Can Meditation Be Fun?
by Alan Watts
 What we call meditation
or contemplation -- for want of a better word -- is really supposed to be fun. I
have some difficulty in conveying this idea because most people take anything to
do with religion seriously -- and you must understand that I am not a serious
person. I may be sincere, but never serious, because I don't think the universe
is serious.
And the trouble comes into the
world largely because various beings take themselves seriously, instead of
playfully. After all, you must become serious if you think that something is
desperately important, but you will only think that something is desperately
important if you are afraid of losing it. In one way, however, if you fear
losing something, it isn't really worth having. There are people who live in
dread, and then drag on living because they are afraid to die. They will
probably teach their children to do the same, and their children will in turn
teach their own children to live that way. And so it goes on and
on.
But let me ask you, if you were
God, would you be serious? Would you want people to treat you as if you were
serious? Would you want to be prayed to? Think of all the awful things that
people say in their prayers. Would you want to listen to that all the time?
Would you encourage it? No, not if you were God.
In the same way, meditation is
different from the sort of things that people are supposed to take seriously. It
doesn't have any purpose, and when you talk about practicing meditation, it's
not like practicing tennis or playing the piano, which one does in order to
attain a certain perfection. You practice music to become better at it, maybe
even with the idea that you may someday go on stage and perform. But you don't
practice meditation that way, because if you do, you are not
meditating.
THE PRACTICE OF
MEDITATION
The only way you can talk about
practice in the context of meditation is to use the word practice in the same
way as when somebody says that they practice medicine. That is their way of
life, their vocation, and they do it nearly every day. Perhaps they do it the
same way, day after day -- and that's fine for meditation too, because in
meditation there is no right way and there is no idea of time.
In practicing and learning things,
time is usually of the essence. We try to do it as fast as possible, and even
find a faster way of learning how to do things. In meditation a faster way of
learning is of no importance whatsoever, because one's focus is always on the
present. And although growth may occur in the process, it is growth in the same
way that a plant grows.
THE ESSENTIAL
PROCESS
This is the beginning of
meditation. You don't know what you're supposed to do, so what can you do? Well,
if you don't know what you're supposed to do, you watch. You simply watch what
is going on.
When somebody plays music, you
listen. You just follow those sounds, and eventually you understand the music.
The point can't be explained in words because music is not words, but after
listening for a while, you understand the point of it, and that point is the
music itself.
In exactly the same way, you can
listen to all experiences, because all experiences of any kind are vibrations
coming at you. As a matter of fact, you are these vibrations, and if you really
feel what is happening, the awareness you have of you and of everything else is
all the same. It's a sound, a vibration, all kinds of vibrations on different
bands of the spectrum. Sight vibrations, emotion vibrations, touch vibrations,
sound vibrations -- all these things come together and are woven, all the senses
are woven, and you are a pattern in the weaving, and that pattern is the picture
of what you now feel. This is always going on, whether you pay attention to it
or not.
Now instead of asking what you
should do about it, you experience it, because who knows what to do about it? To
know what to do about this you would have to know everything, and if you don't,
then the only way to begin is to watch.
Watch what's going on. Watch not
only what's going on outside, but what's going on inside. Treat your own
thoughts, your own reactions, your own emotions about what's going on outside as
if those inside reactions were also outside things. But you are just watching.
Just follow along, and simply observe how they go.
Now, you may say that this is
difficult, and that you are bored by watching what is going on. But if you sit
quite still, you are simply observing what is happening: all the sounds outside,
all the different shapes and lights in front of your eyes, all the feelings on
your skin, inside your skin, belly rumbles, thoughts going on inside your head
-- chatter, chatter, chatter. "I ought to be writing a letter to so-and-so.... I
should have done this" -- all this bilge is going on, but you just watch
it.
You say to yourself, "But this is
boring". Now watch that too. What kind of a funny feeling is it that makes you
say it's boring? Where is it? Where do you feel it? "I should be doing something
else instead." What's that feeling? What part of your body is it in? Is it in
your head, is it in your belly, is it in the soles of your feet? Where is it?
The feeling of boredom can be very interesting if you look into
it.
Simply watch everything going on
without attempting to change it in any way, without judging it, without calling
it good or bad. Just watch it. That is the essential process of
meditation.
This article is excerpted from:
Still The Mind: An Introduction to Meditation
by Alan
Watts.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, New World Library,
Novato, CA 98989. ©2000. www.newworldlibrary.com.
Info/Order this book
About the Author
Alan Watts was one of the most famous and endearing writers
and speakers of the twentieth century on the subjects of Eastern thought and
meditation. He was born in England in 1915 and died in his home in northern
California in 1973. In all, Watts wrote more than twenty-five books and recorded
hundreds of lectures and seminars. He became widely recognized for his Zen
writings and for The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are. For
more info, visit www.alanwatts.com
and www.audiowisdom.com.
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