Feedback For the Soul

You know when you have a microphone and it's at a high volume? You know that thing that happens when you put it close to the speaker that it's connected to?

this generally tends to happen

if you're lucky you don't blow the speaker

I seem to be bumping into the same sort of feedback in recent meditation. It is a problem everybody faces when trying to quiet the mind but allow me to expand on why I think this is.

First, there is the misconception that the purpose of all meditation is to achieve some sort of "nothing" state in the mind. While this is partly true, I believe the word is misused. I'm still new to all this, but it seems to me (not through entirely my own contemplation, thank you Alan Watts again) that "nothing" in this context is more akin to the word "background". When you see a forest from far away, it is difficult to make out a single tree; but take away all the trees but one and then place that one against a blank sky, and you can see it clearly from a great distance. This cleansing of noise and wiggly backdrops is, I think, the real purpose of meditation. Now, whether that one tree represents a thought, physical/spiritual presence, state of mind, absence of thought or whatever is up to you, I suppose. I am simply trying to concentrate on having a still mind. Which brings me to:

con·cen·tra·tion

n.

1.

a. The act or process of concentrating, especially the fixing of close, undivided attention.

"Undivided attention" is a tricky thing. As soon as you attempt to focus with all your mental muscle, you become strained and tense. You begin to concentrate on being concentrated. So you're not concentrating on that thing anymore, because your attention is elsewhere so you reel back into focusing on that first thing because, dammit, you're going to beat your brain at this game. Then you become focused on being focused again and you aren't letting yourself get rid of that wiggly background and so you force yourself back into focus and then you focus on getting your thoughts under control but then that means you--

EEEERRRRRRRRRREEEEEEERRUUUUUEEEEEE!!!!

How am I supposed to quiet my mind using my mind? How am I supposed to control the ego with the ego? Concentration is a conscious effort, which makes it useless in meditation and, in fact, just about everything other effort ever. It just makes more noise. Unless you were to use the word in the (albeit pretty fucking loose) second definition of the word.

b. The condition of being concentrated.

To have concentration; to be concentrated. With practice, a musician can play a piece without even seeming to try, and we say "it seems so effortless." When learning how to use a weapon or musical instrument, you are told to, pardon the cliché, be one with your instrument and have it be an extension of yourself or an extra limb. You do not violently impose your will on the thing, rather you use it as what seems to be the good way (notice I avoid the word "designed" way) to be used. With enough practice, I think the mind can be used the same way. Like the musician who has memorized Paganini's "Caprice No. 24" and can play it without even trying, I think the thinker can make his thoughts do what he pleases without invoking thought controlling thoughts, or giving acknowledgement to the existence of the thinker. I have nothing to back this up, it's merely a hypothesis, since I haven't experienced this yet, but I will keep trying. Trying to not try, that is. Ugh, that's the problem with writing this stuff down. It makes perfect sense until you try to explain it.