Incremental Integration

Meditation instructions sound simple & straight-forward. Let go of all the thoughts, conversations, concerns, regrets, fantasies & plans buzzing around in your head, and directly experience "just this", right now - be it the feel of the breath in sitting meditation; the feel of the soles of the feet in walking meditation; the feel of successive parts of the body in a body scan etc. It's an attractive, "doable" concept. But for most of us, following these instructions well enough to reliably experience real-time benefits will take years, decades.

On my first short (one day) meditation retreat, a nun in her 80s who had been meditating daily for over 20 years, was asked to share the quality of her meditation practice. In a surprisingly loud, gravely voice she announced to us that practice felt "Dry as toast!" We all laughed of course, yet at the same time, it remains one of the most inspiring testimonials to persevere daily in this "simple but not easy" practice. She clearly persevered not for "short-term gain" but because of the profound, cumulative benefits of daily practice.

So why can't we easily stabilize attention to directly experience only whatever we're doing in the present moment and as a result immediately feel peace, stillness, silence etc? The short answer is that all our past (genetic & environmental causes & conditions) has resulted in us being precisely as we are right now. We've been conditioned (trained) to behave as we do, which is very different than suggested in meditation instructions. Therefore, we need to repeatedly & with infinite patience keep remembering to:

• be patient - gently letting go of time-related concerns

• gently let go of words, "self-talk", "discursive thinking" etc

• gently let go of the past - regrets, hurts, injustices etc

• gently let go of the future - "to do" lists, goals, plans, anxieties, escape routes etc

• let go of the goals of meditation (stress reduction, calm, peace, enlightenment etc)

• focus on "just this" process - zoom in on the details, the "how" of the instructions

Meditation practice is by no means a quick-fix. It's a slow, intentional, incremental experiential "softening of the boundary between our highly intentional, restricted, conscious ego mind and the limitless, unconscious domain of the body. When we do this, our conscious mind begins to tap into and connect with the somatic awareness that is already going on - mostly unbeknownst to us - in our body. In this larger field of consciousness, we are still conscious but in a very different way."

Reginald A. Ray. "The Awakening Body. Somatic Meditation for Discovering Our Deepest Life." Shambhala, 2016.

Quality time invested in practice reliably pays dividends. Merely liking the idea (exclusively "left brain") of meditation, does no more than liking the idea of playing a musical instrument. Cultivating skills in either depends entirely & proportionately on quality practice time. That's the only way to make incremental progress - practice literally, progressively transforms us from the inside out.