Some people have a mistaken idea that all thoughts disappear through meditation and we enter a state of blankness. There certainly are times of great tranquility when concentration is strong and we have few, if any, thoughts. But other times, we can be flooded with memories, plans or random thinking. It's important not to blame yourself.
Interpretation
Meditation does not eliminate all thoughts, and experiencing a range of thoughts during meditation is normal.
This quote by Sharon Salzberg highlights a common misconception about meditation—that it leads to a complete absence of thoughts. In reality, meditation can fluctuate between periods of calm and times filled with various thoughts, including memories and future plans. Understanding this can help practitioners avoid self-judgment and embrace the natural flow of their mental experiences during meditation.
In practice
During a meditation workshop, someone might share this quote to illustrate the range of experiences one can have.
It doesn't matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn't matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years - we turn on the light and it is illuminated. Once we control our capacity for love and happiness, the light has been turned on.
Patience doesn't mean making a pact with the devil of denial, ignoring our emotions and aspirations. It means being wholeheartedly engaged in the process that's unfolding, rather than ripping open a budding flower or demanding a caterpillar hurry up and get that chrysalis stage over with.
To be truly happy in this world is a revolutionary act...It is a radical change of view that liberates us so that we know who we are most deeply and can acknowledge our enormous ability to love.
The critical element in meditation practice is beginning again. Everyone loses focus at times, everyone loses interest at times, and everyone gets distracted over and over again. What is essential, and also incredibly transforming, is realizing that we have the ability to begin again, without blaming or judging ourselves, without thinking we have failed, without losing heart, we can, and need to, constantly be beginning again.
It's a rare and precious thing to be close to suffering because our society - in many ways - tells us that suffering is wrong. If it's our own suffering, we try to hide it or isolate ourselves. If others are suffering, we're taught to put them away somewhere so we don't have to see it.
Doing nothing means unplugging from the compulsion to always keep ourselves busy, the habit of shielding ourselves from certain feelings, the tension of trying to manipulate our experience before we even fully acknowledge what that experience is.
Like a twisted olive tree in its 500th year, giving then its finest fruit, is man. How can he give forth wisdom until he has been crushed and turned in the Hand of God.
Only in silence I find myself. Life in the city is so hectic that you lose the right perspective. It's important to know that our biggest resources are in our heart.
Wise men make more opportunities than they find.
But they who give straight judgements to strangers and to those of the land and do not transgress what is just, for them the city flourishes and its people prosper.
Do you know the hallmark of the second-rater? It's resentment of another man's achievement.
The way to get on in the world is to be neither more nor less wise, neither better nor worse than your neighbours.
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