On the "Effortless Effort" of Meditation

Usually the term "effortless effort" is associated with Taoist philosophy and its concept of "Wu Wei". It has to do with how we act, or experience action, in daily life. I like the Wikipedia description of Wu Wei as "natural action" giving the example of a tree growing. It is doing growing, and yet it is not doing it.

I like to use "effortless effort" when talking about how to meditate. It's indicates that the art of meditation is not one of following instructions. It's the art of allowing the mind to experience a natural state.

I often tell people not to take what I say in my meditations too literally. Sometimes I am asked what I mean by something like "not minding thoughts". It's impossible to answer those questions. The words I use aren't meant to be instructions to follow precisely. The words are more like confirmations of the correct experience. Quite naturally the mind will start relaxing into a state of "not minding thoughts", and if there is some resistance to that happening, words can give you permission to let go. My words are more like "reminders" to gently prompt the mind to let go of effort. But that letting go is an effortless effort!

How can effort be effortless? It's a paradox. The paradox happens because in guiding someone in meditation, we pretty much have to use words. You can't demonstrate meditation like you can dance, because it's an internal process. Although music alone can sometimes induce a meditative state, more often than not some verbal guidance is necessary. And yet, using words and phrases to guide that process is full of pitfalls. The meditative state is actually something that the mind falls into, not something you can make happen through following instructions. The instructions can only set up a situation where the mind can slip into that state.

Meditation is a state of effortlessness and sometimes a phrase here and there can help us to let go of effort. For example, I might say "let thoughts go". The idea isn't to actively let them go, like when you open your hand to drop a ball, but rather hearing the phrase "let thoughts go" may help the mind let go. That's because the mind is naturally drawn into a meditative state when given the opportunity, and there may be some resistance to that happening. The words can help dissolve the resistance. Letting go is not an active doing. No words or concepts can tell you exactly how to do it.

Decluttering and the Meditative Life

Was wondering what I'd blog about this week and a trip to our sunroom screamed "decluttering" to me. I hate to say why, but I'm sure you can guess. The sunroom has become a storeroom for our business -- full of boxes for things received, bubble wrap envelopes for CDs to mail, and all sorts of related stuff. Richard is great at keeping things neat. His tolerance for clutter is way lower than mine. But still sometimes we get busy and the boxes start to take over. Hence the room's cry for help. Well, truth be told, hence the cry for help by my psyche! As soon as I walked in the sunroom, I felt the energy of the clutter. It's unpleasant to say the least! I've promised myself to take care of it by day's end. In fact, I'm actually looking forward to doing it. I find decluttering to be a lot like meditation. It's a kind of meditation-in-action for me. It has the same calming and grounding effect when I do it in a relaxed, non-pressured way. It has to be done in a loving way. It can feel so self-nurturing when I'm not chiding myself for what I find, for having let it get out of control. It feels good when I allow myself to be there, fully present to all the sensations, emotions and thoughts that accompany the work, and that includes being present to the self-critical part of me! If I'm present to that self-critical part, I have a chance to cut myself some slack. It feels good when I allow myself to relax into it -- when I give myself "all the time in the world" to do it, not being pressured by the clock.

Is this sounding at all like meditation to you? It does to me. It's the same art. Meditation is all about the art of living, the art of how we do things. How we do something is totally about how we handle our inner world -- how we handle our thoughts, emotions and the experiences that come our way. We can make decluttering a meditative experience. Instead of starting out with a logical plan, I like to just dive in. I enter the room or area that needs to be cleared and organized and just start -- taking one step at a time as my intuition guides me. It's so much more relaxing that way.

I read an article with all sorts of tips about decluttering -- practical things to do. It sounded so intelligent, logical, effective. But I balked at the idea of following some rules, of having to things set up and plan in advance. That's the way that person decluttered -- it worked for them, but I can guarantee you that they didn't start out with that list. That's just how it developed as they did it and then they said -- wow, that worked -- now I can tell someone else how. I much prefer to get in there and discover how I do it. Like meditation, it's an exploration that reveals my own path to me. If I start out with a instruction manual, then I think there's a right and wrong way to do it. I start getting awkward and ignoring my own intuition and inclinations. What's more it becomes work when it can be play!

It's like writing this post. I had no idea when I started where it would take me. I just started writing and discovered where it took me. Just like meditation. Just like life.

Blackberry picking and lessons on creativity

Blackberries can be sooooo delicious when they're soft and sweet, and sooooo disappointing when they're not. I've been picking them on a nearby road where they grow on a fence by a field. It's a great summer for blackberries. There are tons of them, enough to lure me back into berry picking after having given up on it last summer when I seemed to always come home with a bag of tart berries. But this year I discovered bring sweet, juicy berries home. What's more, honing my fruit picking skills has given me insights on creativity and life. It all began with our plum tree in June. The plums are outrageously delicious -- incredibly sweet, juicy and perfumed with their own unique fragrance, but only when they're really ripe. We learned last year that when they fall off the tree, they are just perfect. Only problem is they often split open when they land, and a bagful of split plums soon degenerates into a mess. The trick then is to get the plum when it's just getting ready to fall, and you can do that by grasping them ever so carefully and giving just the slightest tug. Not a tug even, a faint whisper of a tug... If the plum falls into your hand, it's ripe. If it resists your tug, it's not ready. It may still be good, but not incredible, and why settle for good?

