If you’ve tried the practice of “meditation” (I use quotes because this can look many different ways depending on what it is you’re actually doing when you “meditate”), you’ve likely had the experience of something like fighting against the mind. You attempt in some way to focus an object of attention like the feeling of the breath, maybe counting consecutive inhales and exhales up to 10, and the mind responds by saying “I don’t think so,” “you can’t tell me what to do,” and “I will think about what I damn well please, thank you very much.” Likely even if you haven’t tried meditation, you’re familiar with such internal conflict anytime you want to focus on something and the mind has other plans.

What does this internal dialogue consist of?

Who are the players?

Who is “you” and who is “the mind” in this scenario?

A few hours ago, as I meandered back to my little hidden spot of darkness in the basement that is the home of my meditation practice, I sat and attempted to drop all thoughts through a zeroed-in focus on the breath and on the raw feeling of Now. However, I was quickly disabused of any notion of one-pointed focus, and watched as a series of ideas, thoughts, and imagery easily squeezed through the intention of no-thinking like water through a fist.

One thought I had was about the experience I was having, noticing the interaction between these two versions of “me” and sensing the character of their relationship. The vision that arose was of the relationship between a parent and child, the parent attempting to get the child to do something (“Be still!”) and the child responding in defiance (“I want to play!”).

This vision provided a new perspective on what the act of meditation could be like: taking your inner child/children (thoughts, images, ideas, feelings, etc. that spontaneously arise) to the playground and letting them play. I’m reminded of the term “choiceless awareness” from Krishnamurti which emphasizes an awareness of the present moment that has no preference and no sense of right or wrong, just awareness of whatever is. So maybe we can at times use a practice like “meditation” to be aware of both our parent and child selves, and internally sit quietly on a bench nearby while we let the children play, and maybe tire themselves out so they can rest later on.

Okay,

thinking mind,

go play!

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