Meditation is a journey into the unknowable.
The practice of sitting and being perfectly free, unattached and nonreactive allows all of the concepts of our mind to fall away.
You see, we live in a largely conceptual reality.
What is Conceptual Reality?
The vast majority of what we experience are concepts – ideas that take on perceptual form through habit and familiarity.
And the conceptual reality we live in is constantly reinforced through our use of language.
I am looking at something sitting here on the table in front of me.
I habitually call it a coffee cup. But of course it is not a coffee cup.
A coffee cup is just an idea, but I perceive this thing in front of me as a coffee cup.
We might next say that the coffee cup is really an object, but an object is also an idea.
Maybe it is more accurate to say that the coffee cup is actually a collection of sensations. Smoothness, hardness, curvedness, solidness, etc. But wait, these are also concepts.
Pure Undifferentiated Perception
If we take this journey all the way through and let go of all conceptualization we enter into an experience of pure undifferentiated perception.
It is a unity of experience that knows no difference. This is what is often referred to as non-dual experience in eastern traditions.
We will be tempted to think of this as oneness, but oneness is a concept.
The experience that I’m speaking about is not an experience of oneness. It is an experience of not-knowing.
It would be more accurate to call it emptiness rather than oneness, but emptiness is also a concept.
The Experience of Not-knowing
To enter into a true non-conceptual relationship to the world we have to be willing to sustain a prolonged experience of not-knowing.
In the face of the insecurity of not knowing there will always be a part of us that demands resolution.
That part of us will touch into the unknown for a second or two but will immediately demand to know what it is experiencing.
To go this far we have to learn how to rest in the unresolved, unknowable space of non-conceptual awareness.
The most amazing de-conceptualizing that we can experience in meditation is the radical de-conceptualization of our sense of self.
You see, not only are all the objects around you conceptualized perceptions, but you are also a conceptualized perception to yourself.
Letting Go
In meditation we are letting go of the perception of being the person that we think we are.
As we let go more and more, we see how our sense of self is constructed in each moment from an amalgamated arrangement of sensations, memories, emotions and ideas.
All of these are constantly being shaped into an experience of being the person that we think are.
As we let go even more we even lose the sense of separate sensations and fall into an experience of pure awareness.
We no longer exist as a recognizable self. We are there but not in any way that can be experienced. We are consciousness.
Awareness
We are awareness. But we are not an entity that is aware.
There is no entity separate from awareness. There is just awareness.
There just is.
In this sacred space we can only be. We cannot know anything or do anything. We simply are.
Knocking just on the other side of an invisible door there will always be our familiar mind begging for resolution.
“Let me in!” It demands. “Let me know what’s going on in there.”
You will be tempted to open the door and allow the mind to find resolution by conceptualizing and satisfying its incessant need to know.
If you open the door you will inadvertently initiate a process that inevitably leads back to the entire conceptual world you just left behind.
If you refrain from opening the door and learn to rest in the unknowable you will become radically available for unimaginable possibilities.
Abidance in the unknown is the source of all creative.