It's Not about Bliss

The purpose of a deep stillness practice is not to seek a lowering of our blood pressure, or to get a break from the kids, or to escape our situation. Meditation might, in fact, lower our blood pressure, ease the tension we might feel with our kids, and help us deal with our pain in more constructive ways, but an authentic stillness practice does not allow us to take refuge from life. Rather, it puts us right in the middle of our situation and removes whatever protection we’ve traditionally clung to in order to defend our selves from its impact. Truly facing our lives scares a lot of people away from meditation when they realize that stillness practice, at this level, isn’t about dwelling in states of perpetual bliss. These experiences of unutterable peace and wonder often show up when we meditate, and they are signposts directing us toward the Infinite. Bliss experiences can also help us become temporarily more tolerant of life. We can then experience a greater coolness as our circumstances get hot, and we often find it a little easier to offer open kindness to people we meet. This process of slowing into an ever-deepening relaxation can’t help but be good for all aspects of our being.

Yet these benefits are not the purpose of practice, but rather its byproduct. If we’re just meditating for any of these beneficial qualities or for the feeling of bliss (which often will arise in the early stages of practice), we can develop a tendency to try repeatedly to reach that particular state that we once had. In the seeking of any state, our attachment to the bliss itself becomes an obstacle to the process of Awakening.

To sustain our motivation, it can be useful to find a group of spiritual friends who are more or less walking on a similar path up the Mountain of Spirit. With a group, we can find support when things dry up in our practice or when we find ourselves in the midst of a cycle of disappointment with our seeming inability to Awaken. I resisted finding a group of spiritual friends as I began my practice because I didn’t like groups and I had even less tolerance for organizations of faith. But when I finally checked my resistance at the door and just sat and meditated with others, it made a huge difference in deepening my practice. It helped me to realize that I was not alone, that I was not separate from others, that I was neither above nor unworthy of the experience of community. Most of all, it helped me to see that all things, including both my resistance and my bliss, were just temporary states.

All things, including all of our states of mind, are subject to impermanence. Each of our mental states is bound by time. In other words, they come and then eventually leave after a certain interval. So when we center our practice on something that is dependent on time, such as feeling a certain way, we are asking the ego to lead the way to a false enlightenment. Just as we don’t learn everything about love by studying those who are hateful, we should only expect more and more confusion if we let ego commandeer the process of Awakening.