Why “Total” Meditation?

If someone asked me what to expect from meditation, I’d reply, “Anything and everything.” Meditation involves transformation. It affects every aspect of your well-­being and can bring about positive change in your body, affect your mental outlook, increase your decision-­making ability, and eliminate worry and anxiety. Meditation techniques are numerous—­they can take you in a hundred different directions—­but at heart they aim to answer one not so obvious question: Can existence take care of itself? If the answer is no, then all the struggle and frustration that enters everyday life is justified. You believe that nothing and no one are going to take care of you except yourself. That is why you are under so much stress.

However, if the answer is yes, a new life awaits everyone. The idea that existing—­just being here right now—­can bring fulfillment sounds objectionable, almost alien. It’s not outlandish to your body, however. By their very nature, the cells in your body operate effortlessly. Likewise, your tissues and organs are effortlessly self-­sustaining. In an average lifetime the heart beats a billion times, a prospect that baffles the mind, especially if you think of the heart as a machine that must keep pumping blood seamlessly without a glitch. No computer can be turned on a billion times and no airplane take off a billion times without the risk, or even certainty, of mechanical failure. But in the web of life, the heart—­if, of course, it is healthy—­undertakes its labors with complete lack of struggle. On average, our heart beats between 60 to 100 times a minute. Fascinating when you truly think about it. But then consider a shrew’s heart, which beats 1,000 times a minute, or a hummingbird’s, which can reach 1,250 beats per minute. The wonder is, their hearts work effortlessly, too.

The heart, while extraordinary, is by no means exceptional. In a normal healthy person, the community of organs—­skin, heart, lungs, liver, brain—­remains in balance and harmony quite effortlessly. But as we go about our daily activities, we rarely experience effortless harmony, either inside ourself or between ourself and others. Wars and domestic abuse have the same source in disharmony. Our worries are a symptom of disharmony, and if depression arises, it can sap the will to carry on. The notion that existence is enough seems ludicrous. But we can experience moments of equanimity, or even an extended period of equanimity, that at their fullest bring body, mind, and spirit into harmony. These interludes suggest that something more lasting can be achieved. That’s why meditation is a journey and not just a calm break from one’s daily routine.

If we can live knowing that existence can actually take care of itself at the level of the individual person, a radically new element will be added to modern life. We can live in a world in which there are no inner enemies like fear and anger roaming the mind beyond our control. Painful memories and unacceptable feelings will no longer be shoved down into the secret hiding places in the unconscious. We will be stirred from a state of virtual sleep that befalls us as mental dullness and inertia. (If you don’t think we live in a state of virtual sleep, just look around at the expressionless faces of people glued to their smartphones or waiting at the airport.) The awakened life is energetic and fully conscious, erasing the woes that so often arise through our unconscious ways.

Meditation is absolutely unique

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