Meditation and the Discovery of Our True Nature
This post explores how meditation can shift our relationship to experience—not by changing who we are, but by helping us notice what’s already present.
Many people come to meditation looking for relief—less stress, a quieter mind, a little breathing room from the constant mental noise. Those are good reasons to begin. Life is loud, and most of us don’t get many moments of rest from our own thoughts.
But as meditation becomes more familiar, something else can start to happen. Not all at once, and not as a dramatic realization, but as a subtle shift. We may begin to notice that thoughts and feelings are always changing, yet something in us remains present while they come and go. Meditation doesn’t create this presence. It simply makes it easier to notice.
Noticing What’s Already Here
At some point—sometimes briefly, sometimes more steadily—we might notice that we aren’t as identical to our thoughts as we once assumed. Worry still arises. Memories still appear. Emotions still move through us. But they begin to feel more like events we’re aware of rather than definitions of who we are.
People often describe this using metaphors: clouds moving through the sky, waves rising and falling in the ocean. These aren’t meant to be poetic conclusions so much as attempts to describe an experience that’s difficult to put into words. Life still happens, but there’s a sense of space around it that wasn’t noticed before.
Why This Matters in Daily Life
Without this kind of noticing, it’s easy to spend life trying to secure ourselves through things that don’t last; approval, success, certainty, even spiritual progress. None of these are wrong. They’re human. But when our sense of “who I am” is tied entirely to changing circumstances, there’s often an underlying restlessness that never quite settles.
Meditation doesn’t remove that restlessness by force. Instead, it invites us to see that there’s already a steadiness present beneath it. Not something we have to manufacture or earn, just something that becomes clearer when we stop trying to fix ourselves.
Living From a Wider Perspective
When this perspective is present, life doesn’t suddenly become easy or free of difficulty. We still experience loss, frustration, joy, love, and uncertainty. The difference is often subtle: we don’t feel quite as consumed by every inner movement.
Fear still shows up, but it’s recognized as fear. Sadness still appears, but it doesn’t define the whole moment. Even ordinary activities—washing dishes, driving, sitting quietly—can feel more vivid, not because they’re special, but because we’re less preoccupied with commentary about them.
Meditation as a Return
This noticing isn’t something that happens once and stays forever. It fades. We get caught up again. That’s normal. Meditation becomes less about achieving a permanent state and more about returning—again and again—to what’s already here.
It can help to think of meditation like tuning an instrument, not because something is broken, but because attention naturally drifts. Each time we sit, we’re not trying to recreate a past experience. We’re simply allowing the noise to settle enough for clarity to be felt again, however faint or ordinary it may seem that day.
Over time, meditation stops feeling like something we do in order to get somewhere else. It becomes a way of remembering that the peace we were looking for was never really absent. It was just overlooked in the noise.
![Why Spiritually Awake People Are Quietly Disappearing from Society [VIDEO]](https://www.barnwoodmonk.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/SpiritualPeople-1080x675.jpg)
Why Spiritually Awake People Are Quietly Disappearing from Society [VIDEO]
My Publisher sent me a link to this video this morning. I’m going to post it here, without comment, for those who need it. Feel free to comment.
Habitual Mental Collections
You might notice how quickly opinions appear.
You’re scrolling, listening, or half-paying attention to a conversation, and suddenly there it is. I agree, I don’t, that’s ridiculous, that’s obvious. The mind doesn’t hesitate. It responds almost automatically, as if it’s been waiting for the chance.
If you pause for a moment, you may notice how these opinions come with a subtle sense of identity. This is who I am. This is where I stand. Even when no one else is around, the opinion still feels like something that belongs to you, something you carry with you.
Sometimes it helps to notice how long you’ve been carrying certain opinions. You may not even remember where they came from. They’ve simply been there for years, about politics, music, religion, health, success, or the “right” way to live. They feel settled, unquestioned, almost like facts. And yet, if you look closely, you might see that many of them haven’t been examined in a very long time.
Watch what happens when an opinion is challenged, even slightly. There’s often a tightening. A defensiveness. A quick mental response that wants to protect the position. The body reacts before any careful thought appears. That reaction can be surprisingly strong for something that exists only as a thought.
You might notice this most clearly when you catch yourself stating an opinion out loud and then feeling oddly compelled to defend it, even if no one asked you to. The opinion isn’t just information anymore. It’s doing work. It’s reinforcing a sense of “me.”
If you’re willing, try simply noticing opinions the way you might notice cravings. They show up. They promise satisfaction. They ask to be acted on. And often, before you realize it, they’ve already been expressed. Nothing dramatic is happening. It’s just habit, running on its own momentum.
