What is Meditation?
What is meditation? - because this whole Heart Sutra is about the innermost
core of meditation. Let us go into it.
The first thing: meditation is not concentration. In concentration there is a
self concentrating and there is an object being concentrated upon. There is
duality. In meditation there is nobody inside and nothing outside. It is not
concentration. There is no division between the in and the out. The in goes on
flowing into the out, the out goes on flowing into the in. The demarcation, the
boundary, the border, no longer exists. The in is out, the out is in; it is a
nondual consciousness.
Concentration is a dual consciousness: that′s why concentration creates
tiredness; that′s why when you concentrate you feel exhausted. And you cannot
concentrate for twenty-four hours, you will have to take holidays to rest.
Concentration can never become your nature. Meditation does not tire, meditation
does not exhaust you. Meditation can become a twenty-four hour thing - day in,
day out, year in, year out. It can become eternity. It is relaxation itself.
Concentration is an act, a willed act. Meditation is a state of no will, a state
of inaction. It is relaxation. One has simply dropped into one′s own being, and
that being is the same as the being of all. In concentration there is a plan, a
projection, an idea. In concentration the mind functions out of a conclusion:
you are doing something. Concentration comes out of the past.
In meditation there is no conclusion behind it. You are not doing anything in
particular, you are simply being. It has no past to it, it is uncontaminated by
the past. It has no future to it, it is pure of all future. It is what Lao Tzu
has called wei-wu-wei, action through inaction. This is what Zen masters have
been saying: Sitting silently doing nothing, the spring comes and the grass
grows by itself. Remember, ′by itself′ - nothing is being done. You are not
pulling the grass upwards; the spring comes and the grass grows by itself. That
state - when you allow life to go on its own way, when you don′t want to direct
it, when you don′t want to give any control to it, when you are not
manipulating, when you are not enforcing any discipline on it - that state of
pure undisciplined spontaneity, is what meditation is.
Meditation is in the present, pure present. Meditation is immediacy. You cannot
meditate, but you can be in meditation; you cannot be in concentration, but you
can concentrate. Concentration is human, meditation is divine.
Concentration has a center in you; from that center it comes. Concentration has
a self in you. In fact the man who concentrates very much starts gathering a
very strong self. He starts becoming more and more powerful, he starts becoming
more and more an integrated will. He will look more collected, more one piece.
The man of meditation does not become powerful: he becomes silent, he becomes
peaceful. Power is created out of conflict; all power is out of friction. Out of
friction comes electricity. You can create electricity out of water: when the
river falls from a mountainside there is friction between the river and the
rocks, and the friction creates energy. That′s why people who are seeking power
are always fighting. Fight creates energy. It is always through friction that
energy is created, power is created. The world goes into war again and again
because the world is too dominated by the idea of power. You cannot be powerful
without fighting.
Meditation brings peace. Peace has its own power, but that is an altogether
different phenomenon. The power that is created out of friction is violent,
aggressive, male. The power - I am using the word because there is no other word
- the power that comes out of peace, is feminine. It has a grace to it. It is
passive power, it is receptivity, it is openness. It is not out of friction;
that′s why it is not violent.
Buddha is powerful, powerful in his peace, in his silence. He is as powerful as
a roseflower, he′s not powerful like an atom bomb. He′s as powerful as the smile
of a child... very fragile, very vulnerable; but he′s not as powerful as a
sword. He is powerful, as a small earthen lamp, the small flame burning bright
in the dark night. It is a totally different dimension of power. This power is
what we call divine power. It is out of non-friction.
Concentration is a friction: you fight with your own mind. You try to focus the
mind in a certain way, towards a certain idea, towards a certain object. You
force it, you bring it back again and again. It tries to escape, it runs away,
it goes astray, it starts thinking of a thousand and one things, and you bring
it again and you force it. You go into a self-fight. Certainly power is created;
that power is as harmful as any other power, that power is as dangerous as any
other power. That power will again be used to harm somebody, because the power
that comes out of friction is violence. Something out of violence is going to be
violent, it is going to be destructive. The power that comes out of peace,
non-friction, non-fight, non-manipulation, is the power of a roseflower, the
power of a small lamp, the power of a child smiling, the power of a woman
weeping, the power that is in tears and in the dewdrops. It is immense but not
heavy; it is infinite but not violent.
Concentration will make you a man of will. Meditation will make you an
emptiness.
That′s what Buddha is saying to Sariputra. Prajnaparamita means exactly
′meditation, the wisdom of the beyond′.
You cannot bring it but you can be open to it. You need not do anything to bring
it into the world - you cannot bring it; it is beyond you. You have to disappear
for it to come. The mind has to cease for meditation to be. Concentration is
mind effort; meditation is a state of no-mind. Meditation is pure awareness,
meditation has no motive in it.
Meditation is the tree that grows without a seed: that is the miracle of
meditation, the magic, the mystery. Concentration has a seed in it: you
concentrate for a certain purpose, there is motive, it is motivated. Meditation
has no motive. Then why should one meditate if there is no motive?
Meditation comes into existence only when you have looked into all motives and
found them lacking, when you have gone through the whole round of motives and
you have seen the falsity of it. You have seen that the motives lead nowhere,
that you go on moving in circles; you remain the same. The motives go on and on
leading you, driving you, almost driving you mad, creating new desires, but
nothing is ever achieved. The hands remain as empty as ever. When this has been
seen, when you have looked into your life and seen all your motives failing....
No motive has ever succeeded, no motive has ever brought any blessing to
anybody. The motives only promise; the goods are never delivered. One motive
fails and another motive comes in and promises you again... and you are deceived
again. Being deceived again and again by motives, one day suddenly you become
aware - suddenly you see into it, and that very seeing is the beginning of
meditation.