this. Nothing can stop you.

In meditation, find a way to be comfortable knowing nothing. Relax into the bliss of pure being. Give up the effort, give up the work and the struggle, and resist the temptation to do anything, know anything, or be anywhere besides here.