“Meditation is not a process of learning how to meditate; it is the very inquiry into what is meditation. To inquire into what is meditation, the mind must free itself from what it has learned about meditation, and the freeing of the mind from what it has learned is the beginning of meditation.”      – J. Krishnamurti

This is one of the best quotes I have come across about real meditative inquiry. When we come to meditation, the first and most obvious way to find out about it is to read a book or go online, find a method and then practice the method in the hope to replicating the wonderful states of mind promise by the author of the book or teacher of the method. The problem is that this leads to a mechanical repetition of inner actions rather than seeing the inner process itself for what it is.

Even upon reading the above paragraph, one is tempted to take that last sentence and ask “well, what is the inner process?” or “by what method can I know what that inner process is?” What needs to happen is to sit and look, with the finest possible attention, at the actual internal activities. See them come and go, appearing and disappearing. Can you simply notice what is happening without any formal method for doing so?

I am not saying that one should never use techniques to focus the mind. Counting the breaths, the “thinking-breathing” technique I outlined in How to Meditate, repeating a mantra etc. are all valid and useful ways to bring the wandering mind to bear on the here and now. But the techniques are not meditation. They are methods for bringing one to meditation.

Meditation is being quiet and observing what is happening while it happens. It is being completely free from all imposed methods and allowing the experience of being to become clearer and clearer. There is no method for doing this other than doing this. I will go as far as saying that even using a method such as “thinking-breathing” can be a problem since it is imposing a method on the direct observation. However, I acknowledge the value of having a technique when one is starting out, and even returning to the technique when needed during times when the mind is particularly busy.
But even during those times of overwhelming stress and mental busyness, we can engage in true meditation. That act of seeing what is happening and allowing it to come and go unimpeded is especially valuable during these times. But it needs to have been practiced regularly in order to have become a skill. Hence the need for daily practice.

So, in order to integrate this idea, keep in mind that while the methods used to settle the mind are good as tools, they are not meditation. And learning “how to meditate” is also not meditation.
Meditation is freeing the mind from repetitive patterns such that it can accurately observe its own processes.