The mind and its occupiers

I start to meditate and immediately think about stretching the dining room table out to its full length to see if I could get 15 chairs around it. Do I even have 15 chairs? Is it even right to have a dinner party on Holy Saturday? But I agreed to host unexpected Congolese visitors that evening and I invited people who will be interested in what they have to say about events in Eastern Congo—hence the 15 chairs. I open my eyes and check email and respond to a friend’s latest prayer request. Really, I am waiting for 9 o’clock to roll around so I can call the clinic and speak to someone about my prescription.

I try meditating again and a phrase comes through: "the occupied mind." My mind has been invaded by all these thoughts and, though that is part of being human, I wonder about the nature of a truly unoccupied mind. Is such a mind just blank or is it liberated? And if so, is it essential for anything? I try meditating again.

This time I experience a few moments of actual blankness. A few trivial thoughts pass through and I let them go. Then come some images that I entertain for a few moments before releasing them:

1) The improv rehearsal yesterday in which three men inhabit the roles of bereaved disciples early on Easter morning. My husband is among them. He is the first to let himself fully into the grief, anger, and guilt of the moment. The other two catch on and soon it is as if these three 21^st Century men are back there in the shadow of the execution of their leader. I love this. I love them for doing this.

2) The beloved granddaughter screwing up her face as she bites into an asparagus stalk. Discards it. Picks it up again, bites again, screws up her face, smiles, and says, “Um!”

Then comes a long, truly blank period. My computer announces “9 hours.” I do not open my eyes. When I do I have a deep peace, an image of the mind’s order, and an unformulated sense of one reason for meditation. It is not to get rid of all occupying thoughts but to penetrate through the layers. Let me try to formulate this.

At the top layer of the mind are the preoccupations—the occupying thoughts that jump up and down waving their hands for attention. Sometimes you just have to stop and see what they want. Sometimes you can tell them to wait, you’ll deal with them later. As long as they are elbowing each other out for your attention, however, you will never get beyond this superficial level.

At the second level is a reality, one that is important but that was crowded out by the earlier images. It may deserve some time and attention. It is an important occupier. Today my reality was love, two images of love. Another day it may be a sadness, a grief. The reality, the truth, is connected with an emotion. At this level you experience the emotion. Insights float through at this level. Questions rise in it. (Like “What is an unoccupied mind good for?”)

At the third level is the blankness that allows the mind and body to expand into unity with both the emotion and what is beyond, the universe that holds it. This is the unoccupied mind. I need to get in touch regularly with the unoccupied mind, not to banish all occupiers from it forever but to keep the orderly link among all these levels. And to experience that wordless connection with the Source of it all.