Meditation is not a fun or enjoyable thing to do. If it was everyone would be doing it.

And I’m talking about 40-60 minute sitting meditations here, not a 10-minute guided meditation in fully supported śavāsana.

Of course, it’s not all bad, there have been revelations and bliss: often I totally disappear when I meditate, an hour can feel like a second.

But the truth of the matter is that if we sit still with ourself for long enough, at some point we’re going to hit some serious resistance. And if we stick with the resistance long enough we may fall upon a resounding “fuck you” to the entire world. Behind this, we may even drop into the curled up version of ourselves heaving with grief.

And then if we’re lucky, we may have the most shocking realisation of all. Lurking beneath the withering mess of the personal is the realisation that nothing, and that means nothing, is going to fix the fundamental discord at the root of being human.

To see through the futility of all my efforts is a realisation that I avoid at all costs, but occasionally it has swept through my being with clarity of truth that I cannot ignore. Any effort to ‘make’ this moment sacred, to ‘know’ the truth, to glean a deeper insight into this world is futile.

And then what?!

Then we listen. Deeply listen for the whisper, for the whisper of life which is life.

And at that moment our story is gone, our hopes desire and dreams have gone. No rational being could possibly desire such a thing. And yet there is a stream inexorably urging us forth.

If we ignore it, we die.

If we follow it, we die.

Can we allow mantra to work on our subtle channels, weaving the curves of wisdom through our body as it stirs us into being? Are we then able to stay with these stirrings, the doubt, the confusion, the “I can’t do this”? And as we stay can we let ourselves fall back, further and further into the dissolution that awaits?

Which death do we choose?