November 14, 2021
One popular form of meditation is Vipasana. In Vipasana, you observe the true nature of your mind. You realize that thoughts that appear to be your own creation are not in fact the products of your making. Upon examination, you see that your thoughts arise from nowhere, as a matter of experience. On attaining this knowledge, you then rest as the space in which thoughts appear—noticing them as they are, without judgement. Judgement too is a thought that can be observed.
Vipasana's objective, I think, is to break identification with spontaneous thoughts. Does Vipasana seek to make you identify with the 'space-like' container that everything else arises in? I do not think so. It is very likely that Vipasana does not want you to identify with anything at all. It merely wants you to notice the true nature of the way things are. This noticing alleviates much suffering and pain.
The only other form of meditation I know of is what I call 'concentration meditation'. Here, you focus on an object of your picking with intent. Some people focus on their breath, and some on different number series. The goal here is apparent―to enhance your ability to focus. Concentration meditation also helps alleviate suffering, because pain is not noticed as much when focusing intently on something else.
Vipasana is evidently more transcendental. It also arguably is not necessary to live a happy life. You do not necessarily need to know the true nature of your self to be happy. It is true that a case can be made that you would be happier with Vipasana. That however is not my point.
Many of us feel relief while mindlessly watching the television. I have been trying to understand what happens to us in that state of mind. Adults do not need to exert much effort to understand speech (and a rapid flash of pictures). You need only notice the automaticity with which your mind comprehends speech to realize this. If you're watching content that needs little thought for near-total comprehension (like a music video), your mind is effectively relaxed in a state of nothingness. It is stimulated, although the effort that goes into this stimulation comes from outside. This stimulation allows you to momentarily forget everything else without expending much energy.
Contrast this with reading a technical book. You need to 'generate' to gain comprehension. At every moment, you need to sustain packets of information in your head to make sense of what comes ahead. If you lose any of these packets, you must actively recall it. All this takes effort.
A question I have been asking myself as of late is whether 'passive activities' are at all necessary in our lives. There are different reasons why we engage in passivity:
All three cases above have escapism in common. Let us assume for a minute that instead of 'passiving', you simply sat alone with your thoughts. Unless you are a Vipasana expert, you would almost certainly have to expend more effort by simply sitting (thoughts consume energy). This is however only during the 'rest period'. In my experience, you feel truly rested afterward. This is because you are forced to process or at least acknowledge your thoughts. Passiving on the other hand will make you feel significantly worse afterward. This is because what you're trying to avoid is always present in your mind. Passiving only constructs a thin wall that breaks down easily. There is no true rest.
Hence I do not think passivity is a necessary component in our lives. That which is not necessary however should not necessarily be jettisoned. It however does have detrimental effects. Passivity encourages further passivity owing to your not feeling rested and the resurgence of thoughts in your mind after the passive period. The chronic scroller exemplifies this. The chronic scroller is in constant search for true rest. They mistake the illusion of rest of passivity as true rest and get worse. The cycle thus continues.
I do not think passivity should have a place in my life. I must learn to appreciate the beauty of life as it is―escapism should not ideally be necessary. As time goes on, I think tolerating the vacuity or lack there of of your mind becomes deeply comforting, and more importantly, restful.