Meditation is optional...

Life is unavoidable

by Mauro Bergonzi

Since the idea of a separate ego is just a mental construct, as illusory as a

mirage, all choices and decisions occur spontaneously: they are actually Presence that
appears as choices and decisions.
Any event that occurs in our existence is an invitation to recognize the ever-
present resonance of Being-Awareness.
So meditation as well, whenever it appears in someone’s life, is a hint of
Presence.
Like all other events, it occurs spontaneously and impersonally, without any
separate ego being in charge of choosing whether to practice it or not.
Therefore, if someone enjoys doing meditation, why not?
One has no choice anyway, since ‘one’ does not exist as a separate ego.

At times meditation is regarded as a way to reach a state of balance, psycho-

physical well-being, self-understanding, or a deep experience of inner silence and
stillness: truly a very pleasant condition that can spare the practitioner a huge amount
of unnecessary suffering.
However, like any other state that can be reached over time, sooner or later
even the deepest meditative peace is doomed to vanish under the pressure of more
stressful situations marked by unrest, pain and loss, in accordance with the ever-
changing nature of life.

At other times meditation is seen as a means to achieve liberation.

This stance turns meditative practices into a loop of endless seeking that
reinforces the figment of a separate self that is always lacking something: in a catch-
22 impasse, the ego seeks because it feels incomplete, and it feels incomplete because
it seeks.
The ‘seeker’ is too busy looking for liberation to realize that it is already here.
So the seeking game is a game of lacking and suffering: as long as it lasts, the
resonance of Being remains unnoticed, hidden in the background.

If it is no longer seen as a means to a future goal, meditation becomes a

celebration of life.
At any time we can celebrate life through whatever experience we come
across:
drinking a glass of fresh water when we are thirsty,
looking up at the starry sky on a clear summer night,
making love,
 smiling at a baby on the bus,
singing under the shower,
or dancing wildly until we lose all sense of time and place.
The specific way for meditation to celebrate life is by letting it explode in
silence, without any attempt to control, judge or manipulate it.

Before a date, the two lovers put on their most seductive garments, in order to
highlight the beauty of their own bodies.
But later on, at the moment of making love, all clothes are removed and they
remain undressed, totally laid bare.
Just like a smart dress, meditation is an ornament of life, marvelously
superfluous in its gratuitous magnificence.
As a sexy outfit provisionally covers a naked body in order to unveil its beauty
just when it is removed at the time of making love, so meditation is an ornament that
‘veils’ the nakedness of Being just to disclose Its dazzling effulgence.
Getting undressed does not produce nakedness (that has always been there,
concealed under the clothes), just as meditation does not cause the radiance of Being,
which is simply ‘unveiled’ when meditation itself unmasks its own exquisite
irrelevance.

Still, each and every sort of experience - feeling the caress of the wind on
one’s skin, queuing at the post office, changing one’s baby’s diaper, shivering with
cold, smiling at a stranger or reading these very words - is an ornament of life, an
invitation to taste the flavor of Presence.
The real issue here is not so much what we do (meditating, talking or keeping
silent), but rather the inescapable fact that in any case, consciously or unconsciously,
all of us are sharing together the mysterious resonance of Being.

Meditation is optional; reality is unavoidable.

Meditation is something we do; reality is something we are.
Reality unfolds through and as any experience, sometimes as meditation as
well.
Yet, prior to meditating or not meditating, we exist and are aware.
Being-Awareness is evident, undeniable, too basic and immediate to depend on
any meditative practice whatsoever: It is the timeless precondition for every
experience to appear, including meditation itself.
And we are That.