A Playful Approach

  During the group meditation sitting tonight, I had the distinct idea of meditation as a form of play: a curious exploration of what it is to be truly aware and alive to the moment. It's a different orientation toward meditation for me, since I have often associated meditation with something that is about attaining something. I think this strictness is perhaps a dangerous approach to practice, because it creates all sorts of inner conflicts, such as self-evaluating with respect to the practice. I much prefer that when one approaches practice, one allow spaces for thoughts while keeping the overall vision that the method offers: an overall spacious awareness that envelops the situation and all its nuances. Adopting a spacious and relaxed approach toward doing any one thing is also good preparation for all the number of possible dilemmas that one faces in all their interactions as well.
   Many therapies do approach states of mind from the perspective of how much we are allowing ourselves leeway to make mistakes or to simply relax into our different tasks. Rather than adopting all or nothing, perfectionist approaches, such therapies advocate more holistic ways of learning where a person can relax into embodying a certain learning. The problem is that no matter how much meditation stresses embodiment, people are somehow going to think that it's about achieving a special state of being, such as "enlightenment", and this is what sidetracks the moment itself. As soon as I desire anything, I am derailed from the present where the mind truly resides. What results is a perfectionist attitude toward practice itself. I much prefer a less strict, yet principled approach toward practice, where one has leeway to actually explore their own reactions and contemplate how the mind works rather than chaining the mind to a dogmatic or mechanical experiment.