Two quotes on one day!

After dallying along in cyberspace, both quotes arrived this afternoon. The top one is technically yesterdays.

Study group is this Sunday at 5:30pm at the Second Cup. Looking forward to seeing everyone. :-)

Aware without any choice, to observe, to learn.

There are various schools, in India and further East, where they teach methods of meditation - it is really most appalling. It means training the mind mechanically; it therefore ceases to be free and does not understand the problem.

So when we use the word 'meditation' we do not mean something that is practiced. We have no method. Meditation means awareness: to be aware of what you are doing, what you are thinking, what you are feeling, aware without any choice, to observe, to learn. Meditation is to be aware of one's conditioning, how one is conditioned by the society in which one lives, in which one has been brought up, by the religious propaganda - aware without any choice, without distortion, without wishing it were different. Out of this awareness comes attention, the capacity to be completely attentive. Then there is freedom to see things as they actually are, without distortion. The mind becomes unconfused, clear, sensitive. Such meditation brings about a quality of mind that is completely silent - of which quality one can go on talking, but it will have no meaning unless it exists.

Beyond Violence - 80

Inward going is not a search.

The curious part of meditation is that an event is not made into an experience. It is there, like a new star in the heavens, without memory taking it over and holding it, without the habitual process of recognition and response in terms of like and dislike. Our search is always outgoing; the mind seeking any experience is outgoing. Inward going is not a search at all; it is perceiving. Response is always repetitive, for it comes always from the same bank of memory.

Meditations - 77