Meditation Is Total Relaxation Without Distraction

‘Without distraction’ is neither falling into vacancy nor circling thoughts.

Being aware of the dream states of both vacancy and thoughts shows us the state we are in, and that’s good. Merely recognising these states means we are back in awareness. Meditation isn’t mental gymnastics of trying to do something or to look good.

Don’t be disappointed if you fall into these alternative states.
Celebrate!
You noticed – you just woke up!

Too often, meditation groups represent meditators as positive, smiley people who ‘appear’ to have got it. This is the peaceful approach, which is prone to apathy, but there is also a wrathful approach of negative emotions that is more dynamic.

We can ascend through aversion as well as desire.
Strong emotions can awaken us by brightening the mind.

(According to Tibetan Buddhism, in deity practices and the Bardo of the experience after death, there are peaceful deities of clear light who come to invite us to their higher realms, together with beings of soft light who invite us to the lower realms. This happens – so text says – in the first week after death. In the second week, for those who have ignored the peaceful deities, they come again as wrathful deities – wrathful love 🙂 It all depends on our disposition, as in daily life; we usually ignore all appearances, and therefore reincarnate into some suitable form.)

In meditation, short moments many times stops us going to sleep, or drifting off into thoughts. It keeps it fresh. The result of meditation is more clarity in daily life, and being less reactionary.

Deeper meditation is realising that, if we are not vacant or lost in thoughts – and nothing else such as ‘experiencing’ is going on – that is non-duality, without a meditator. Just pure awareness, pure consciousness, pure knowingness, pure perception.