Meditation: The Word Is Not the Thing

Increasingly, it seems like there are just two seasons in California—the rainy season (from about November to March), and the fire season (the rest of the year). But after three months without precipitation, a rare summer storm brings some cherished hours of gentle rain near dawn and through most of the morning.

Weeks of dust and dirt are washed from the oaks and sycamores along the creek, and the smells of earth and vegetation are redolent. I walk the rain-washed paths, taking the loop around a grove of oak trees. In some places their graceful branches form a succession of arches, which are far more beautiful and evocative than those of any cathedral.

Two healthy-looking young bucks, their surprisingly large horns still covered in felt, cross the trail in front of me. They stop in the brush a few meters away as I pass, staring with an admixture of curiosity and nervousness.

Huge white cumulus clouds, their extraordinary billowy shapes sharply etched against the sparkling azure of the California sky, are visible through the limbs of the old oaks. One feels something beyond words, for which words like mystery, reverence, and sacredness fall woefully short.

I don’t feel people ever really disagree about words, but use the common excuse of ‘semantic differences’ to paper over real differences in philosophy, or the absence of understanding in communication.

Most people agree, at least intellectually, that the word is not the thing. But few people are mindful of that crucial distinction in daily life. Words are so powerful that far too often we fall into the confusion of mistaking the word for the thing.

Religious beliefs are the worst example of the tendency of the human mind to mistake its own fabrications for the actuality with which they are supposedly concerned. Whatever ‘God’ is, if there is such an actuality, it certainly isn’t the word, and has nothing to do with belief, whether Christian, Muslim, or any other faith.

Intellectual clarity is important, but as I’ve seen many times over the years, the more intellectually clear and rational one is about so-called mystical experiences, the more frustrated people often feel. The frustration is largely due to subtly putting thought before insight, the word before the thing.

What resolves this dilemma? When I get balled up in words and thinking, there is a sensation in the body that tells me to go out and have contact with nature, to sit quietly by a stream or river, and passively observe.

Over the years, one has developed an almost proprioceptive sense of too much thought and thinking. Proprioceptors are the sensory nerves that end in the muscles, tendons, and joints, which provide the sense of the body’s position by responding to stimuli from within the body. In other words, proprioception is the internal means by which we locate our bodies in space. When proprioceptor nerves are damaged, injuries inevitably result.

But too much thought is producing injury; indeed, we humans are destroying the earth and ourselves because of it. And yet we have no internal sense of imbalance with regard to thought. Most people are drowning in words and images, and ‘information overload’ is only noticed when the mind, heart, and body begin to break down.

As bodies and cultures break down, people are turning to meditation, which promises to ‘relieve stress, promote healing, and generate sublime experiences.’ Authentic meditation can produce these things, but there’s a lot of mumbo jumbo about meditation—rituals, techniques, breathing exercises, and a welter of different methods. All these things actually get in the way. One may as well go to a hypnotist, or turn up the iPod.

I’ve considered using another word for what happens when, with right observation, the brain gathers attention and lets go of words and images. But I can’t find a better word, and besides, the word doesn’t matter anyway.

So beyond the word and concept, what is meditation? To my mind meditation is the unwilled phenomenon that spontaneously ensues with undivided observation. Inclusive attention, not exclusive concentration, is the key.

By completely listening to, rather than blocking out noise (outer and inner), the mind stops chattering, and the brain comes into contact with things beyond words.

- Martin LeFevre is a contemplative, and non-academic religious and political philosopher. He has been publishing in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Europe (and now New Zealand) for 20 years. Email: martinlefevre@sbcglobal.net . The author welcomes comments.

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