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(“Original Mind”, 2017, original encaustic mixed media)

Meditation Is Not

Meditation can be many things,
But it’s really not what you think.

Yet for forty five years I’ve been doing it
In one form or another
And for much of that I was trying
To achieve something or arrive somewhere,
Which was clearly something I thought.

Now, older, if not wiser, 
Certainly less energetic or motivated,
I find it’s obviously not what I expect it to be.
And in the freshness of the moment,
Where striving and method have dropped away,
What is left is nothing 
If not fresh.

Fresh doesn’t necessarily mean cool or desirable
It most definitely doesn’t mean exciting
Or even interesting.
It’s something else entirely
Something more ordinary and yet also elusive.

I thought for a long time the goal 
Was to become familiar with this
Open state or space of mind
An inner sense and sensation 
Of awareness and peace.

Now I see that even “becoming familiar”
Misses the mark
And that neither awareness nor space
Can ever be a goal
When both are the given of every moment.

What comes and goes is joy and pain.
These are the thing we get hung up on
Desiring to have one and reject the other.
They are the qualities of living,
And the obstacles to meditation.

Meditation is not what you think,
It may seem like it’s what breaks through 
And surprises us
When we least expect it.

But it’s actually what we’re left with
When even that falls away.

(3/4/25)

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