"Meditation is one of the greatest arts of life - perhaps the greatest art. Because in the understanding of meditation there is love, and love is not the product of systems, of habits, of following a method. Love cannot be cultivated by thought. Love can perhaps come into being when there is complete silence. And the mind can only be silent when it understands the nature of its own movement, as thought and feeling.
And to understanding that, there can be no condemnation in observing thought and feeling. Meditation can take place when you are sitting in a bus, or walking in the woods full of light and shadows, or listening to the singing birds, or looking at the face of your wife or husband. Meditation is not something apart; it is the understanding of the totality of life in which every form of fragmentation of life has ceased. And also that is to contemplate life, not from a centre, not from your particular idiosyncrasy, tendency, or inclination, but to contemplate the whole movement of life: the misery, the conflict, the confusion, the sorrow, the endless travail of man – to watch that as a total movement. You cannot watch it if there is any form condemnation. Such contemplation is meditation. And you cannot contemplate or meditate if there is no silence.
There are two things which it is absolutely necessary to find out about: the understanding of space, and the nature of silence.
We are not talking of the distance between the earth and the moon, but psychological space, the space within. You can observe how little space you have inwardly; we are overcrowded with noise, chattering, endless memories, images, symbols, opinions, knowledge, crammed full of secondhand things. There is no space there at all; therefore there is no freedom.
When one has totally denied the psychological world which man has created for himself, and the psychological structure of society of which we are: the greed, the envy, the brutality, the violence, the jealousies, the hatred; then when you totally deny, you have space and silence. And it is only such a mind that can see what is the immeasurable. Such a mind is a light to itself."
And to understanding that, there can be no condemnation in observing thought and feeling. Meditation can take place when you are sitting in a bus, or walking in the woods full of light and shadows, or listening to the singing birds, or looking at the face of your wife or husband. Meditation is not something apart; it is the understanding of the totality of life in which every form of fragmentation of life has ceased. And also that is to contemplate life, not from a centre, not from your particular idiosyncrasy, tendency, or inclination, but to contemplate the whole movement of life: the misery, the conflict, the confusion, the sorrow, the endless travail of man – to watch that as a total movement. You cannot watch it if there is any form condemnation. Such contemplation is meditation. And you cannot contemplate or meditate if there is no silence.
There are two things which it is absolutely necessary to find out about: the understanding of space, and the nature of silence.
We are not talking of the distance between the earth and the moon, but psychological space, the space within. You can observe how little space you have inwardly; we are overcrowded with noise, chattering, endless memories, images, symbols, opinions, knowledge, crammed full of secondhand things. There is no space there at all; therefore there is no freedom.
When one has totally denied the psychological world which man has created for himself, and the psychological structure of society of which we are: the greed, the envy, the brutality, the violence, the jealousies, the hatred; then when you totally deny, you have space and silence. And it is only such a mind that can see what is the immeasurable. Such a mind is a light to itself."
"The understanding of the totality of life"- the misery, the conflict, the confusion, the sorrow, the endless travail of man... as a total movement..." Yes. Am always trying to remember this... Thank you...
ReplyDeleteAnd you cannot contemplate or meditate if there is no silence....Thank you dear Christine...♥
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