A Calm And Settled Mind

Mental Noise

Meditation, mindfulness and mind-emptiness

Ever been unable to sleep because you can’t switch off that stream of thoughts that seems to flow incessantly, mercilessly through your head?

When your mental noise distracts you from the task at hand, makes you forget why you walked into a room, or keeps you awake at night, you’re a victim of what is known in the East as “the monkey mind”. It is this thought stream that, according to Eastern tradition, is the source of much of our modern day stress and mental dysfunction.

So, what can you do about it?

Meditation

In the West, meditation has become a woolly term under which many different methods have found a home. Mindfulness is the latest, and certainly the most popular, addition.

Scientifically speaking, all approaches to meditation – be they relaxation, mindfulness, visualisation, mantras or otherwise – are associated with measurable but non-specific beneficial effects. So too are all stress management-style interventions even if they are not labelled as “meditation”.

Scientifically speaking, all approaches to meditation – be they relaxation, mindfulness, visualisation, mantras or otherwise – are associated with measurable but non-specific beneficial effects. So too are all stress management-style interventions even if they are not labelled as “meditation”.

I would like you to become so capable that you can remain in the marketplace and yet meditative. I would like you to relate with people, to love, to move in millions of relationships – because they enrich – and yet remain capable of closing your doors and sometimes having a holiday from all relationships… so that you can relate with your own being also.

Relate with others but relate with yourself also. Love others, but love yourself also. Go out! – The world is beautiful, adventurous; it is a challenge, it enriches. Don’t lose that opportunity! Whenever the world knocks at your door and calls you, go out! Go out fearlessly – there is nothing to lose; there is everything to gain. But don’t get lost. Don’t go on and on and get lost. Sometimes, come back home. Sometimes forget the world – those are the moments for meditation.

Each day, if you want to become balanced, you should balance the outer and the inner. They should carry the same weight, so that inside you never become lopsided.

This is the meaning when Zen masters say: “Walk in the river, but don’t allow the water to touch your feet.” Be in the world, but don’t be of the world. Be in the world, but don’t allow the world to be in you. When you come home, you come home – as if the whole world has disappeared.