Tree Stump Meditation

Let thinking turn into meditation and meditation into thinking — and notice it’s all meditation.

I’m sitting on a tree stump. It’s a good tree stump. Flat and even and soft. Good for sitting. Molded for sitting.

I sit on this very nice stump and the silence is enveloping. The forest makes noise, but the silence —the silence is on full display. Every noise is the silence. Damn, is the silence loud! It’s very blissful; peace that passeth all misunderstanding. I marinate in that — a piece of meat marinating in silence.

Then I notice that I haven’t noticed any thoughts in a while so I check in on them to see what mischief they’re up to.

One thought says, “Now that’s meditation!” Well said, Mr. Thought.

Mrs. Thought joins the conversations, “Word!” Yes.

Thought Jr. pipes up, “Is meditation mediation or medication?” I laugh at this.

Family Thought wants to speak about meditation. No one’s there to stop them from doing so. So they do:

I used to meditate to try and stop thinking. Now I think to try and stop meditating. None of it is working.

Meditation didn’t silence my mind. It revealed there was no mind to begin with. So nothing there to silence. Everything has been silence from even before the beginning.

I tried to control my thoughts, but the more I tried, the more I felt like I was the one being controlled. Until a closer inspection exposed that I’ve been playing with an unplugged controller. Where was the damn plug? There was no plug anywhere to plug it in. The controller was just for show. And the show went on.

I thought I did the meditation. I willed myself to do it, for hours and hours. Concentration. Focus. Relaxation. Keep going! But then my head exploded and there was only experience left. Surprisingly, meditation did me.

First 10 minutes. Then 20. 30. 45. Then an hour. Two hours. Ten days. A billion years. And then I stopped because I feared my butt would turn into a pancake.

Meditation isn’t about not thinking. It isn’t about improving concentration or being more relaxed. Nor about becoming enlightened. Meditation is about nothing at all. And oh boy, is that nothing everything.

I meditated to cease these silly word games I was playing on myself. I stopped playing them on myself. And the silly word games became more fun. Don’t hate the game, hate the player.

You meditate, and first, the thoughts are loud. Like in your face. And you wrestle with them. And they give you existential wedgies you can taste — tastes like despair with a dash of terror. Then, for no reason at all, the thoughts step back and yell at you from far away — you can barely hear them. Then, they turn away from you and yell in another direction — you wonder who they’re talking to. It’s gotten nice and quiet around here. And then they come back to talk to you again, but you’ve got no clue with and about whom they’re talking. And the silence.

Meditation isn’t an activity. It’s a default setting.

Meditation is funny. Thousands of hours just to realize that something apparently is and nothing ever happened. And the thoughts will say, “Yeah but…” Meditation-softened butts.

What about walking meditation? Good idea. No pancake butt. Walk. Watch the display’s slight wobble. Notice the world moving through you. A cool Mandelbrot zoom.

Keep walking until you notice a nice and even and soft tree stump. Appreciate it. Sit down to think and meditate. Let thinking turn into meditation and meditation into thinking — and notice it’s all meditation.

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