Why I Meditate

Meditation is in vogue. Various people representing divergent interests frequently tout its health benefits. I have no doubt that there are benefits to meditation, but that is not why I do it. At this point, I feel I do it for the same reason I breathe: it is part of my make-up and the way I am in the world.

I meditate frequently: twice a day, 50 minutes a session. That's 100 minutes a day on my chair. The type of meditation I do is called "shikantaza" and is based in Zen. I simply sit quietly, and when a thought or feeling comes up, I notice it, acknowledge it, and let it go. Sometimes, of course, I get caught in my thoughts and daydream for a while. When I notice I am doing this, again, I acknowledge it and get back to just sitting, noticing thoughts, and letting them go.

I have meditated off and on my whole adult life, but I only got truly serious about it in early 2019. Soon, I was meditating twice a day for 40 minutes a sitting. I became quite devoted to meditation and read widely in the contemporary and classic Zen literature.

According to Zen tradition, meditation is "useless." What this means is that, ideally, it has no relation to the relative, day-to-day world of doing this to get that. It has no everyday use value. To ascribe any use to it at all, including for health and wellness, is to put it back into that everyday world. Zazen, which is the Zen word for meditation, is about manifesting the Absolute.

However, I've just run into a trap. Saying zazen is "about manifesting the Absolute" gives it a use value. In terms of the Absolute, there is no utility. It just is. It is the Whole which we, and everything else, are involved in and responding to. To meditate with the goal of seeing or realizing this Whole is to break the Whole up into a now and then, a here and a there. You supposedly meditate now in order to achieve a certain state later. This is dualistic. Zazen needs to be done for the sake of itself, only. This is why it is useless.

Yet, something nags at me. Zen may traditionally say that zazen is useless, but do I personally believe this? Does it accord with my experience? And to what extent is my experience based on false beliefs and conceptions?

I have noticed a few changes in my life that I attribute to meditation. My daughter says that I have become more present and involved in moment by moment life. I will take her word for it, because I haven't noticed much of a difference in this area. I have noticed a greater equanimity. Things don't throw me emotionally the way they used to. When a problem or crisis comes up, I handle it with much less drama.

The big difference, however, has to do with my perception of the world and my place in it. This change has been very subtle, and is below the level of the conceptual: I feel as if the boundary between me and other beings and things has softened considerably. I perceive the world in a less dualistic fashion. This "insight," if we can call it that, does not come from ideas or intellectual understanding, although it can inform such understanding. It comes from a profound sense of connectedness.

About a year ago, after I had been sitting twice a day for about six months, I found myself thinking about space. I heard a car door slam out in the parking lot of my apartment building. Where was that sound? in my ears and brain? or "out there" in what I call space? Where was this "space"? To what extent was it a construction of my mind and senses? Physics, of course, explains hearing as vibrations in my ear that originated with the door slamming. This explanation, however, assumes space as we commonly conceive it. It does not prove space is, in fact, there.

So what is space? I don't know. But I do sense that our commonly held idea about it is just that, an idea, that does not necessarily accord with reality. It is a tool to help us get things done. I still use this tool. It's just that I am beginning to treat it as a tool, as no more a reflection of reality than a screwdriver. 

These questions emanated not from some intellectual investigation of how hearing, mind, and space work together. They came from a softening of my sense of space that resulted from my meditation. I perceived space differently, and came to see it as a construction of our minds. Of course, I believe there is something "out there" where a car door slammed. But that "out there" is not the same as what I formerly believed it to be. I feel as if there is no inside, outside, or in between. I feel more directness to my perception.

Just to be clear, I have not had any sort of classic "awakening" experience where my delusions drop away and I see Reality clearly. This softening I describe has been gradual, but it has also developed and become more refined. I see profound connection among all the things of this world, including me. Nothing seems the least bit isolated anymore. And, it is important to reemphasize, I see this, I don't just analytically figure it out. The latter stems from conceptual analysis. The former stems from perception.

Has this softening affected my life and how I treat others? I think so. I find myself more responsive to others, both emotionally and behaviorally. I think I respond appropriately in the moment better than I used to. But I could be wrong.

Ultimately, if even space is not what we think it is—and I am convinced it is not, though I couldn't tell you what it is—then nothing we think can be taken as wholly credible. Our conceptions are mere approximations designed to get something done. We also use them when we step back and try to make sense of the world. But that doesn't mean they are correct. 

Of course, what I have been writing is not correct. It's a story about my experience with meditation and the changes I believe it has brought about in me and my relation to the world. It is a mere thread in the vastness of space. It has some use for me and, hopefully, for you. Ultimately, however, it is just another story. 

What is the alternative to a mere story? To see directly, outside narrative and conception. Perhaps I have experienced some of this due to meditation. In fact, I feel pretty sure I have. But that hunch, too, is just a mere story. The direct seeing is not. But that seeing cannot easily be put into words.

For me, there is no substitute for sitting meditation regularly, day in, day out.