Day 3 - Meditation from the Inside

Yesterday, I mostly described meditation from the outside. If you were Patrick or Rico and walked into the room where I am meditating, what would you see? You'd see me sitting in a chair, with my eyes closed, phone nearby, candle lit, and no talking. If you were Rico, you would lie down beside my chair and wait for the ending chime. If you were Patrick, you'd walk out of the room.

But what is going on inside my head. That's much harder to describe but that is what I'll try to write about today. I have a voice inside my head that narrates my life from the moment I wake up until I put my head on the pillow at night. I suspect you have one too. At one time, I confused the inner voice as the "real" me. Then one day, I asked myself, "If I'm the voice in my head, then who is the one listening?" I was surprised to realize there is also the observer me. The observer doesn't have a voice but notes what is happening inside and outside. It is constantly paying attention, trying to make sense of all the moments of life.

Meditation is not exactly a conversation or a dialogue but more of an interaction between the OBSERVER and the VOICE. As I mentioned earlier, the VOICE dominates most of my waking hours. When I meditate, tuning into the present moment, the OBSERVER emerges from the background. Instead of simply reacting to the VOICE, meditation creates space between the ever present stream of thoughts, where the OBSERVER recognizes lifelong patterns of worrying and planning. I find freedom in the space between my thoughts. Instead of following an old script, I can question its validity and choose a new way to be.

This video from Headspace is pretty spot on.

I'll close today with a poem that says it all.

There’s a monkey in my mind

swinging on a trapeze,

reaching back to the past

or leaning into the future,

never standing still.

Sometimes I want to kill

that monkey, shoot it square

between the eyes so I won’t

have to think anymore

or feel the pain of worry.

But today I thanked her

and she jumped down

straight into my lap,

trapeze still swinging

as we sat still.