Deeper, Yet

Analogy:  A comparison between things that have similar features, often used to explain a principle or idea.  (Ed. Note: I can SuperK wailing, "No, not another one of your analogies!")

"Mindfulness is pre-symbolic.  It is not shackled to logic.  Nevertheless, mindfulness can be experienced - rather easily - and it can be described, as long as you keep in mind that the words are only fingers pointing at the moon.  They are not the thing itself.  The actual experience lies beyond the words and above the symbols.   So, it is important to understand that everything that follows here is analogy.  It is not going to make perfect sense.  It will always remain beyond verbal logic.  But you can experience it.

When you first become aware of something, there is a fleeting instant of pure awareness before you conceptualize it.  That is a state of awareness.  It takes place just before you begin thinking about it - before your minds says, 'Oh, it's a dog.'  That flowing, soft-focused moment of pure awareness is mindfulness.  You experience a softly flowing moment of pure experience that is interlocked with the rest of reality, not separate from it.  Mindfulness is very much like what you see with your  peripheral vision as opposed to the hard focus of normal or central vision.  In the process of ordinary perception, the mindfulness step is so fleeting as to be unobservable.  We have developed the habit of squandering our attention on all the remaining steps, focusing on the perception, cognizing the perception, labeling it, and most of all, getting involved in a long string of symbolic thought about it.  The original moment of mindfulness is rapidly passed over."

Yeah, I have little to no idea what he's talking about, either.  I've read this particular text a few times and when something resonates with me I'll underline a sentence or passage, maybe jot down a thought or two, but these concluding pages are notable for the lack of notations.  They're virgin pages.  I've gotten little out of them during my previous time with the book

I talk about meditation a lot and I'm often asked about my practice, usually by people who aren't meditating or who are new to meditation.  I always say that it's crucial just to simply try to meditate.  Nobody knows what they're doing while they're doing it.  To get to a stage where you have at least a middling grasp of the concept requires time spent wandering about lost in the mental bog of thinking and conceptualizing and labeling.  I think that masters spent a lot of time totally lost at the start, too.  It's not easy at all, this quieting and focusing of the mind.  But, boy, are the benefits amazing.