Meditation is a journey into the unknown.
The experience of sitting and being perfectly free, unattached and unreactive allows all concepts in our minds to drift away.
You see, we mostly live in a conceptual reality.
What is Conceptual Reality?
The vast majority of what we experience are concepts – ideas that take the form of perception through habit and familiarity.
The conceptual reality we live in is constantly reinforced by our use of language.
I’m looking at something sitting here on the table in front of me.
I usually call it a coffee cup. But of course, this is not a coffee cup.
A coffee cup is just an idea, but I perceive this thing as a coffee cup in front of me.
Then we can say that the coffee cup is indeed an object, but an object is also an idea.
Perhaps it would be more correct to say that a coffee cup is actually a collection of feelings. Smoothness, hardness, curvature, firmness, etc. But wait, these are concepts too.
Pure Undifferentiated Perception
If we take this journey all the way and let go of all conceptualization, we enter the experience of pure undifferentiated perception.
It is a unity of experience without any difference. This is what is often called non-dual experience in Eastern traditions.
We would be quick to think of it as unity, but unity is a concept.
The experience I am talking about is not the experience of unity. It is the experience of not knowing.
It would be more accurate to say emptiness rather than unity, but emptiness is also a concept.
The Experience of Not Knowing
In order to enter into a truly non-conceptual relationship with the world, we must be willing to continue the experience of not knowing for a long time.
There will always be a part of us that demands resolution in the face of the uncertainty of not knowing.
This part of us will touch the unknown for a second or two, but immediately demand to know what he is experiencing.
To get this far, we must learn to rest in the unresolved, unknown space of non-conceptual awareness.
The most amazing de-conceptualization we can experience in meditation is a radical conceptualization of our sense of self.
You see that all objects around you are not only conceptualized perceptions, but you are conceptualized perceptions of yourself.
Let go
In meditation we let go of the perception of being the person we think we are.
As we let go more and more, we see how our sense of self is constructed in each moment from the combination of our feelings, memories, emotions and ideas.
All this becomes the experience of being human, which we constantly think about.
As we let go more and more, we lose even the sense of separate sensations and experience pure awareness.
We no longer exist as recognizable selves. We are there, but not in a livable way. We are consciousness.
Education
We are educators. But we are not an informed institution.
There is no existence apart from consciousness. There is only awareness.
It’s just there.
We can only be in this sacred space. We know nothing and we can do nothing. We just.
Our familiar mind will always beg for a solution when we knock on the other side of an invisible door.
“Let me in!” Is required. “Let me know what’s going on there.”
It will be tempting to open the door and let the mind find a solution by conceptualizing and satisfying the constant need to know.
If you open the door, you will inevitably begin a process that leads to the whole conceptual world you left behind.
If you avoid opening the door and learn to relax into the unknown, you will be radically prepared for unimaginable possibilities.
Staying in the unknown is the source of all creativity.