There’s no need to get rid of opinions or replace them with better ones. That’s just another project for the mind. Instead, notice what remains when an opinion passes. The space before it formed. The quiet after it fades. That background doesn’t argue. It doesn’t take sides. It doesn’t need to prove anything.
In moments like that, it becomes clear that opinions are events in awareness, not the owner of it. They come and go. They change. They contradict one another over time. But whatever is noticing them doesn’t seem to move in the same way.
You don’t have to conclude anything from this. Just noticing the difference is enough. When opinions loosen their grip, even slightly, there’s often a sense of ease. Less to defend, less to maintain, less to be.
And life goes on just fine without carrying every opinion as a badge of identity.
Summary:
This article explores the nature of opinions and how they often serve as mental shortcuts rather than thoughtful conclusions. It suggests that opinions can become unconscious habits tied to ego and identity, rather than genuine reflections of truth. By becoming more aware of our opinions and questioning their origins, we can move beyond them and connect with our deeper, opinion-free awareness.
Main Points:
- Opinions as Mental Shortcuts – Many opinions are based on outdated or incomplete information and can prevent deeper thinking.
- The Ego’s Attachment to Opinions – Opinions often become part of our identity, reinforcing a sense of self rather than reflecting reality.
- Awareness Beyond Opinions – True awareness exists beyond opinions; by questioning them, we can free ourselves from mental habits and ego-driven attachments.
Key Questions:
- Why do we hold onto certain opinions without questioning them?
- How do opinions become tied to our identity?
- Are opinions helping us, or are they just mental habits?
- How can we become more aware of our opinions and where they come from?
- What happens when we let go of opinions and connect with pure awareness?
Meditation Is Doing Nothing
When I sit down to meditate, I’m not trying to make anything happen.
I’m not aiming for a particular state, and I’m not looking for some special experience. There’s nothing I’m trying to fix or improve. Meditation, for me, is simply a willingness to be with what’s already here.
It’s an attention that turns toward the present moment. Not as an idea, but as it actually feels right now. The sounds in the room. The movement of thought. The quiet underneath it all. Whatever is showing up.
I sometimes think of meditation as letting a kind of fog lift. Not because anything new appears, but because I stop overlooking what’s been there all along. This sense of “is-ness”—of things simply being as they are—doesn’t come and go. It’s always present, whether I notice it or not.
There’s nothing I need to add to that, and nothing I could take away from it even if I wanted to. I wouldn’t know how. All that seems possible is to notice it more clearly, or to forget it for a while and then notice it again.
So meditation becomes very simple. It’s just an alignment with what’s already happening. No effort. No expectation. Just being here, as this moment unfolds.
Protection From The Storms
A few years ago, I watched a documentary about the December 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean. As many may recall, the tsunami caused tremendous loss of life and property. Witnessing the destruction unfold in real time through video footage gave the tragedy a sense of immediacy. I felt as if I were there with the survivors, trapped in an upper-floor house or hotel, hoping that the floodwaters wouldn’t rise any higher and sweep us away.
One scene in particular left a lasting impression on me. Dark, muddy water surged through the streets of a small village, sweeping away everything in its path that wasn’t anchored to the ground. Houses collapsed, cars were tossed around like toys, and those unfortunate enough to be caught in the flood struggled for survival amid the debris-filled, tumultuous water. Amid the chaos, a man and a woman clung desperately to a broken tree, searching frantically for something more stable to hold onto, hoping for a chance of escape.
As the couple fought to survive, my attention was drawn to two birds perched calmly on a power line directly above the disaster. The contrast between the two scenes was striking. The birds, seemingly unaware of the devastation unfolding below them, surveyed the scene, determined that there was no threat to them, and continued their peaceful pause. Meanwhile, the human struggle below continued unabated.
I have never been able to forget the image of those two birds. Not because it explained anything, but because of what it stirred. Even while watching destruction unfold, something in me noticed the contrast. The difference between being caught in the current and being held in stillness.
Most of us have known moments like that, even if we’ve never named them. Times when life was loud, chaotic, or painful, and yet something within us felt strangely untouched. The body was tense. The situation was real. But beneath it all, there was a steadiness that didn’t seem to rise or fall with events.
You may recognize it in small ways. A pause after bad news, a breath taken without effort, a brief sense of perspective when everything else feels overwhelming. These moments don’t remove us from life’s storms, but they hint that not everything we are is swept up in them.
I don’t know if this inner stillness can be fully described, or if it needs to be. What I do know is that noticing it, even briefly, changes how we move through difficulty. Like the birds above the flood, it doesn’t deny the chaos below. It simply isn’t carried by it.
