Meditation & Effortless Effort
When I first discovered meditation at age eighteen, I started the way most people do - by following my breath. While I found that insufferably boring and could only manage it for twenty to thirty minutes at a time, I noticed that my mind somehow seemed calmer. There was also less of a bite to my anger and I quickly became aware of the horribly negative ways in which I spoke to myself.
I kept experimenting and discovered what Eckhart Tolle calls the presence body, the alive field of vital life force running through our cells. Putting my attention on that also felt really pleasant. And as wonderful as discovering this felt sense was, it still felt effortful and unnatural; like I had to fight a war to find peace. It reinforced the belief that peace wasn’t there already; that it had to be guarded from the elements like some barely lit candle. I knew there had to be a better way, a lazier way, a truer way.
It wasn’t until I discovered what Adyashanti calls ‘true meditation’ that I had my suspicions confirmed. One of Adya’s guiding questions went something like this: ‘Where is the peace you’re searching for before you go looking for it?’ Is it not here already?’ And as I sank into that question, I was dumbstruck to realize that yes, indeed, there was a glimmer of all-is-wellness, an inner temple of quiet refuge that had always been with me. Whew. What a tremendous relief.
So what was left for my mind to do? Adya instructed me to make ‘effortless effort’ or ‘to make just enough effort to let go of effort.’ So I played around with less effort and more allowing, less striving and more falling, less pushing and more resting. And boy, did that feel amazing! It was like being given the golden ticket on the train back to myself.
Why didn’t I realize this sooner? I bemoaned. Well, probably because I had bought into the collective trance of not-enoughness and what-is-wrong-with-me-ness. I had come to spirituality to fix my brokenness instead of remembering my innate wholeness, and a forced technique only proved how lacking I already was. But deep down I knew that my practice was not meant to be a Sisyphean climb up a mountain. A part of me still remembered where I came from and where I was going.
Over the last twenty years, I’ve continued to see how this game of self-bondage has played out in other areas of my life. I’ve begun to see how I’ve wanted to control and be controlled by partners, how I try to manage every detail of my creative work and generally want to put a stranglehold on life. I’ve come to see that I’m the only one standing in my way. And simply through being aware, both through meditation and throughout my day, this pattern has started to unravel.
True meditation has taught me that forced effort is never a good idea and it’s allowed me to find a similar ease and flow in my daily life. Now, instead of berating myself for trying too hard, I see it as an opportunity to practice self-compassion. It’s a pattern as old as our collective belief in unworthiness, and instead of separating me from others, it shows me just how similar we all really are.
References
The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
True Meditation by Adyashanti
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff
Letting Go of the Meditator is my own five, ten and twenty minute guided meditation series inspired by Adya’s offering and can be found on Insight Timer, Aura and The Mindfulness App.