During morning meditation today a leaf fell from the potted tree in my meditation space. I heard it in the subtlest way in my mind. It did not interfere with my meditation, but a thought came up immediately after the sound. “If a tree falls is the forest, does it make a sound?” An answer followed immediately. “Of course it does, it is our ego that thinks it doesn’t, because we aren’t there to hear it.” I then had a sense of a large tree falling in the deep woods, with a whoosh sound and a loud thud. How interesting.
Now why would I think that? It is interesting where these kinds of insights come from. Often in meditation, you get some of your most important questions answered, have solutions to problems come to you and at times profound and interesting thoughts come.
This is why meditation teachers tell their students to keep a pad of paper and a pen or pencil nearby. If you like, write down the thoughts that you had come up during your meditation. Don’t come out of meditation to write them down however.
We don’t always want to suppress the thoughts that we have during meditation. You can and should tell the negative thoughts to go away. You can also ask for a solution to a problem in a question meditation. If an interesting thought comes up, you can just let it flow. I often come up with good ideas. I have had for example; design ideas come to me for my garden or a room in my house. It is not as much a picture, as it is an idea. Does that make sense? So I have learned to write some of the things down, so I would not forget it. Just as I wrote that thought from this morning. I don’t really think that thought would have come to me at any other time, other than in meditation. Thoughts that are so profound often come from a meditative mind, from someone who meditates all of the time. Studies have shown that the brains of frequent Meditators are different from other people. I have never heard anyone say, nor have I seen my thought written anywhere, with that particular answer.
Even in deep meditation, on a very unconscious level, you still are aware of the sounds around you. They enter your consciousness on the subtlest of levels. You don’t necessarily need to acknowledge them. But when you do, don’t let them disturb you. Instead, let them become part of your meditation. This is what mindfulness meditation is about. You hear your breathing, you feel your body, you are aware of what your body is doing. You hear the sounds aground you. They are you and part of you.
So how did I know that it was a dry leave cascading to the floor, you might have asked. I did not see it fall or open my eyes to look at it. I remained in meditation. I felt it, as well as heard it inside my mind. What I am trying to relate, is that it did not interrupt my meditation. It just brought out an interesting insight. It actually enhanced my meditation.
On some level my mind knew exactly what the sound was, because I have heard it before. I have seen the dry leaves fall from that tree and heard them hit the floor. My mind remembered that sound and related it to a dry leave falling and hitting the wood floor.
Meditating regularly enhances your focus and perception. You become more aware of things that you may not have noticed before. You have more clarity of thought and more insight into things and the world around you. Your intuition becomes heightened. If you trust those feelings, you will better perceive subtle little signs and be able to put the pieces together into a conclusion. People who say they can read people practice this everyday, without realizing it. They pick up the clues and signs and piece them together in their minds. Through meditation, the increased ability to focus on normally hidden signs heightens one’s awareness.
People you know may think that you have an ability to predict things. In a way, you do. However, it is not prediction. Actually, it is nothing more than the better ability to see things as they are or many become.