Having mastered plum picking, I was ready for the more delicate task of picking blackberries. One has to be ever so careful, not just dodging thorns, but tugging on the berries just right, being careful not to mush the ones that are truly ripe. It's a delicate operation. It takes patience, sensitivity to the bush's readiness to let go of its fruit. After all, the bush thrives by having bird's eat the berries when they are ripe, when the seeds are ready to be dispersed. There's a reason the fruit gets sweet when it does.

It takes patience to cooperate with the timing of the bush. It takes respect for its natural rhythms to enjoy the treasures it holds. You learn to listen, to cooperate with the life cycle of the bush, and when you do you are rewarded with a berry that drops effortlessly into your hand and tastes incredibly delicious.

Picking berries this way has allowed space for reflection as I pick. Since I am still in the midst of creating a new set of meditations, the parallels in the process of berry picking and giving birth to a new project became obvious. The ideas have to gestate and grow, and when they are ripe, they come easily. Like the berry bush that I return to day after day to cull the berries that are ripe that day, I have to leave the project to mature and ripen at its own pace. I spend time with it and then leave it. It percolates inside me and then when I work on it again, the latest "fruits" are ready for the picking. Inspirations come in their time, and I can't force them.

Letting the new project grow requires the same respect and trust that I'm learning in berry picking. I can't make the berries ripen faster. It's always tempting to try to pull off a berry that isn't really ready. It just doesn't work. It's not fun, actually. It feels as if the bush is resisting. If I do manage to get one off, it doesn't taste good. Creativity can't be forced. It comes in its time fueled by the same vital force that ripens the fruit. Sure, you can make sure a fruit tree is planted in the sun and gets enough water and fertilizer, but then you just have to wait. You can nourish yourself with adequate rest, exercise, meditation -- but you still have to wait.

My fruit picking is teaching me that patience, respect, and trust. The blackberry bush is teaching me its lesson as I learn to listen. The new project will be finished on its schedule, in its time. I can try to push it, but it will only result in frustration and will get me nowhere. Or I can surrender to the process. I don't have any more ability to hasten the creation of my new meditations than I have the ability to make the fruit ripen. This realization is humbling, and it's also a relief. If I don't seem to be making progress on a project, I can just let it go, knowing it will come in its time.

Related posts:

Meditation and Creativity

Enhancing Creativity Guided Meditation

Meditation and Creativity

It's always a surprise to me. Every single time. I record a guided meditation, do some editing and pass it on to Richard. And then before I know it, he's added some music and voila -- it's done. Just like that, he listens to the meditation at his keyboard and the music seems to get composed effortlessly. And I always love it. It always feels just right for the meditation. And I'm always in awe. How did that happen? How is it that every single time, on the spot, the music comes? Even though I've experienced how effortlessly things can get created, I'm still amazed. And yet, when something new does come into existence, it is by nature a spontaneous, effortless event. If it's new, it's never been seen, touched, heard, known before. How could that come with effort? When we make an effort, we are working at something. We have an end in mind -- we draw on everything we know and have experienced before; we use our logic; we try to connect the dots. But something completely new can't be found in what we have heretofore experienced and known. It comes from the source of all of that, and the functioning of the source lies outside the functioning of our own will and actions, even though it influences them. So "true creativity" can only be effortless. While we may work at shaping an inspiration once it arises, we cannot force the inspiration to come.

While that explains to me the effortlessness of Richard's composing, it doesn't explain the consistency of it. And here I turn to my understanding of meditation for answers. Meditation can align us with the source of all creation (and hence creativity). The mind shifts into a more open, intuitive mode, beyond intellect and logic.  Composers have to "get out of the way" for their music to come into being. Meditation in its most essential form gets us out of our own way.

Richard gets into a meditative state to compose. After all the years of meditation, it's easy for him to do that. So Richard gets out of the way and the music comes. I should understand that -- it's how my meditations come. It's how everything I've ever accomplished creatively has come. And yet it still surprises me when it happens. It is always a wonderful, awe-inspiring mystery. It is always a gift.

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Richard's beautiful, meditative music is available on our Pure Light album (a compilation of background music from our podcast and CDs.)

Enhancing Creativity Guided Meditation

We're all creative. Life is naturally creative and so are we. And yet so often our creativity seems to be stifled. There are millions of hits on Google for "creative blocks". Once you've tasted the joy of creativity flowing easily, it's extremely frustrating to hit those blocks. And if you are an artist, writer, musician or anyone whose work requires a lot of creativity, there's a sense of pressure to create that in itself can hamper the creative process. When the creative juices are flowing, it's a high. It's effortless. In fact, artists describe the creative process as one in which something simply comes through them. There's a sense that "I" didn't create this, it came on its own. It feels like a gift that comes spontaneously from a source outside ourselves. In fact, it's the bypassing of the "me" who gets involved in trying to control the creation that allows the creativity to happen. It's the "me" with all its doubts and anxiety about outcomes that becomes the block. It's the "me" who wants to control the creation that gets in the way.

This latest podcast episode is designed to disarm the me, to help you drop into the natural flow of creativity that's going on all the time in your own consciousness. Life is a flow of creativity. Our own consciousness is a flow of creativity. Ideas come, things get created naturally when we get out of the way.

Hope this meditation helps get your creative juices flowing. If you wish, you can use the meditation right before you do your creative work.  Just let go of any expectation of outcomes and enjoy the process!